No Show

I missed my trip. I can't believe this happened. I woke up at 10:30am when my report time was 10:35am. That meant I had to be at the airport ready to fly out in the next five minutes, but I was forty miles away just waking up. I immediately panicked. How could I have slept through all my alarms?? But in the back of my mind I knew why (actually, I knew all the exact moments leading up to this incident which I cannot disclose lol). I felt an overwhelming feeling of disappointment in myself. I had actually been looking forward to this trip. It was a 23hour Austin layover, and I had already made plans with a friend who lived there. I was so frustrated, but I only had myself to blame. I should have been more responsible. In training, they had explained how attendance was calculated by a point system. Every tardy, depending on minutes would be a certain amount of points as well as sick calls, missed calls, no shows, you get the gist. For every quarter of perfect attendance, a small number of points would be taken off your record. It seemed fair and simple at the time. Yet now I had become the queen of collecting points. 

I immediately called crew scheduling to let them know I wasn't going to make my report. "We will be marking it as a 'no show'",  they replied. I felt sick to my stomach. A "no show" received the highest amount of points. This put me at enough points to receive a verbal warning from my supervisor. Exactly what I had been trying to avoid. The first thing I ever learned entering the industry was the importance of self-discipline. The aviation industry is very cut-throat, which I realized the first time I ever applied. Punctuality meant being there even earlier than expected. Needless to say, that day, I laid in bed feeling gutted.

Since then, I have received one more "no show". But the second one was out of my control. This is why keeping your attendance record clean or to minimal points is key. You never know what can happen and this type of work does not care to hear any excuses. I received the other "no show" last year. There was a chicken accident. This may sound a little absurd, but it actually made the local news. Basically, a little before 4am, a semi-truck carrying chickens crashed on the freeway and caught on fire. This caused the freeway to be completely closed off and created an over two-hour traffic delay. Of course, I ended up being stuck on the backside of the accident. Once I approached it, I had no idea I would be bumper to bumper, not moving an inch for almost thirty minutes.  I had left my house approximately two hours before my report time. The drive to the airport, any time before 5am usually took me under an hour. When I approached the slow down, I was not worried. I always gave myself an extra hour because the worst feeling for me was rushing to work all panicked, I would much prefer to arrive early in an eased state of mind. However, after I started realizing what I thought was just a little slow down on the road was in fact dead stop traffic, I began feeling uneasy. I called crew scheduling to let them know I might be late. They told me they would have someone pre-board the flight in my place. I kept in contact with them, letting them know the traffic wasn't moving and I had been in the same spot for about thirty minutes. I finally called them to give them the dreaded news that my GPS was estimating my arrival time would be past the flight departure time. "Okay, we're going to mark you as a 'no show.' " I couldn't believe it. How did that even make sense? A "no show" is someone that just doesn't show up, I had called and given them notice and kept them updated for almost an hour. I understand that some disciplinary points should be in place but to receive all the points attached to a 'no show' was like a slap in the face. I even tried fighting it later and sent screenshots of my GPS being stuck in the same place for the thirty minutes, photos of the traffic eventually being lead up the streets, and the link to the news article. To this day I am trying to keep good attendance to clear those points. Don't we miss those days were we could say "my dog ate my homework" or "I can't come to work I'm going through a breakup" haha. Welcome to the real world.

xoxo,

Guadalupe♥️