The Office vs The Sky

Back in 2010, something happened to me. A new chapter in my life that people had spoken about, a chapter that sometimes drives former cabin crew back to mile high life again.

I got a job in an office.

You're probably sat there thinking what's so unusual about that? Isn't that what most of the working population does anyway? Don't get me wrong, I'm no stranger to hard work and without sounding snobby, I wanted a more challenging role than air crew, else I wouldn't have gone to uni. It's not the work that frightened me, it's the whole new set of guidelines, politics and other horrific add-ons that come with office life.

I started office work in November, the right time of year for a phenomenon my mum had spoken about at length and I'd read about in countless mags. That's right, I'm talking about Secret Fucking Santa. Us cabin crew tend to work with different people every day and the fact that we work crazy shifts mean that you're not together with a particular group of people long enough to make such a hideous commitment as to indulge in Secret Santa together. For those not in the know, Secret Santa is a shite game which supposedly encourages team bonding where you pick a colleague's name out of a hat and buy a present for a set amount. Even though it's secret, it doesn't matter who is buying for you, it's usually someone who can't stand you or doesn't know you, so you end up getting something shite like bath bombs that smell of Febreze or worse still, the present that the giver received last year. I was hoping for the Viz annual or some smellies, but I got some bottle green eyeshadow which made me look like Aeroflot crew.

Along with Secret Fucking Santa comes the Office Cunting Party and its evil twin, the Office Fucking Buffet. The advantage of the Party is that booze is allowed so you can numb the pain. The advantage of the Buffet is that it takes place in work time so you don's have to sacrifice your personal time for it. I want to spend my spare time with people I like, not people you've been stuck with all day going on about their bratty kids and their crappy all inclusive holidays to Benidorm. These two events are the highlight of the Office Worker's year and beware if you're a newbie, you'll be made to feel like a social outcast if you don't laugh at their shite jokes. At least in flying world, office parties were few and far between and if there was one, there was always at least one specimen of eye candy. Even the tools of the airline would laugh at themselves, dancing to I Believe I Can Fly and the bit in La Bamba where they say 'soy capitan, soy capitan'.

Once Christmas was out of the way, the next shitefest would come along in the shape of Comic Relief. Fat lasses dressed as naughty nurses in the biggest size Ann Summers could offer pushing sponsor forms in your face, charity muff dives, sorry I mean sky dives and other ridiculous suggestions to force you to part with your cash were thrust upon you. At least at the airline, the only charity muggings that went on were those sickbags you could put obsolete currencies like Escudos and Drachma in.

Charity muggings also involved two other hideous aspects- Toast Morning and Cake Sale. It did what it said on the tin- a bunch of do-gooders would sell toast at extortionate prices (2 slices of Happy Shopper brand with a layer of Stork for 50p) and the Cake Sale would usually be homemade produce from fat Catwomen who let cats roam around their kitchen while baking and were often seen not washing their hands after a dump. I would only buy from the Cake Sale if I fancied a sick day. Even airline food was better than this.

The final aspect of office life was the bullshit lingo that they used. Don't get me wrong, airlines use their fair share of bull, but offices are 10 times worse. Full of idiots in their early 20s getting promoted to Team Leader before they've even left home and still have their tea made for them by their mum. They love all that corporate twaddle because, to quote one of their favourite sayings, they haven't yet mastered the ability to 'think outside the box'. I've learnt the best way to handle these tools is when they say 'there is no I in team' to answer by saying' yes, but there is a U in cunt'.

So, to summarise:

-Fat cunts work in offices and love cake
-Cabin crew will never understand the joy of photocopying one's arse at a works do
-Secret Santa is not much of a secret, and Santa is a chubby, middle aged woman with a fascination for bathcubes.