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Friday, June 16, 2006In my Wider World of Work...At School post all about the hands-on Cooperative Education (COOP) program I've been taking since February I mentioned all the amazing activities and awesome perks that you are given as a COOP student. Despite alternative learning programs being sensational there is still a paper component to all the programs. The world runs on paper, we must admit it. However paper in the world of alternative learning is far different than it's classroom cousin. In COOP as it was with The Bronte Creek Project there are reflection pages on the back of the log sheets documenting in dot jot the work and new learnings of that day. I do my best to keep these interesting and inspiring and have collected a group of them over the past few months. They look at different highlights and pitfalls of the hospitality & travel industry that I have learned at my major hotel chain over the course of the past 5 months. Often people are led to believe that this industry is all glamour and exoctic locations, while some of this remains it's far from the truth. This marks the first in a continuig series of 8 posts! Enjoy and please do leave your comments. Thanks!   Stress is a very important aspect of the hospitality and travel industry that I have been learning to address in different ways at the placement. This industry is incredibly fast paced and requires you to be able to focus and continue with your work while having 10 other things coming at you all at once. Many different jobs whether you be a front desk agent in a hotel, a hostess in a resort or a flight attendant on an airplane all these positions require stress of you. Front desk agents often have 5 people in line checking in or coming to the desk with questions or complaints, two people on the line with reservations and someone else who wants to know if you have weekend rates. If you're on an airplane you take off from Toronto bound for Lisbon, Portugal at midnight local time. Despite the fact that your body is telling you it's time to be wrapped in blankets in bed you need to keep going. After all before the plane touches down on Portuguese soil you have a safety demo, a dinner service, 3 beverage services and 2 snack services to complete. You must also collect the trash from 100 people, help to clean the galley, handle a myriad of requests and sometimes deal with minor or serious air rage, medical or safety issues. You have 6 hours to complete all this work, while encountering countless upset figures that are often tired, stressed and overworked. Throughout all this madness on land or at 39,000 feet you need to maintain composure, politeness all the while following the rules and keeping a respectable image for your hotel or airline. You need to ensure that you address all the issues and do all your duties correctly while maintaining your focus and doing things correctly. You can't enter a rate that's off by $60 and you can't arm an airplane door wrong or the cabin may decompress. Though you need to ensure that you are also keeping everyone happy at the same time and addressing everything. The work in the industry really needs skilled workers who are able to balance all these juggling balls of countless colours, sizes and shapes. Some duties and problems are simple especially after you have done them for a longtime they become a job that can be done in your sleep. While guests and passengers regardless of your skill will come up and grab you unknowingly with something that you've never seen before. There are situations that arise that you have never seen before and most likely may never see again. Regardless of that point it's essential that you maintain an even keel during that very moment of madness. Mere months following September 11 th in December 2001 onboard American Airlines flight 63 from Paris- Miami the unbelievable happened. Flight attendants Cristina Jones and Hermis Moutardier had a man on the busy Christmas flight of 185 passengers who denied dinner. This is common but this man looked like he may be up to something. Two hours into the flight the attendants had just completed the dinner service, Jones was in the back galley cleaning up and Moutardier was picking up dirty meal trays. Passengers throughout the plane started reporting smelling smoke in the cabin.  A Canadian flight attendant doing a safety demonstration  A Air Transat flight attendant keeping the kids happy Moutardier found the man and Richard Reid a middle-aged man was in the window seat lighting matches. Moutardier gave him a strong warning that smoking was not allowed on board. Moutardier ran back to Jones who was still in the galley and screamed at her to come to this man. The man now had his shoes between his legs with electrical wiring hanging out of them. He had another match lit and was trying to light him. Moutardier continued to try to tell the man to stop and tried to grab the matches from him. He went ahead and bit her arm, crunching upon her arm in his teeth. Jones got passengers to pass bottles of Evian up and poured it all over him. They put the restraint on him and put a seatbelt extension on him holding him in. The attendants got passengers to pass up seatbelts, headphones and other cords that they used to fasten Reid in even further. They safely stowed his shoes in the bomb disposal compartment and called a doctor to come forward. The doctor injected him with Valium, a sedating medication the attendants got from the flight kit. The plane was rerouted to Boston and Reid was cut out of the seat by the FBI and air marshals. He was arrested and a major investigation done and sentenced to a 110 year jail term. This an extreme example however it does show you in any part of the hospitality & travel industry that you need to stay on your toes and maintain composure, professionalism and focus. It's part of the often-insane world that is this line of work.  A busy front desk at a resort in California, USA  A Northwest flight attendant doing beverage service Teague Neal blogged on 8:28 PM
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Teague Neal |