Twenty-Five Years Means It’s a Peachy Job

Recently I celebrated my 25th year as a baggage handler for the Company. In that time period I have done many things BECAUSE I worked for the Company–traveled overseas, bought a house, transferred to a different state and back, had a couple kids, got married, purchased vehicles (not in that same order) and I am thankful for what has come to be two and a half decades for what I originally thought was just going to be a summer job. My teen recently asked if I liked my job and I can whole heartedly say “yes”, otherwise I would have left long ago. My career as a medical secretary lasted less than eight months so you can imagine how much I loved that job. As the teen is on the verge of entering the adult work world, I did say that I didn’t always like aspects of my job or certain policies the Company implemented, but that the job itself made possible so many things in my life that add to the person I have come to be.

Photo by Liza Summer on Pexels.com

One of the things my job has paid three years ago was a young Elberta peach tree. My sister who farmed had a peach tree at one of her properties and ever since then I have been enchanted with having a peach tree. The property I live at is a small city lot and has no shade since everyone cuts down their massive trees that provide shade, property value, leaves, and unintentionally damages small things in it’s 300 year life span. My yard has no space for a soaring oak and I don’t have the lifespan to see it to it’s fullest growth, but I can get a peach. The peach sapling was purchased at the orange-colored hardware megastore and to get it home I had to stick it through my sunroof. From the driver’s seat it looked like a massive tree but when I got home and dug it into the ground… well, it looked rather small, though in today’s teen vernacular, ‘smol’ was more appropriate. It was watered, it was fertilized, and I even put a small lawn chair beneath it just to sit beneath my shade tree.

Two years have passed and I have dealt with and learned about peach curl (an airborne virus), pruning, and crop losses. The first year I think six peaches burst forth from the blossoms but were killed by the peach curl, blackening them when the size of a US quarter. The second year had more blossoms, about a dozen peaches burst forth, and made it to golf ball size before peach curl and squirrels did away with them. This past winter, things changed!! I pruned at the correct time, fertilized at the correct time, and in the spring when the leaves came forth and began to twist in viral agony, I plucked them off and threw them away. My tree exploded with blossoms and has now exploded with fruit. I am a victim of success and am hopefully only a week away from ripe peaches. There is one thing I did not know until the farming sister told me–thin the peaches out to one peach every six inches on a branch. That would have been good to know a couple months ago and alas, two branches have already broken off from the weight of the fruit. I’ve thinned out the branches I can reach and pray that our fence can keep holding up the couple branches resting on it.

Photo by Mark Stebnicki on Pexels.com

So my career with the Company has come to this: There are good years, there are bad years (hello 9/11 and COVID), and with steady maintenance life can get pretty peachy in the status quo of okay years. I’ve spent twenty five years throwing luggage and perhaps if I am fortunate, my peach tree will also make it that long. They aren’t long living trees and I don’t know how long my body will last at this career, but I have few regrets along the way. And my 25 year anniversary pin from the Company? It’s about the size of a nickel. My dead peaches were more impressive.

Checking Out

This week I have been Outside the Fence, doing that vacation thing. However, I can’t really get away from daily reminders of work since my house is right under the landing path. On days that I work I can tell how late I’m running by which aircraft and their paint job that is going over my head. There are many days I have wished for a Bat-Grapple so I can hitch a ride to work, but I don’t think I’d clear the tree line across the street in time and, let’s face it, landing would be a trick. Can you feel the runway rash?

My social media newsfeed is laced with co-workers and ramper groups, so there’s no getting away there either. I do love seeing the photos posted, reading the amusing work stories, keeping up on gossip and contract clarifications–I’m on the final day of vacation and I’m writing about work!

However, there is no feeling quite like watching the pouring rain from the front window, sipping a cup of tea, knowing I don’t have to be out there. Yes, most this week I have been out in the drizzles since I needed to seed the flower garden and pull dandelions out of the lawn. The livestock received more than the usual attention this week which was great since three new animals came in and I had to attend to caging, feeding, and general health checks. Yard work was perfected. The vegetable garden refined. I broke out my inline skates and bladed around the block with my DD. I visited my sister in southern Ohio. Heck, I managed to groom the dog!

