Everyone needs a reminder once in a while

It's easy for us to get used to our jobs and lose sight of how excited people can get about what we do. Sometimes we can just lose sight of how freaking cool our jobs are when we're stuck in a rut. Take for example, a recent 747 flight where we were stuck on the ground for a few hours.

We spent a total of four hours on the ground, more or less stuck on the airplane. A couple hours into the wait, while we were all ready to gouge our eyeballs out just so there was something to do, we invited some airport ops guys who were hanging around to come up and take a look at the airplane.

We ended up hosting about a dozen people, even an 8 year kid. They got to walk around the airplane, roam around the empty main cargo deck, and even hang out on the flight deck. We showed them all the information that's shown on the glass-cockpit displays. We showed them how the systems synoptics changed as pumps and air conditioning units were turned off and on. We answered all sorts of questions about how the airplane worked. Everyone had a blast.

The best part about it was that it was a great reminder of how cool our job can be, even when it starts to feel like a total drag. It was great to see people's faces light up when they walked past that mystical barrier, the flight deck door. Their first look at the displays and the view out the window caused nearly the same reaction from everyone, "Wow"! Thanks for the reminder.