A Box Full Of Cutlery - The Journey to Abu Dhabi

Growing up, I never spent too much time away from my family. Even though I went to a boarding school for four years I went home every weekend, and after the first year another brother from the Thorne-men conveyor belt joined me. Before I joined Etihad, the longest I had spent without seeing a single member of my family was the three weeks I had spent in Seoul, and that had been with my girlfriend. Etihad would be the first time I was truly out on my own, without a familiar face. This is how my first bout of homesickness came about.

I never really get excited about journeys until I set out on them. This is an endless source of frustration to friends and relations “James!”, they cry, “why aren't you grinning and clapping your hands like a drugged-up seal!? You're going to the other side of the world/coming to see me/starting a new career on a new continent!” My go-to answer – that it never really hits me until I step into the airport, sometimes until I board the plane, that I'm about to do something fun – never satisfies them. Unfortunately, it's true. Much in the same way that I can rarely remember what I had for breakfast, all the pushing and shoving of the immediate future, such as what to have for dinner, tend to leave the distant and not-so-distant future bruised and battered by the wayside. After all the blood, sweat, tears, PTSD and tears of the application process, the business of flying to the desert my dearly-departed granda referred to as “Yabby-Dabby” seemed as far off as, well, Yabby-Dabby. Something always seemed to come up to distract me, whether it was a visit to a different, more North African desert with my girlfriend or the latest round of gossip and hearsay at the cinema. Sure, I had to pack my bags (an aside: bring more family photos and books than you think you'll need), but it still felt very far away. At least until my tickets arrived.

As I waved a final goodbye to my parents and stepped through the one-way doors at Terminal 2, it occurred to me at last that I was setting off on a completely unexpected adventure. While I always expected to live abroad at some point I never imagined it quite like this. Though I wasn't the first and definitely wouldn't be the last Irish person to get on a plane with a one-way ticket off of the 'Aul Sod, I felt like there probably was very few of us who were off to serve drinks at 35,000 feet. One of the few lads anyway. I had one last pint of Smithwicks and headed off to the gate, where I realised I had been bumped up to business! Though my desire to take full advantage of the amenities was tempered by my innate yearning to “not be a bother”, I did take full advantage of the free champagne. After all, without a liquor license I was probably going to be rather thirsty in the desert. Even though the flight went through the night, I couldn't sleep. Excitement, nerves, the fact that even if I fully reclined the seat into a bed it was about three inches too small – who knows why. Perhaps a bit more sleep would have been nice for my first day on a new continent.

Whenever I'm sleep-deprived, I describe myself as feeling “greasy”. Every movement feels like it's taking place in an unwashed frying-pan. I blearily stared at the various queues in Abu Dhabi International Airport, not really sure where to stand. After some trial and error, I realised that I had to go and collect my visa, followed by an eye scan and copy of my fingerprints. Somehow I managed to stay one step ahead of the hordes of Chinese tourists for both the visa queue and the eye scan queue, and when I finally stumbled through immigration I was told by the handsome and helpful Etihad staff that I was the first of the new batch of trainees to get through. Luckily, a girl from Ireland followed quickly after me. She was nice, even if she was from Cavan. We were loaded into a taxi – I had actually packed more stuff than her, and in a lovely inversion of gender roles I had to get help jamming my suitcases into the car – and dumped off at our new home, a collection of high-rise apartment buildings surrounded by a calamity of construction sites and open pieces of desert. After some more trial and error, two words which sum up much of what I do, we found our buildings and headed on into the unknown.

I turned my key in the lock, and following a satisfying click the door opened. Slightly. It had been chained from the inside. Of course. A combination of desperate clawing and shoulder charges popped the chain off, and I was in. Wary of the fact that I had no idea who my roommate was, whether they had just gotten back from a flight or if they knew I was coming, I crept through the apartment. There was a few personal touches around the place; a large pile of shoes, some takeaway menus and, hilariously, a Korean newspaper. I managed to find my room, a good-sized space with a high ceiling and some seriously pimping curtains. A cardboard box, about 4ft tall, sat in the middle of the room. I checked through the list I had been given along with my keys, and began digging through the box. A duvet, pillows, some instant noodles, cereal bars and other quick and easy food. After going through all of it, at the very bottom I found two sets of knives, forks and spoons. Just as I reached them, the call to prayer began to echo off the walls of the surrounding high-rises. I think at that exact moment, with the sun beating down on my box of cutlery and a foreign language ululating through loudspeakers outside my window, I felt more alone and far from home than ever before.

