I think all flight attendants know the odd phenomenon called "jump seat confession". I am talking about spilling your guts to your colleague while sitting next to him or her during a flight. We talk about everything! Our families, likes and dislikes, childhood dramas, our failures and sucesses. Sometimes a colleague will tell you in detail about her failing marriage during a flight or how worried she is about her teenage son and you hug her after you land and hope, hope that she and her family will be ok. It is likely that you won't see her for months or even years, but when you do, and you are again sitting next to her on that jump seat she will update you as if you had seen her only a few days ago.
We tend to tell each other things that outside of a plane you would only tell your very best friends.
A few weeks ago, I was working with a flight attendant who was updating me about her homemade soap business. She was informing me that she uses the best goat milk available and all natural ingrediants when she looked at me and said, "You need to go to the little festival in Lorch! I will be there selling my products and it is exactly the kind of event your family likes!" Now, this colleague has never met my children or my husband and I must have had a surprised look on my face because she continued, "I know all about them. They will love it! They have farm animals there and your daughter is crazy about them. They teach archery and have the best homemade "Flammkuchen" which your son likes and the monastery is an old building with a tower, which I know your husband will insist on checking out."
It seems like she knows us well, so we went...
She was right. We had the best time!
