I’ve just received a company-wide message from the airline that I work for telling me, “All cabin crew are invited to wear Christmas hats over the festive period!” The exclamation mark at the end suggests the company thinks we’ll all be utterly delighted at the thought of it. I’m not: I feel weird enough in a uniform already, and adding a Santa hat is more enforced jollity than I can take.
I’m not one of those cabin crew who’s dreamed of doing the job since I was a kid. I just made the mistake of doing a journalism degree without having rich parents. I was a millennial with inflated expectations, and I’m paying the price, OK? I’ll dress up and smile and serve you mini pretzels, with pleasure – after all, it’s my job. But please don’t make me wear the stupid hat as well.
The truth is, I’ve worn hilarious headgear every Christmas for the past eight years and this year, well, I’m just not doing it. I have a hard enough time trying to assert my authority over lairy drunks who get over-merry with the free onboard bar, and that’s without having a set of fluffy antlers wedged on my head. I may get called a scrooge for being the only odd one who doesn’t want to partake in the jolly headwear, but I’m taking a stand this year.
Anyone who wears a uniform will tell you that a funny thing happens as soon as you put it on. You lose your personality and status as an individual and become the walking representative and embodiment of a company. I’m no longer Meryl, I’m a brand. Over the years, I’ve grown to quite like the anonymity of the uniform, the surrendering of myself to the greater corporate power. I even have a personality to go with it: bland, serene, relaxed. I don’t take anything personally, because I’m not a person any more. It’s nice in a way: like getting immersed in portraying a character in a play. And then they go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like, “We invite you to wear a hat this festive season!”
What I hate most about silly costume season is the look people give me, which says: “Oh God, you’re not really dressed like that on purpose, are you?” As if I’m Will Ferrell in Elf, about to burst into song and ruin their day. Here’s one thing I want to make absolutely clear: the next time you’re in a shop, restaurant or bar and you see some poor sucker wearing Christmas get-up, it probably wasn’t their idea. The company has probably invited them to wear it. Perhaps they really need the Christmas tips.
In the past few years, there have been huge strides made towards genuine freedom of expression for cabin crew members. Although it may seem a small issue to some, we are no longer forced to wear high heels and lipstick, for example, whereas only a few years ago you’d actually be given a warning if your lipstick wasn’t permanently topped up. On some airlines, male staff can wear skirts and dresses, and women can wear trousers. It’s hard to believe, but when I first started the job, women had to apply for written permission to wear trousers onboard. In less than a decade, there have been so many changes to the once famously strict aviation uniform codes that it’s hard to fathom how such draconian standards even existed.
Let’s not forget how far we’ve come.
So, when I first saw the company message delighting in telling us that stupid hat season was upon us, my first reaction was to cringe. Until I remembered: I don’t have to do it this year. So I won’t. And if there’s anyone else out there in the customer-facing service industries this Christmas who is dreading the hat (not to mention what it does to your hair when you take it off), let’s all take a stand and do this together. Free the head! Down with forced festive cheer! Merry Christmas and bah humbug to it all.
Meryl Love is the pseudonym of a crew member working for an international airline
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