Since then, things have picked up. I actually feel like I'm coming home when I collapse through the front door after a night flight, and those tall white walls have been softened by posters and photos. I even managed to fit an old Turkish prayer mat in my suitcase after my first visit home. Don't worry mum, I'll put it away if any Emiratis come to visit. Next time, I'll talk a little about my basic training. Sorry for anyone expecting more useful information!

How a white middle-class male became an oppressed minority (Part 2)

As I mentioned last week, the months following the open day were quiet. Very, very quiet. Martian mausoleum quiet. I thought the best way of getting this across would be to talk you through the e-mails they sent me over that extremely long period. However, I'll do the same thing that I did last week and sum everything up with bullet points the the end.

Etihad Airways Recruitment Team	Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 4:10 PM
To: trolleyY_dolly

Dear James

Thank you for your participation in our recent recruitment day.

Following your final interview, we are pleased to inform you that your application for the position of Cabin Crew has been successful.

You will now be kept in our holding pool and we shall notify you when we have a training course date available for you.

However, should we not be able to place you on a training course within the next 6 months you may be required to reapply for the position online.

This letter does not constitute an offer of employment and you should not make any decision to terminate your current employment based on it.

Your employment with us is still subject to the successful completion of the necessary clearances. Once we receive all clearances, a member of the recruitment team will be in contact with you.

Please note:

We can only proceed with your application into the next stage, once we have received all your documents.

If you could not provide all necessary documents on your assessment day, kindly forward them as soon as possible to ccrecruitment@etihad.ae

For our reference, kindly include your Name, Online Application ID (ID*******)
as well as the details of your assessment day into the subject line of your Email.


Thank you and best regards

Cabin Crew Recruitment

Hot diggity, I have my foot in the door! Now to practise doing the safety demonstration and pack my bags! I'm sure you noticed all the disclaimers and "re-apply in six months", but I was too busy dreaming of hunky pilots to notice all of that.

Etihad Airways Recruitment Team	Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 10:11 AM
To: trolleyY_dolly

