Help a flight attendant in need.
I recently posted on Facebook looking for help in a flight attendant group page and after telling my story a few flight attendants encourage me to create this account. I am incredibly thankful for all the support and encouragement and all for everyone who has taken the time to read it.
I started at American in 2007 in the AAvantage program. In my interview I informed the hiring manager that I was only going to do the customer service position for a year because then I was going to become a flight attendant. After getting the position the hiring manager said to me”I didn’t want to tell you this before because I was worried you wouldn’t accept the position but we haven’t hired flight attendants since 9/11.” She could see my heart breaking and continued to say” but don’t give up because we’ll hire again and you’ll be here already”. About 6 years later I had one of the proudest moments of my life. My wings were pinned!
Fast forward to the year 2016 and my light started to dim. At the beginning of the year I lost a friend to suicide, a few months later my cousin was in a car wreck and died, then a few months after that I gave my aunt chest compressions while another family member gave breaths at the end of a family cook out until the medics arrived. They took over but she didn’t make it. The year ended with my husband having a seizure for the first time and after an MRI he had his first brain surgery. It was a grade IV glioblastomia aka brian tumor that was terminal. He battled cancer for 3 years with almost 8 months of that time being at home on hospice. He past away with me holding his hand on 1/23/19 at 37 years old. We started dating when I was 21 and he was 22. I was very blessed to be able to be home the entire time with him during hospice care.
The company granted me an unpaid voluntary leave of absence for which I was very grateful. Upon returning to work depression and anxiety hit hard. Grieving while working was difficult to say the least. My manager knew my situation and informed me the company was going to be understanding. They knew I didn’t qualify for FMLA due to not working enough hours the previous 12 months. Saying one thing but doing another is what ended up happening. I was given points for every occurrence even when I went out through EAP. The union was made aware of my situation when I reach out to them for my level one meeting. I hoped it all would be ok since the union was now involved but they didn’t really do much other than be there during meetings and documented what was happening. Skipping ahead I was terminated on 1/22/20 which was one day short of the anniversary of my husbands death.
They say my manager cared and fought for me but she didn’t even know the anniversary date of my husband death and also it was her decision to terminate me.. The union filed the grievance and thought it best to use grieving caregiver/spouse which was denied by the company because they did not find fault on Americans behalf.
While that was all happening I managed to find an error that my manager made that wasn’t caught by the union. But they had already made the decision not to move forward to arbitration . Therefore I am going to do it myself. The union stated that the looked at all the information submitted with my case and didn’t think that the misinformation I was given would change anything. As you all know we had a pandemic right after I was let go. Unfortunately I wasn’t one of those people who got the extra unemployment. Actually I didn’t receive anything because not working enough the previous few years caused it to be denied. I didn’t even qualify for the medical exemption since I wasn’t the one with health issues, my spouse was. With that said money is tight. Thank you again for reading this because I despise asking for anything. Also a special thanks to the FA’s who suggested it and a very special thanks too one FA who really pushed me to ask for help. I am so grateful for everything in life, from people taking the time to say a prayer for me too people who are able to donate. I appreciate it all.
Stay safe.
David