I’m a Disrupted Operations Supervisor (DOS) for my airline — the same person from this story. The story here happened before that one, back in 2020, when I was twenty-six years old, had been a DOS for two years already, and had been a shift supervisor for a year before that.

This story happens the day after I gave birth to triplets (one boy and two girls), so, as you can imagine, I am feeling tired and sore when I get a phone call from one of my airline’s supervisors at the airport where I work. She’s a thirty-year-old woman who was promoted last month, transferring from a smaller airport.

Supervisor: “Hey, [My Name], I know you’re on vacation, but we have a plane doing an emergency diversion landing in thirty minutes, and since you’re the DOS, we need you here.”

Me: “First, I’m not on vacation but on maternity leave. Second, the DOS manual I wrote for these situations is on my desk in front of the PC, which you know as a supervisor. Third, I’ve been home for two months, and since I just gave birth to three babies, I’m gonna be on leave for another six months, so the protocol is the same as for my days off. The supervisor on duty is in charge of fixing whatever goes wrong with a flight.”

Supervisor: *Raising her voice* “Listen, young lady! I don’t care if think you’re a bigshot, but if a supervisor calls, you answer ‘yes’ and run to work!”

Me: *Interrupting her* “You realize that I’m above you in the company, at the same rank as a station manager, right? You don’t talk like that to anybody, let alone me, so I’m going to hang up, call the station manager, and ask him what’s going on, okay? Cool. Bye.”

I hung up, called [Station Manager], explained what had happened, and went to breastfeed the babies.

Later that day, [Station Manager] called to tell me that he had taken control of the situation, as [Supervisor] had put my manual in the trash while calling me a whore, was screaming like a lunatic at the staff, and even threw a monitor at him. He informed me that she no longer worked with us, congratulated me, and said to bring the kids to the airport for a visit as soon as possible.

The triplets are now three years old, very happy, and their eleven-year-old sister’s joys and darlings.

Related:
The Cringe Heard ‘Round The World
Could’ve Been An Email

I’m the author of this story, and I’ve shared the following story as a comment on this story. The way the guy was schmoozing the ladies in said story reminded me of my sister’s one and only attempt at having a sisters’ fancy night out.

It was 2013. I was nineteen, and my sister decided to celebrate my getting a job at an airline by going to this fancy hotel restaurant — think a posh setting with a snobby maître d’ where you had to make a reservation a week in advance.

We put on our nicest dresses and went to the restaurant. During the meal, these two guys in fancy suits, who looked to be in their twenties, started chatting us up. They offered to buy us drinks and pay for the meal, and they invited us to continue at the hotel’s bar. (You can probably guess the rest.)

I decided to nip this in the bud.

Me: *Showing them my wedding ring* “I have a one-year-old at home.”

That was the moment when one of them turned to my sister with what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm in his voice.

Guy: “Congratulations on your first grandchild, ma’am.”

His buddy gave him a discreet but shocked look, they walked away, and I started laughing at what had just happened, which my sister still hasn’t forgiven me for.

We look quite similar and my sister is twelve years older than me, so I guess it’s theoretically possible for her to be my mom, and the men were hitting on us both, but my sister still doesn’t find it funny that those two might have been going for a mother-daughter duo.

I studied abroad in my junior year of college, and a group of us decided to take a bus tour during spring break through several countries in Europe. The days were jam-packed, and we stumbled into our hotel room rather late one evening.

The lobby included a check-in desk, a seating area, and a small bar. The receptionist informed us that there was no bartender on staff this time of night, but she could serve us beer or wine if we wanted it. Our tour guide checked us in while the rest of us waited and talked. We all wanted to have a drink before turning in, and as we discussed the menu on display it, became apparent that I was the only one planning to order wine; everyone else wanted beer.

The receptionist finished at the desk and came around the bar. She looked at me first.

Receptionist: “What would you like?”

Me: “I’ll have a Riesling, please.”

Receptionist: “Of course.”

She poured me a glass — and by that, I mean that she poured me a FULL glass, at least two standard servings of wine, maybe two and a half.

Receptionist: “Why do people only pour half a glass of wine? I never understand it.”

Suddenly, all of my classmates also decided they were in the mood for wine. The receptionist continued to have a very generous pour, and she chatted with us for a while until we went up to our rooms.

I was interning at a company in the marketing sector. One of the big tasks I had was to build and manage a website for that company.

One day, I was finishing some pages and, suddenly, I noticed that there were some pages with different fonts. My boss told me hours ago that he liked the font family that the home page had, Poppins, so I decided to spend more than thirty minutes editing every single text box on every single page from that website.

When there were five minutes left to go, my boss came in to see my work.

I was excited to show my work and proud of it. After all, I did what he told me to do. But when I showed him my work on changing the font family to the font that he supposedly liked, he made a weird expression.

Boss: “What’s the font family you used for this page?”

Me: “Poppins, size fifteen.”

Boss: “Let me see the home page.”

I showed him.

Me: “It has the same font family as the previous page you saw.”

Boss: “That’s impossible; they’re different! Let me see the first page again.”

I showed him the first page again.

Me: “It has the same font family: Poppins, size fifteen.”

Boss: “No, it’s not the same. Let me see the [editing program].”

I showed him that.

Me: “Here’s the font I used: Poppins, size fifteen!”

Boss: “There has to be a mistake! That’s not right!”

Me: “I guarantee you, sir, that this website has Poppins as the font family, with size fifteen.”

Boss: “No, it can’t be. You’re wrong. Let me take a picture!”

Fortunately, the five minutes passed and it was time to leave. I told him that tomorrow we could see what was “wrong”. He looked at me really seriously and then let me go home.

Luckily, I’m not working there anymore. Now, I’m enjoying myself and living more peaceful days.

I’m one of three Disrupted Operations Supervisors (DOS) for my airline, which means when something goes wrong with a flight at my airport, I’m the final authority. For some stupid reason, headquarters (HQ) decided that at my airport, there has to be a supervisor on duty twenty-four hours a day, even when it’s closed. (I tried to find the logic in this but I gave up.)

I was picked for the night shift — 20:00 to 6:00 — despite my functions, due to scheduling isues.

One day, an executive at HQ summons us DOS to an emergency meeting there on the day of a major holiday, requiring two of us to fly there from our respective bases.

I’m supposed to end my shift and go on vacation that day, so I try to convince HQ to let me video conference in order to save them money and time on my part — both via phone and email with cost estimates. I’m told no way: be there or be fired.

Since the earliest flight leaves one hour after I clock off, I don’t have to actually clock off. I catch the flight — ninety minutes — arrive there, and wait for three hours to have a thirty-minute meeting with a young executive, who tells us he’s our new boss and that we have to run everything by him now. After that, I go to the airport, wait another two hours, catch my flight back home, clock off, and go on vacation.

The cost of this little power trip to the company, you ask?

Total number of my hours: nine hours and thirty minutes paid at twice the usual rate due to the holiday, multiplied by three due to vacation interruption, and multiplied by one and a half for out-of-base work. It came to 2565€.

Travel expenses, including meals: 450€.

So, just because a moron had to have a little moment of dominance over three women, I got an extra 3015€.