Page 13 of The Woman in 3B
“Oh, that. It’s nothing. Just a superstition of mine. I see it as an offering to the Flight Gods,” she explained. “They get me to Philadelphia, I give them thanks in return.”
“That’s an awfully kind superstition,” I observed.
She shrugged again. She’d been so chatty, almost flirtatious, on the plane earlier; her reluctance to speak now felt like a little like rejection. I briefly considered apologizing for not personally delivering her cranberry juice, splash of seltzer, but that would have required a lot more explanation about switching duties and internet celebrities and bingo cards than I was comfortable with sharing.
“Do you fly a lot?” I asked instead.
She nodded while she chewed her food. I’d caught her mid-bite. “Probably almost as often as you.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m an HR consultant.”
“And what does an HR consultant do?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t a dumb question.
“Well, you know what HR does, right?”
“Hiring, firing … making sure I get paid?” I listed off.
She nodded. “That and more. Payroll and personnel is a big part of the job, but HR also deals with things like sexual harassment complaints and job discrimination. As an HR consultant, I get brought into companies to help their own Human Resource division.”
“Help them do what?” I asked.
“A few things. If it’s a new company—a tech start-up, for example—I might come in to help them write policies and procedures and make sure they’re complying with U.S. labor laws. Larger, more established companies might call in a consultant to help mediate an employee grievance. Usually though, I help employers update their company’s infrastructure to make sure they’re being as efficient as they can.”
“Efficient,” I repeated. “Like firing people.”
She nodded, unashamed. “Yes, that’s part of the job. When a company is too chicken shit to do their own dirty work, sometimes I get called in to do it for them.”
“That’s got to be hard,” I observed.
“I try not to think about it too much,” she said in earnest. “That may come off as callous, but they were going to get fired anyway. Better it be by me who actually has training than some bumbling middle-manager type.”
I made a humming noise. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind being fired by you.”
It sounded a little flirty, but I hadn’t really meant it like that.
“I’m Anissa, by the way,” she introduced herself.
“Alice,” I returned.
She reached across the table and shook my hand. Her grip was firm, but her skin was unbelievably soft. I wondered what kind of moisturizer she used.
“Do airlines still have all those crazy regulations about what you have to wear and how you need to fix your hair?” she asked.
“I’ve heard from some veterans that it’s relaxed a lot over the years, but we still have a lot of rules—probably more than most kinds of jobs,” I confirmed.
Many of the realities of my job necessitated certain things, regardless of airline policy. Because we spent so much time in small spaces, you really had to be a certain height and weight. It was probably a good idea if you knew how to swim, too, just in case our flight became a cruise. But other requirements were far more subjective and cosmetic in nature. Makeup, but not too much. No visible tattoos. Only one pair of earrings, and they had to be in your ears. A hairstyle no more than three inches in fullness—nothing too extreme in volume. A pleasing complexion—no acne or facial scars.
The woman in 3B—Anissa—stabbed at her salad. “Did you know that flight attendants were the first group of employees to use the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to file grievances against their employer? In the 1960s and 1970s, flight attendants were typically let go after they got married, were pregnant, or had their thirtieth birthday. Among other things, Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits sex-based discrimination.”
“Wow,” I marveled. “That’s an impressive bit of trivia.”
“It’s part of my job,” she deflected. “I’m sure you have all kinds of airplane trivia or insider knowledge that the typical flyer doesn’t know.”
“Don’t drink the water,” I mumbled around my next bite of salad.
“Huh?”