Yes, I am beautiful.

For as many things I have done while on vacation this week, there has been preparations to return Behind the Fence. My new workboots arrived in the mail. All my uniforms are washed and waiting in their drawer. Every few days I make sure my IDs are where they’re supposed to be. My workbag is in my car. I am ready to return.

 

Until the appointed time that I must return Behind the Fence, I still have plans; a Doctor Who Night, a religious assembly, lunch dates with friends, a family reunion to plan, and probably a margarita or two.

After all, I’m on vacation.

TSA Has Touched My Butt More Than My Spouse Has

Not even the employees.

If you’ve watched the news lately, you’ll have seen the stories of airport employees being caught with drugs, guns, and large amounts of cash bypassing airport security. The general public shrieks that we are endangering them and asks ‘why aren’t employees required to go through screening like a passenger?’

Because I’m not a passenger. I’ve lived behind the fence for 20 years.

According to the NY Daily News and the TSA blog, in 2014 over 2,200 firearms were confiscated from passengers pockets and from carry-on luggage. They also found a hand grenade. And blocks of C-4. Hidden inside an enchilada that was being carried on was a 8 1/2 inch knife, which I doubt was for divvying up the aforementioned enchilada for his fellow passengers. From 2010 – 2013, six tons (12,000lb) of hard drugs were confiscated from passengers in two airports, JFK and Newark, NJ. Oh, they also confiscated a missile. So, once again, it’s not really the employees who endanger your life, but it’s the guy sitting next to you slurping on $8 coffee with razor blades hidden in his belt.

I do go through the security lines, like you, but not every single time.

In the interest of keeping my job and not revealing information that can compromise airport security, I’m going to tell you some basics, things that you’d find out if you were applying for a job at the local airport. Like all jobs, working at the airport (whether it be for an airline, a food vendor, or the janitorial staff) requires background checks. The typical office job checks, what, the last five years? When I had my background check, they went back so far they found out which elementary school I attended third grade. The Federal government have their own background checks, with the addition of some really random questions which delve into your medical history. Depending on the company you’re hiring with there is likely drug screening, either the piss test or the hair test. Sometimes you have to have a valid driver’s license in order to get the job, and this means no suspensions, OVIs, or DUIs on your record for the last 10 years. No felonies or convictions. No arsonists. Not just anybody can get a job at an airport.

On top of that, we are subject to security challenges, where we have to challenge people who look out of place and don’t show the proper identification to be in a secure area. If we fail these tests, we (and our employer) are subject to fines and potential job loss. Airport employees, our personal bags, and our lockers are subject to random searches at any time, which is far more often than you as a passenger will experience.

Don’t ask him for the whole can of Coke.

Recently, I was tested by the Airport Secret Service (ASS; not their actual acronym, but I’m being job savvy). I was loading luggage in the bag room for outbound flights, watching my first ever Rambo movie (yes we have TVs to stave off boredom) when I felt this presence behind me. The same feeling that every woman has that warns her when someone has snuck up behind her. Stan Lee co-opted that same reflex for the character Spider-Man.

I whip around, and lo, there was this jack-in-the-box giant standing behind me, literally head and shoulders taller than I am. I don’t recognize him so the first thing I do is look for his ID badge. Nothing. Backing up (and wondering how this Giant slipped in the eighteen inches of space between the bag cart and I) and being polite, I engage him in friendly conversation, which promptly leads to an ID badge challenge. Eventually, Jack-In-the-Box produces not only his ID badge, but the badge and paperwork of an ASS inspector. (Which I am sure he did. After all, he passed up three men in my row to come and challenge me.) Despite his paperwork and gold badge, I insisted on going up the chain of command and making his acquaintance with my immediate superiors, and then notifying the next level of superiors. At an airport, you don’t mess around with faces you don’t know since my life, my coworkers’ lives, and the passengers depend on employees knowing who belongs behind the fence and who does not. Needless to say, all my superiors were pleased that I caught this ASS guy and I passed the Government Test.

So, yes, sometimes employees err and bring things they shouldn’t. Most times, it’s an accident of forgetfulness–a coworker was suspended for three days because he forgot that his camping knife was in his backpack from a weekend trip and TSA found it during a random bag search–and other times it seems arbitrary–another coworker was suspended for bringing a tiny dinner knife in his lunch so he could cut the steak he brought from home. Perhaps next time he’ll just ask our Maintanence Department for a razor blade.