Dear James, As a follow up to your recent interview for cabin crew held in Dublin on the 11th of June 2012; we require outstanding documents from you in order to be able to further process your application for employment.  Kindly arrange to send the following document so that we can move forward with the process; 2 service letters (please note service letters must be on company headed paper and should contain reference to dates of employment and mention position held) All offers of employment are subject to certain processes being completed; once this process is completed, we will be in touch with you. Please be aware that this additional processing can take up to 3-4 weeks once we have received all your necessary information. As we cannot guarantee employment for you at this stage, please do not resign from your current job until you have signed and accepted any draft offer received from us at a later date. Should you have any questions in the interim, please do not hesitate to contact us. Kind regards, Cabin Crew Recruitment I wouldn't know what a "service letter" is if it jumped up and bit me.  I'd be all like "agh, what is that mysterious biting thing!?"  I duly harassed my friendly current and previous employers until they gave me some pretty pieces of paper. Now folks, I need you to check the date of the next e-mail carefully.  Etihad Airways Recruitment Team                    Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 11:30 AM To: trolleyY_dolly Dear James,  I hope this email finds you well.  Currently your application with Etihad Airways is still pending as we are missing the email details of two reference contacts.  Please can you provide us with the name and professional email address of  previous or current employers who we are able to contact immediately in order to complete the reference checks on your file. Please do not provide the email of your current employer if you do not wish for them to be contacted now. Emails must not be yahoo/ gmail or hotmail accounts. I would be obliged if you could please provide me with the missing information by the 9th of August. Unfortunately failure to provide reference details may result in the termination of your application. I look forward to your reply. Kindest Regards Cabin Crew Recruitment Do not adjust your monitors. 44 days of radio silence. In the desert-island-survival movie of my life, my wife has re-married and my children have long-forgotten me. Who will teach them the art of mindlessly insulting strangers over the Internet? I received this e-mail a day before I was due to visit my girlfriend in Korea for three weeks. Imagine a headless chicken that has been told that if it can run in four different directions at once, it will earn back its head. Over the course of 3 hours I re-sent my references to Etihad, discovered that one of said references had taken extended leave, pleaded for a new one over the phone and in person, re-sent the new one and confirmed that Etihad had received a competed assessment form from both references. All while working in a cinema where we weren't permitted to use mobile phones. I was making phone-calls to confirm that all of my odious little ducks were in a row while boarding the plane. Etihad Airways Recruitment Team                   Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 3:35 PM To: trolleyY_dolly Dear James, We have implemented a new security form which all new joiners will have to fill. I understand that you have already filled one, but as per procedure this new one has to be filled. I have attached the form for you, once you have filled all fields required, please send it back to us. We apologize for the inconvienience. Best regards Cabin Crew Recruitment At this point, I didn't know what to think. Did this mean I was back to square one? The security form was one of the first things I filled out back in June as part of my visa application. I was told that it shouldn't hamper my stagger towards gainful employment. In hindsight, having been exposed to the ponderous machinery of U.A.E bureaucracy, if I'd known then what I knew now I would have forever given up on the dream of serving drinks at 35,000 feet. Unfortunately folks, the paper trail stops here. For some reason I can't seem to lay hands on the ensuing e-mails. I had to re-scan my passport and fill out a bunch of forms, but in the last few days of August, I got a wonderful phonecall asking when I would like to start. More e-mails followed - workbooks, manuals, more paperwork and finally my ticket to the desert. I flew out of Dublin on the 25th of November, waving goodbye to my family, pork and Smithwicks Ale, and began my training two days later. The Wait For the vast majority of you, it will be a wait. Unless you speak a language that the company is currently looking for - keep an eye on what routes they are expanding, or if any new routes are opening soon - you will have to join the queue. Arabic and native English speakers are always in demand. Make sure all your documentation is in order. That means translations into English or Arabic and high-quality scans of your various documents, and referees who know that you have given out their contact information and are willing to keep a watchful eye for Etihad e-mails. Check your e-mails daily. You never know when they might need clarification on something. If you're worried and looking for answers, don't e-mail ccrecruitment@etihad.ae, This is the generic e-mail address, and it will take a long time for you to receive a response. Try and get the chief recruitment officer's e-mail on your evaluation day, and  remember that in Abu Dhabi the weekend is Friday-Saturday. Keep in touch with your fellow holding pool hopefuls! Exchange e-mails, keep an eye on cabincrew.com and check Facebook to see if there is a recruitment group. If you have any questions or worries, stick a comment below.

How a white middle class male became an oppressed minority (Part 1)

If you somehow found your way here, that means you're extremely desperate for advice. You might have been on a waiting list for a month or two. Or three. You probably tried looking for help on cabincrew.com, and found only an excellent source of "novelty" degrees, false passports and brave attempts at the written word. Therefore, I thought I'd begin with a run-through of the application process for Etihad Airways, and why you should stop panicking and cross your fingers. Put off by the wall of text? Skip to the end for some tasty bullet points!

My story begins on a typical Irish June. The rain blasted against the windows as a I hid in my room. It had taken me three years, but I had forgotten about the most popular post-secondary school question - "what are you going to do next?" As I'm the kind of person who has trouble deciding what to have for dinner, one can imagine how this question vexes me, and it had started to rear its ugly head again. For lack of anything else to do, I decided to search jobs.ie for anything that wouldn't involve me bothering strangers with Sky subscriptions or taking a slice of charitable donations as a "chugger", a delightful term for those nice young people in matching jackets that cheerfully assault passing unfortunates with the most first-world of weapons - guilt.

Sure, spend your money on flannel shirts instead of STARVING CHILDREN. Or STARVING PUPPIES.

Because this is the Era of the Internet, and I am incapable of doing one task well but heartily enjoy doing several badly, I looked for flights to see my girlfriend in Korea. On the Etihad Airways website I saw a listing for a recruitment day in Dublin. Like most post-grads I harboured a vague desire to travel, and it happened to fall on a day off from my then-career as a popcorn scooper and general sweeper-upper at the local cinema. I dusted off my C.V, pulled together the laundry list of required documents and fruitlessly Googled "Etihad interview advice". Oh well, I thought, it can't hurt to try.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the meeting hall was the surprisingly even gender divide. I was handed an application form and a label with a number.

