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Dan Kennedy (1:09)

Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. This podcast is brought to you by stamps.com with your busy schedule, we're sure making trips to the post office is the last thing you have time for. Did you know with stamps@stamps.com you can buy and print official US postage right from your own computer and printer. It's easy and convenient. Plus stamps.com will give you a digital scale. It automatically calculates the exact postage you need for any letter or package. You print the postage directly onto envelopes, labels, or even plain paper. Then just hand your mail to your mail carrier. There's no need for you to go to the post office again or even lease one of those expensive, expensive postage meters. Right now, there's a special offer for listeners of the Moth podcast. A no risk trial plus a $110 bonus offer that includes the digital scale and up to $55 free postage. Don't wait. Go to stamps.com and click on the microphone at the top of the homepage. Then type in moth. That's stamps.com enter moth. All right, are you ready for our story this week? The story you're about to hear by Faye Lane was told live when the Moth was in Portland, Oregon in 2011. The theme of the night was building a bridge. Stories from both sides.

Faye Lane (2:33)

Hello. Thank you so much. What I always wanted as a little bitty girl was to tell stories on the stage because I wanted to Be connected to something bigger than myself. And I wanted to be connected to other people. And I believe that a performer takes a group of individuals and through a shared emotional experience, turns it into a collective. So since I was this big, I. I've wanted to do this. I've wanted to be a performer, slash, stewardess. I grew up in my mama's beauty shop in Texas. It was this old a frame house with big mirrors and swivel chairs in the front room and shampoo bowls in the old back bedroom. And my mama had this long line of hood dryers on one wall. And I would wait until all the ladies were held captive under the dryers, and I would give these mandatory concerts. That was my very first stage. This is so much better. When I wasn't telling stories and doing shows for the ladies, I would play stewardess. And I would push this little manicure cart around the beauty shop. Ms. Helen, Ms. Melba, would y'all like a magazine? Would y'all like a cocktail? And the ladies would say, baby, you just give great customer service. I was all about customer service. And sometimes I'd sit on the porch playing with my Barbie Friendship airplane. And sometimes even in the summer, I would wear this long silk scarf tied on the side. And it's hot in Texas in the summer. But I loved playing stewardess. Well, about 10 years ago, I was living in New York City, working as a performer, telling stories and singing songs on the stage, which, as you can probably imagine, pays about jack shit. No job security, no benefits. I really needed a job. And I very randomly met this lovely girl with a long silk scarf tied on the side who said nine words that changed my life forever. She said, have you ever thought about being a flight attendant? I had. Three weeks later, I was in Miami training. And training was amazing and so exciting because the very first day, the founder of the airline, which was brand new, it was this new airline. They had, I think, seven airplanes, a handful of destinations, and a lot of great buzz. They had buzz around the fact that there was live TV at every seat. They had designer uniforms. But most of the buzz was around the fact that they had amazing customer service. Perfect. I was all about customer service back at the beauty shop. So when the founder of the airline, the founder and the CEO came into our training class and gave this amazing, uplifting speech, I knew I was in the right place and the right job. He said, every one of you is here for a reason, and that reason is your ability to smile and be kind. He said, we can teach you how to Evacuate an airplane. We can teach you how to handle a medical emergency. We can teach you how to serve, but we cannot teach you to smile and be kind. Your mother did that. Please thank her for me. So beautiful. He said he saw this not as an airline, not as a corporation, but as a humanitarian experiment. Thank you. I know. He said his goal was to bring humanity back to air travel. And I was right on board with this vision. I was so caught up in it. And when I graduated, they made me president of my class, and they even gave me this award, this special certificate called the Spirit Award. And I couldn't wait to get out there on the line and to surprise people with kindness. And in the process of moving people from point A to point B to really actually move people. And then I graduated, and then I started the job. Maybe you see where this is going. I had this epiphany. This job is hard, and people are horrible. Really horrible. First of all, the job was exhausting, physically exhausting. In the beginning, I was on reserve, which means that I was on call, and I had to be within two hours of Kennedy Airport at all times. So I was either running to get to the airport or waiting for the phone call to run to get to the airport. Constantly. Just totally on edge and exhausted. And then getting to the airport, the actual commute, was extremely hard. I. I had to take the subway to the bus, to the shuttle to the terminal. Even before I got on the plane, I was exhausted. And then when I did get on the plane, there was a whole world of hurt. My feet hurt from. There's this thing that happens where you get bruises on the bottom of your feet from turbulence, and it was horrible. And new flight attendants are sick a lot because it's kind of like a kindergarten teacher. You're exposed to a lot of germs. Mainly because I'm taking garbage from everyone you know and saying, thank