We, the employees, generally have your best interest in mind since it coincides with ours. I make a decent wage and am not about to throw it away on trying to get a Klingon bat’leth into work just to slice my  bagel.

I can’t say that for the guy who packed two sticks of dynamite in his luggage so he could blow the tree stumps out of his dad’s yard.

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/tsa-seized-record-2-442-firearms-u-s-airports-2015-article-1.2481284

http://blog.tsa.gov/2015/01/tsa-2014-year-in-review.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/cocaine-diapers-machine-guns-ammo-haul-confiscated-area-airports-years-article-1.1517785

“Thank you, sir. OH SORRY!! M’am!!”

Ramper working a DEN inbound.

I never expected gender confusion to be part of my job.

This seems rather silly but at no point in my life prior to being a ramper was I ever confused for anything but a female. At my interview with the Company there was no mistaking my gender, having worn a peach colored business length dress, white heels, and sporting long blonde hair that cascaded down my back. There has never been any doubt of my gender from my male coworkers, many who over the years have cracked regarding my bra size, “How do you not fall over?” I wear earrings spring, summer, and fall–sporadically during the winter since metal earring posts are prone to get earlobes frostbitten. People who interact with me outside of work have no difficulty discerning that I am a woman, even when I’m running errands in my work clothes.

The fault lies with the passengers, I have determined, and it’s made by both sexes equally. I cannot tell you how many people who are standing on the jetway less than a foot away from me have called me “sir”. Their eyes are glazed, either in anticipation or dread, when they’re about to take the magical step onto the aircraft. There is a startle moment when I say, “Sir/Miss, let me take your bag,” and automatically they look toward me and drop their carry-on that has been tagged for being stowed below, and they say, “Thank you, sir.” Their head turn from me towards the aircraft doorway and they step over the threshold and never look back. At first I was insulted. ‘Can’t they see I’m a woman?!’ Later, I despaired. ‘I’ve got boobs!!’ Now, I’m just amused.

If you look at a someone who dresses in a uniform and is generally indistinguishable from their coworkers, it is usually a man, such as the mailman. Notice that “mailman” is set in the masculine gender. Defined by the rules of grammar, the masculine gender is a noun that depicts male sex (King, husband, UPS guy) and the feminine gender is a noun that depicts female sex (maid, Queen, wife). In American culture, some nouns are automatically assumed to have a specific gender since one sex or the other typically works that job; flight attendant, pilot, ticket agent, mechanic, nurse, and baggage handler. Now there are men and women in each of those professions, but let’s be honest, when you’re looking for a firefighter, one expects a man, and when looking for a nurse, one expects a woman. Logically, passengers on autopilot to get home for the holidays or whatever, are NOT expecting a woman to be manhandling (see, another masculine gender word) their luggage.

In the interest of full disclosure, my ramp uniform is identical to my male coworkers, right down to how I order my pants, which makes sense since we all order from Cintas. I wear the same bulky coat and the same company logo shirts. In the winter, it’s much harder to distinguish the gender of rampers since we’re bundled up in parkas and snowpants and neck gators and hats. Honestly, during the winter sometimes the only way I can tell who’s who on the ramp is how that person walks or moves their arms.

But there is no excuse in the summer, particularly since we have to wear our work ID that has our name in LARGE CAPITAL LETTERS on our outermost piece of clothing, other than the aforementioned passengers on autopilot. My work boots are the same, I don’t wear a hat, my short hair is exposed and styled, and my breasts are unmistakable for what they are. It’s funny to watch passenger reactions when someone drops their luggage on me, says “Here you go, sir,” and boards the aircraft; those in line behind are usually horrified or terribly embarrassed by such an obvious mistake, and usually go to some lengths to try to apologize or at least recognize me with a “Thank you, m’am!”

My favorite are the people who come off of autopilot about three seconds after they’ve handed over their luggage and called me ‘sir’. Their eyes get wide and they stammer, “I’m so sorry! I thought you were a guy!” I just give them a dimpled smile, a wink of my blue eyes, a nod of my pearl-earring’d head and say, “Have a good flight.”

