Wow, a new year. 2009 already. How time flies. Did everyone have a good countdown? Big parties and lots of merry making? My new year's eve started with a bang. Quite a loud and painful one too I might add. Stumbling out of bed at 5am to switch off the alarm clock that I had placed at the far corner of the room (so that I would be forced out of bed) I crashed my knee straight into the corner of the TV bench. That sure woke me up good. Groaning I switched off the alarm and trudged to the bathroom to get ready for work. Getting up at this unGodly hour for work on new year's eve! Atrocious.
I had a special chartered flight to take care off that morning you see. Monumental pain in the ass if you asked me. And the worse thing is I'd have to stay all the way till around 10pm after my normal scheduled flight leaves. It was gonna be a 16 hr work day for me and I wasn't looking forward to it. But hunker on I did and by the time I got home at around 1030pm, I was knackered. No worries though, its not like I had any big party or celebration I had to rush to. In this part of the world, they don't celebrate the welcoming of a new year. Pretty much the same way they don't celebrate Christmas. I dunno, a new year must be against their religion too or something.
So as 1159pm became midnight, signifying the arrival of the first second of 2009 to tick by, I was already snoozing in bed.... but not for long. The bloody phone blasted me out of lala land and the voice on the other end informed me that the aircraft that left my station a few hours ago could not land due to bad fog at the destination airport and had diverted. So much for a happy new year. Ok, so what do you want me to do? Run there now with a giant fan and blow the fog away? No, they needed some info on the loadsheet so that the aircraft could get clearance to take off from the diversion airport. Sigh, time to get to work again. When it was all settled and I finally crawled back into bed, it was 4:30am. Thats the time people usually crawl into bed after a big new year's party. Bugger.
New year's day did not bode well for me either. Because of that diverted aircraft, the crew's hours got all messed up and my scheduled flight would be arriving 4 hours late! 4 hours! What in the world am I gonna do with this rabid group of passengers who are so keen on leaving the country? Sorry sir, I have to prolong your agony by keeping you here for another 4 hours. Please try not to die on me. I had to arrange for dinner for everyone so I went to the airport restaurant manager's office.
"I need to get some dinner happening please"
"ok, how many people?"
"I dunno. Not everyone may wanna eat. Can you just serve the meals and then we will pay for the number that was dished out?"
"No"
"why not?"
"The cook must know how many people to cook for"
"you know exactly how many people will eat here before you open your restaurant everyday?"
"No"
"then?"
"my cook will only prepare the amount you need"
"well i hope your cook is like Jesus coz it could be 5 or it could be 5000"
"ok I will ask him to make 200"
"yeah ok whatever"
In the end 148 people ate. The evening went on with me apologising to many for the delay and asking if they had a good dinner. When the flight finally took off at 1:10 in the morning, the first day of 2009 was already gone, never to return again. What a start to the new year. I pray that this is not a sign of things to come.
Have a great year ahead everyone.