you for it. Thank you. Thank you for your garbage. Thank you. In fact, we actually. We used to call. They made us stop calling it trash. We have to call it service items. Because some of the girls got. Some of the really bitter ones would say, sir, you're trash, ma'am. Your whole family's trash. But I understand why they were jaded, because I got fairly jaded fairly quickly, too, because I just couldn't believe how horrible people could be. It's really hard when someone is smiling in your face and handing you a cup of coffee and a cookie. Here you go. It's hard to be mean, but people do. People are mean Even when you're smiling in their face, because a lot of times they don't see you. They just see a uniform. And traveling is hard. It's stressful, and people were just ugly. But. But I tried really hard to keep that vision and to smile and to be kind, even in the face of meanness. And I had a really. I think I hit kind of a bottom one day when I had a passenger who had a heart attack on my flight. And he was lying in the aisle, and we had opened his shirt, and we had the pads of the defibrillator on him, and I was holding him an oxygen bottle. And this woman in the row sitting next to me kept tugging on my blouse. Excuse me, excuse me. I was like, just a minute, please. You know, we're trying to save this guy's life. She kept tugging, tugging. I said, just a minute, just a minute. And then I thought, wait a minute. Maybe she has an emergency, you know, or maybe she knows something. So I said, what is it? And she held up her coffee cup and she said, this coffee is cold. And I learned that people can be cold. And also, there's something that happens to your psychology when you fly a lot because you see the world from above. And I saw a lot of really horrible things from the air, like devastating California forest fires, New Orleans underwater. And most upsetting for me, lower Manhattan, still smoldering for weeks and weeks. And in late September of 2001, I was working a flight, and a passenger came on with a garbage bag, which is kind of a flight attendant pet peeve, because really, sir, a garbage bag, 14th Street, 999, get a rollerboard, you know, but you see that sometimes people just throw things in a garbage bag and bring it on. So he goes to row two, which is where he was seated, and he opened the overhead bin, put the garbage bag in. And then, actually, my second thought was, what's in that garbage bag? Because in late September of 01, we were all still a little edgy and paranoid. So I was kind of keeping my eye on him and the bag. But he put it in the overhead bin and closed the bin and stood there with his hand on it, guarding it, which is another flight attendant pet peeve. The overhead bins are shared space, okay? And if you hog up all the space, some somebody's bag is going to get checked. And by the way, if you're in row 12, please don't leave your bag in row one. It's not nice you're taking somebody's space. So my instinct Was to go to this man and say, sir, please sit down. But I thought, just let it go. Just let it go. Just smile and be kind, and if we need the space, I'll deal with it later. So I didn't say anything. I also didn't say anything when he got up while the seatbelt sign was on and came and stood waiting for the bathroom. If the. If the. If. If the seatbelt sign is on, it's because the captain knows something we don't know, you know, and it might not feel bumpy, but here he's probably heard from an airplane further along the road or the sky that there's turbulence ahead. So I have a friend who broke his ankle on the ceiling on a smooth flight. So that's another flight attendant pet peeve. He stood there waiting for the bathroom. And I said, sir, the seatbelt sign is on. He said, I know, I know, but I really need to go. I thought, let it go. Just let it go. I just wanted to read my book. I was sitting on the jump seat reading. I just wanted to read my book. But it was kind of awkward because he was standing there and I felt like I should say something. So I said, are you traveling for business or pleasure? And he said, neither. He said, I live in California, but I came to New York because my son was a first responder at ground zero and he died there. He said, I came to pick up his uniform, which is all I have of him, and it's in a bag in the overhead bin. And I remembered why I was there and why I was hired and why I wanted that job, because I remembered that everybody has a story, and I don't know what that story is. And people fly for a reason. You know, maybe they're going to a funeral or to see someone who's sick or maybe something joyful like a wedding, you know, or. I don't know what their story is, but for that little piece of time, I'm a part of it. And I have an impact on their experience. And my job as a performer and what I love about performing is taking a group of individuals and through a shared emotional experience, turning it into a collective. But my job as a flight attendant is to take a collective and to turn it back into a group of individuals, you know, because flight attendants talk about crowds sometimes. Like, avoid the Fort Lauderdale crowd. They're horrible. Avoid the Long beach crowd. They're horrible. But every crowd is a group of individuals, and every individual has a story. And, yeah, I saw a lot of horrible things from the air, but I've also seen a lot of amazing, beautiful things from the air, like the Grand Canyon, the northern lights, fireworks from above. And now when I go through the cabin with my garbage bag and saying thank you and smiling, I mean it because I'm making a gratitude list in my head. And every time I say thank you, I think of something I'm grateful for. Thank you for my job, thank you for these comfy shoes. Thank you for my life, because my job enables me to be part of something bigger than me and to be connected to other people like this. So thank you.