127. And I was over half an hour early.

In your face number 128!

Apparently the final tally of hopefuls was almost 250. I dutifully filled out my form - noting with some concern a space for "letter of permission from father or husband" for the womenfolk - and brought it forward. I was cross-checked about my tattoos and lack thereof, and with a slight grin all 6' 4" of me was sent for a "reach test". After that little formality, we settled in our seats and were introduced to the wonderful world of Etihad Airways.

I knew that they were putting a spin on things, but it still looked like an excellent job. Accommodation and health insurance covered, all sorts of travel benefits for me and my family, and a rather dashing uniform. What else could a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed prospect-free graduate hope for? This turning point was followed by a laughable English test, and the even more laughable notion that being a native English speaker is a marketable skill.

Finally, whitey catches a break.

A brief break while those dratted foreigners were weeded out, and we moved on to the next stage - roleplay. Come on now, no sniggering down the back. I was handed a little slip of paper detailing my exciting imaginary job as a waiter in an ill-fated restaurant that had seen fit to put me in charge for the day, and reminding me that referring to "official policy" would result in slow castration with a dessert spoon. My interviewer complained that her children had been served cold food. Ignoring the rather pertinent fact that these children were invisible, I turned on my charm and flung as much free crap as I could think of at her.

OHMADAMSOVERYSORRYHOWABOUTSOMEMOREBREADWHILEYOUWAITANDPERHAPSAROUNDOFDRINKS

Following several minutes of anxious waiting, a list of names were called out in the time-honoured tradition of the TV talent show. To my happy confusion, mine was among them. We were ushered into another room, and given the good news with a rather pleasant request to remain calm, as a significant number of our new friends were being given the bad news. Some of them had travelled from as far away as Toronto for a shot at this, the daft buggers. This heart-warming moment was followed by some free time for lunch, which I spent wandering in the sun and avoiding the temptation to go to an excellent burrito place nearby.

After returning, we were split up into groups and assigned a strange task. Given a collection of about 40 index cards with seemingly-random words written on them, we had to group them in threes by category - for example, gold-silver-bronze, banana-apple-orange and so on. Then, we had to create a story using all the words, a task that only people with great teamwork can accomplish apparently. We spun an epic tale of an Olympic competition between planets, and once again my name was called out. The merry band of misfits had been pared down from 250-ish to roughly 25, and there was only one other handsome y-chromosome-carrier. Interview times were distributed, and in a foolhardy grab for positive attention, I took the earliest slot at the ungodly hour of 8 in the morning.

By some freak chance, I my interviewer was male, Irish and had grown up just down the road from me. The interview was pretty similar to any other interview, with a heavy slant towards personal experience working with diverse teams and dealing with difficult customers. I had done a little research about the company, had removed all dirt and debris from my person and had given the impression that I didn't have a side career in axe murder - what more could they ask for? A few days later, I received an e-mail congratulating me on being placed in a holding pool, and assuring me that I would be put in the first available course. That was on the 14th of June. The reason I didn't start until the 25th of November will have to wait for another time.

I hope this little...thing was helpful! For all the meat without the surrounding waffle, check out the bullet points below.

Open Day Process

• Smart business wear. I'd recommend putting your hair up and wearing a skirt for the women, it'll give them a good idea of what you'll look like in uniform. Also, research the company a little - find out how many destinations we fly to, new or pending destinations, how long we've been operating for, all that good stuff.
• Registration and reach test: be honest about tattoos, as it will come back to bite you.
• Introductory video, questions and answers, written English test: native speakers, make sure you don't get too cocky - read the damn thing over!
• Role-play: for all that is good and sweet in this world, DO NOT REFER TO "POLICY". Listen, smile, apologise, offer an alternative and a "sweetener", a little bonus to cheer them up.
• Group session: listen to everyone's opinions. If you speak over someone, apologise. Do little things, like pass around pens.
• One-to-one interview: expect lots of questions about your personal experience, specifically about difficult customers, conflict within teams, times you received good and bad customer service, the difference between good and great customer service. Typical interview stuff, really.

Disclaimer - the views expressed here are not necessarily the views held by Etihad Airways. I am not an official spokesperson for Etihad Airways. As with all advice on the Internet, take what I say with a Dead Sea worth of salt.