The day I lost my mind

On reserve this month.

First they pulled me out from home standby to do a Johannesburg flight. Then they gave me an airport standby that lasted for 6 hours the very next day I returned from the Jo'burg flight. This is rare. The longest airport standby I'd known only lasts for 4.5 hours.

Didn't think I was gonna get pulled out again. At least not for another layover. At least not for another Jo'burg flight.

But I was.

Couldn't believe my bad luck.

On the way there, I was still feeling okay. As usual, it was a 24-hour layover. But around 2 hours before landing on the way back, I became agitated and angry.

A lazy crew who was imbecile enough to open a hatrack in my area and didn't close it while the aircraft was cruising pissed me off. The same crew who actually wanted to brush her teeth while we were just about to start blanket collection pissed me off. My own mistake pissed me off - I zoned out and started collecting blankets in that confounding crew's area. How could I be so inattentive? I ended up having to collect blankets in both areas due to my own negligence. Another crew used a giant plastic bag instead of the blanket collection bag and left the whole mountain at my door pissed me off. The damn thing couldn't fit into the lavatory and I had to get help while we were rushing to land pissed me off the most.

See, I got extremely pissed during that flight.

Then the company transport supervisor began talking rude to me when I arrived. When the bus driver said something to me and I couldn't understand it and he just waved his hand without explaining further, it finally set me off! I yelled, "Why do you people have to be so rude?!"

In the end, I found out that the driver was merely asking me whether I needed to go to the uniform laundry shop. I felt really bad and ashamed for taking it out on him. Especially when he was really understading and wasn't angry about it at all. I felt so bad and touched that I cried. I think it was because I was too tired and felt really broken.

Luckily, they crew scheduling people are humane enough to give me 2 days off now. And it's probably a bit weird cos I mentioned to my friends that I really enjoy airport standbys since it's normally only 3 hours and if you are not pulled out, then you get the whole day to yourself. Surprisingly, I get a lot of airport standbys this month.