The picture at the top of this post? That’s me.

Night Suprises

At the end of a 10 or 12 hour shift and you’re being dropped off at the Employee Lot, there is very little energy left in you for handling suprises well. Two inches of ice caked on your car, the occasional flat tire, dead batteries, and hoping your car wasn’t involved when a love triangle goes wrong and there was a shoot out in the Lot.

The Employee Lot is situated next to an extensive metropark system, so there is a fair amount of critter traffic in addition to the vehicular kind. Deer, coon, cats, coyote, you find it in a park, you’ll find it crossing our parking lot, usually scaring the bejesus out of us as we try to get in our car and the whatsit skittering from where it was hiding beneath the driver’s side of the car!!

This incident occurred after midnight, on a cold and windy perfectly miserable January night where all you want is to crawl into the shower and try to warm up all the fat on your legs to something approaching “warm”. My eyes were tired and crusty from being freeze dried all day long in the -15 degree wind chill and my feet feel like lead. I’m wearing at least 4 layers which, while keeping you warm, doesn’t lend itself to non-zombie like movements. Imagine a whole lot of large, shuffling, multi-layered ramp zombies trying to remember where their car is parked. My car was parked on the other side of the bus shelter and it was much faster to cut through it than go around it. Several other folks were parked there also, so as we cut through the shelter, my coworker flipped the lid of the shelter garbage can up to throw away his empty coffee cup.

Out jumped a raccoon, who’d been hiding in the bottom of the can underneath a pile of garbage. Garbage shot out of the can followed by 20 pounds of masked teeth and angry chattering for disturbing his place out of the wind and cold. My coworker, tired and multilayered, jumped back and started wind-milling his arms, trying to regain his balance in his zombie suit. The rest of us bolted out of there, looking and sounding much like a pachyderm explosion, leaving poor Coworker to face the disturbed coon. Through special mightiness, Coworker caught himself and booked out of the shelter for his car, leaving the coon to settle back in for the night.

Needless to say, we didn’t bother the garbage cans the rest of the winter, just in case there was a jack in the box coon waiting for us.

 

Just When You Think You’ve Packed Everything…

…you find yourself praying there is a Walmart near your hotel. Or, if you’re in the UK, you pray for ASDA, which is UK Walmart.

However, when you’re the baggage handler, you tend to find that all the pockets of luggage burst open and all sorts of gadgetry lands in your cart, your lap, and falling on your face. Men’s foil shavers (battery operated and buzzing, making you dodge and maybe trimming your eyebrows), curling irons, sandals, socks, makeup, Post Master General’s skeleton key set, you name it, I’ve seen it come out of luggage. And if you think I know which of 145 bags any of that came out of, you’ve got the wrong profession. Clairvoyant we are not.

People pack everything, maybe not the kitchen sink, but they do pack the KitchenAid blender and bowl, adult toys, large car parts, computers, flat screen tvs, and golf bags that we are certain are filled with dead people. Wait, the dead people come in their own boxes with the directions of “Head” and “Feet” pre-printed on them. So you don’t ship them on the wrong slant and then the funeral home director has to meet the flight so they can re-embalm the returnee.

Much of the litter that is scattered on the working portion of the tarmac is detritus from your suitcase you overpacked to the point where zippers have burst irrepairably or entire plastic suitcases have shattered. That’s when your luggage ends up in one of those nifty airline plastic bags on the baggage carousel, usually smelling like it took a bath in alcohol of some sort. That’s the fault of the guy snoring in 18F next to you, who thought six bottles of Mexican rum wouldn’t break in the unpadded bag with mere Kleenex to buffer it from the massive conveyor belt system and three foot drops. Sorry about that wedding dress the lady in 23A was going to wear too….

I’ve found that most baggage misery inflicted on your suitcase is usually done to you by your fellow passengers, who have packed everything they think they might maybe need. The ramp isn’t responsible for the folks that packed the leaking goat cheese in their military duffel; however, if your suitcase looks like it’s been dragged for two miles underneath a cart and the contents are mostly gone and shredded, that was us.

Thank goodness for the local Walmart.