My dear oldhasbeen,
i wasn't whinging about a ten hour day at all, infact it doesn't bother me. I probably didn't word it the best. The point i was trying to get across is that crew are human, not robots. Sometimes we do have long days and i totally agree, if you can't handle it and get into bad moods and still can't do your job properly at the end of the day, then leave! I agree completely.
ratpoison,
To be honest, i wouldn't care who was getting me out of the aircraft in an emergency, as long as i get out. You obviously have a preference in this situation, i and i'm sure most people certainly don't. I would like to see how the 18/19 year old Virgin Blue Cabin Manager handles this situation compared to the 55 year old Qantas CSM who's been flying for 25 or 30 years. Yes, Qantas does seem to have this reputation/stereotype for being hard, cold, old, too serious and too professional, which is the case with some people, but certainly not the majority. People are always quick to bring up the negatives and very rarely the positives and people just love to jump on the bandwagon.
I do admit, at Qantas there are a few people which should no longer be there. They're miserable to passengers and believe it or not, they're also miserable to work with. Hopefully though you will start to see a change as there are a lot of younger, enthusiastic crew now online, but also still a lot of fresh and enthusiastic older crew who have been with the company for a while. There's bad apples in every business. At least i take satisfaction in knowing that i go up there and put in 200% every time i go to work and i can say the same for a lot of my colleagues.
Oz