Several days ago, I published a hard-hitting commentary on this site. It was intended to wake up a few people about the realities of this job and the necessity of putting yourself first. It was nothing more that I've been saying in various flavors all along since 2000 on this site.

Since the article was published, the feedback to JSN has been considerable. The letters I've been receiving have been a mix of positive and negative. And more than a few people figured I'd gone off the deep-end altogether and am planning on quitting United for good.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

That was the in-your-face WAKE UP message. Now here's the kinder, gentler 3-step program message. Both say the same thing by the way:

1. Every employee at this airline should have a Plan B. Just in case. That doesn't mean go out and quit tomorrow. That would be a dumb idea. It doesn't mean go out and quit in 2005. Rather, it means have a backup plan so that, in worst case scenario, you aren't stuck either with a shitty career or with no career. Who knows, your backup plan may turn out to be your lifelong dream.
2. The employees at this airline do not deserve to be stuck in a shitty job with shitty pay. If the work conditions we have in 2004 were suddenly thrust all at once onto us back in 1999, there would be looting and rioting. Problem is, so much continual erosion of pay/benefits/conditions has occurred, it seems that we're all just getting numb to this kind of thing. Habituation. And that's not what any career should be about.
3. You have a grand total of one honest, no-BS, unequivocal person on this planet that you can completely trust 100%. That would be yourself. My point? Take care of that person by asking important and difficult questions now about your life, your work, and your dreams. Too many people forget to do that. And too many dreams become just that.

Here's a true story: I applied for the Flight Attendant job three different times at United Airlines. I was rejected all three times and did not even make it to the 2nd interview in Chicago. I even wore the same suit and same tie to all three interviews and said basically the same stuff. No dice.

For some unexplainable reason, the fourth year and fourth time around I got accepted---maybe the person at the group interview in LAX was in a good mood that day, who knows? When they called to tell me about my 'successful application', I asked the person who telephoned to please read back to me my Social Security number in their WHQ file because I didn't believe I'd just gotten the job. Yeah, it was that unbelievable for me.

But even after SS# confirmation, I still didn't believe I would have been able to get hired as a Flight Attendant. I therefore immediately left for South America with nothing more than a small backpack; believing, really believing, that I would never actually get called to appear at the Training Center. Don't ask me why, but rambling around South America just seemed like the thing to do at the time.

End of March 1996 - Manaus, Brazil

From my 1996 diary entry:

"How many bugs can there be on this f--king boat? They just go everywhere. And what's with Jim [name changed] moving my hammock over near the bag? He reminds me of that guy from Chico and the Man. Chico, not The Man. What was his name? I can't remember. Maybe one of these bugs knows? The Shadow knows, maybe the bugs do also.

Shortly after, I completed a 7-day boat journey down the Amazon river from Belem. I was covered with mosquito bites, had slept in a hammock on the boat with no shower for 5 days, and was generally pretty out of it. It's like jet lag and the worst lavatory smell you can imagine all rolled into one thick head-choking haze.

I found a touch-tone telephone (one actually worked in Manaus in 1996 in the hostel dump I stayed at) and I checked my answering machine messages in Los Angeles. And yes, dreams do come true (if you apply for the same job for four times, that is) as I heard a message on my machine telling me to now report to the Training Center on April 7.

The next few days were a blur. Airplane to La Paz. Bus ride in the middle of the night through the Andes. Some strange airport experience in Lima. And back to Miami, fly to Los Angeles put down backpack take shower cut hair pick up suitcase back to airport to hop to Chicago and straight to Training Center in time for pizza dinner to meet my classmates.

My head was spinning, but I had done it. I looked down at the pizza I was eating on that first evening and saw the mosquito bites from the Amazon jungle still on my hands. And for some reason, everything felt okay. I felt like I could accomplish anything.

It's a good feeling. Don't you remember? (that is, getting this job with United, not mosquito bites) I felt like I was opening up a new chapter in my life.

I want everyone to feel like that again. Here or wherever.