From Sales to Flying?

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of being a "stewardess." As I grew up, and life got in the way (pregnant and married at 19,) I abandoned this dream. I eventually worked in a travel agency, and learned how to sell. From there I started selling television advertising.

I was very good at advertising sales. In fact, at the point where I left the ad sales biz, I was the #2 sales person in the country for my company. I just didn't like it. I started working for an airline as a Sales Manager--and left there for the opportunity to have a home office, company car, and work for a cruise line doing business development. September 11th put the cruise industry into a nose dive, and 5 out of 7 of us in Business Development lost our jobs. Getting a sales job in the travel industry was very difficult over the next couple of years. One day I saw a Flight Attendant with a"trainee" name tag on--and she was older than me, and not the skinny stick figure I thought they had to be to get hired. I remember thinking "if she can do it, I can do it." and I was hired very shortly thereafter.

Occasionally, I look at sales jobs within the company, and have even had appointments to interview twice. I backed out of them, knowing that I could never give up the kind of scheduling I have now.