Too much of a jump from low-grade Retail to cabin crew
I totally agree with your post and we really need more people like your good self in this forum who can present relevant information in a clear & concise manner - I've been working for over 20+ years in low-grade and low-paid retail jobs (I'm also a 41 years old Irish male living and working in Manchester) - although I initially wanted to become cabin crew and applied to several airlines, both in the UK and beyond, in reality I was deluding myself into thinking that I could ever meet the requirements for any cabin crew position as I was barely any replies to say that they had recieved my application and/or that I was on any shortlists (blacklists, more like) and not even getting any interview dates, even allowing for the many challenges in the aviation industry and the current economic climate - all of my friends (the ones I did tell anyway) all tried (quite rightly) to talk me out of it, persuade me to stop applying and put pressure on me to wake up to reality to see that I will never have what it takes - I now have let go of this unrealistic (for me) cabin crew "ambition" or "dream" and am making arrangements to move back to Ireland when my family decide the time is right and remaining in retail for the rest of my working life - apart from all of this making my childhood speech impediment worse, it is also adversely affecting my performance in my current job, where I have been in difficult conflict situations with managers (who see it as a distraction) and customers in our very busy store that I have not been able to handle well at all, in fact very badly - I was also persuaded "cyber-bullied" out of it by "trolls" on other sites who also "flamed" me (no more than I deserve) and quite rightly subjected me to personal attacks due to my age, postcode, retail position and many other factors - It will quite simply not ever be possible for me ever to become cabin crew and I really need to let go of and stay quiet about something that is never meant for me and never will happen as no-one in the real world will ever help me get into any UK based airline - if it is bullying well I just have to accept that as reality as it is too much of a jump for me, in the same way that I was stopped from becoming a pilot all those years ago or anything else that others wanted for me - low-grade, low-paid retail is my vocation and I need to have the humility to totally accept that as such