I Wasn’t Just a Flight Attendant

When people find out I used to be a flight attendant, the reactions usually go two ways.

If they know me, they pause.
An engineer? An actor? A writer?
You were a what?

It doesn’t compute.
It feels like I was supposed to go up and instead I… wandered. Somewhere inconceivable.

And if they don’t know me?
You get that smile. That look.
The airhead assumption.
The “oh, that’s cute” expression.
Like I must’ve done it for travel, or fun, or some midlife adventure.
The kind of job you take before your real life starts.
Or, oh, you studied humanities.
Nothing against people who studied humanities.

But here’s the truth no résumé ever explains:

I wasn’t just handing out meals.
I was scanning. Reading. Leading.

Flight attendants aren’t waiters in the sky.
We’re the first line of defense in a pressurized metal tube where escape isn’t an option.
We’re the ones who keep you calm when something’s off.
And sometimes, we’re the reason you never even realize something was off.

There was a moment I remember clearly.
Nothing dramatic, but it stuck with me.

We had just reached cruising altitude when I noticed a strange whistle coming from one of the doors.
Loud. Not normal.
I reported it immediately.
The captain performed multiple tests. We evaluated the situation.
No one panicked. No one even knew.

When we landed, maintenance confirmed the issue.
And I was the most hated person on the crew that day.
Because we were late getting home.

No thank-you. No badge.
Just protocol followed. Risk avoided.
Invisible labor. Invisible reward.

And that’s the part people miss.

There are hidden heroes all around us.
Not just in planes, but in trains, in control rooms, in hospitals, in classrooms.
People whose job is to prevent disasters so silently, you never realize how close they were.

It’s thankless work.
But it taught me something I never learned in engineering school.

Rules aren’t the enemy.

I get it. I used to hate rules too.
But when you’ve been responsible for the safety of 200 souls in the sky,
you learn that rules are signals.
Not just for order, but for character.

You start to realize that structure isn’t there to box you in.
It’s there to keep everyone alive.

They show who’s ready to lead,
and who still thinks freedom means doing whatever you want.

In a world obsessed with rebellion and breaking the system,
we rarely stop to ask why the system exists in the first place.

I used to think rules were there to hold me back.
To kill creativity.

Now, as a high school principal, I see it again.
Just in a different kind of cabin.

If someone won’t fasten their seatbelt, I’m not worried about turbulence.
I’m worried about their mindset.

Because in real emergencies, character matters more than comfort.
The people who survive aren’t always the strongest.
They’re the ones who listen.

It’s almost like wearing a school uniform.
Or forgetting your homework.
Those aren’t just small infractions.
They’re signals to something deeper we might need to address.

So no, I wasn’t just a flight attendant.

I’d like to think I was a guardian you never saw.
A quiet leader with no applause.
A reminder that safety is sometimes invisible, but never accidental.

And if that makes people tilt their heads and say,
“Huh… I never thought of it that way?”

Good.
Because that’s the job too.

REPLY to this blog post on X

About the Author
Mish’al Samman is a writer, performer, and lifelong fanboy who began his career covering comics, film, and fandom culture for Fanboy Planet in the early 2000s. With a voice rooted in sincerity, humor, and cultural observation, his work blends personal storytelling with pop-culture insight. Whether he’s reflecting on the soul of Star Wars or exploring identity through genre, Mish’al brings a grounded, human perspective to every galaxy he writes about.