ONE STEP CLOSER TO BEING UP IN THE AIR.

If you follow me on Twitter, you will be one step ahead in knowing that quite recently, I had an assessment day for a cabin crew position. I was then later successful in that assessment day, resulting in me currently being in what they call 'talent pool'. 

Ever since I was a teeny, weeny girl, I always said to my parents, 'I want to work on an airplane'. My mum smiles widely and laughs every time I say it as she goes on to tell me the multiple stories of how fascinated I always was when I was flying as a child. 

It was just after Christmas when I was browsing the internet for graduate schemes. Three hours later, I found absolutely nothing in connection with what I'm studying at university. It made me upset because it made me doubt what I had spent the last three years learning about. So, I took a bit of a random turn and started looking at different jobs that didn't relate to my subject at all. This ended up looking at cabin crew positions. 

After all, it is something that I've always wanted to do but never had the confidence of applying for. This particular position was for Birmingham Airport too. You could say that it was all meant to be. I applied. But I didn't apply expecting anything from it. I applied for a laugh, if you will. 

After filling in a few questions about why I would be good for the job, I came to a screen that told me that I would expect to hear from the recruitment team within Ten days. 

Ten days. That was a looooong time. 

Every time I heard the sound alert for my emails, I would check. I became obsessed with pulling down and refreshing my emails. So much for applying for a joke because it seemed like the attitude of somebody who cared. 

One day went by, nothing. 

Two days went by.... and I got an email back. The subject of the email: Congratulations. 

I HAD RECEIVED AN INTERVIEW. Ohhhh my God, I had not been expecting that and I found myself crying when I received it. 

The interview was a video one. A simple video interview with two main questions, with sixty seconds to answer each of them. So there I sat, with my pyjamas bottoms on, out of screen, but with a dress on up top. They will never know. 

Again, the process concluded with a screen telling me that I would hear within ten days. 

One day...

Two days...

Three days...

I started to lose hope. I kept reminding myself that I had ten days but considering I had heard in such short time in the last process, I started to build myself up for rejection. 

But on the fifth day, I received another email. This time, I had set the recruitment team's email as VIP on my phone, meaning I would get an actual push notification when they emailed me. My heart stopped. My fingers shook as I opened up the emails. 

Congratulations. 

I WAS INVITED TO AN ASSESSMENT DAY. 

Christmas had come and gone and we were now into the new year. The end of January signalled my assessment day. In short, an assessment day is a day of ice breakers, team building and role playing activities. 

I was petrified. It all started with wondering whether my appearance was good enough. I had tormented myself with thousands of YouTube videos on how I should look and stressing that I didn't look like how the women in these videos suggested. 

On the day, my anxiety only increased when I slowly introduced myself to everybody, and almost all of them having had experience as cabin crew before. I felt the opportunity slipping through my fingers. Tears were in my eyes as I fell into my own thoughts, just desperately wanting to go home. This feeling only increased when we were thrown into our first activity. 

We had to come up with two passenger announcements. We were given a duty free book, and a food and drink book, the common things found in the seat before you on an airplane. We had to pick one product from each and sell it, imagining we were on board and doing it for real. 

The first person to go was an experienced cabin crew. She looked the part and my god, she sounded the part. Her presentation was perfect and I looked down at my piece of paper and panicked. The feeling of wanting to go home got worse and I felt myself starting to cry. I stared a hole in that piece of paper, until my name was called out. It was my turn. 

I stood. My piece of paper in hand, shaking as a result of my nervousness, and my voice breaking as I started. I found myself not even going with what was on my piece of paper and more going off what others had said before me. I crumbled. I had well and truly messed it up for myself. 

It meant that for the rest of the activities up until lunch, I had lost enthusiasm. I just didn't bother because I was certain that I had ended all my chances. 

It came to midday and we knew that lunch time was looming, but we were told that before lunch, we would be told who would be staying for the afternoon and who would be leaving. 

A member of the recruitment team entered the room where we were all held and called out a selection of names. The girl who went first in the passenger announcement activity was in that selection and I wasn't. That was enough for me to know that I hadn't been successful. 

"I'm not going to beat around the bush. I want to thank you all for coming today..."

That's what the member of the recruitment team told the rest of us who were left in that room and my heart sank. I was going home. 

"...but I'm pleased to say that you've all made it through to the afternoon." 

ARE YOU SERIOUS?! 

I HAD MADE IT THROUGH, EVEN THOUGH I COMPLETELY MESSED IT UP?! AND HOW DID THAT OTHER GIRL NOT GET THROUGH?! 

Lunch basically consisted of me panicking, thinking how the hell I was going to get through the next activity, which was a role-play scenario. My absolute nightmare. 

But I came out of that more successful than anything I had done on the morning. 

A short one-to-one interview to end the day and that was it. 

It was the waiting game once again. Ten days. The usual. 

 I was back at university the day after that. I was sat in my lecture and it came to the break. I opened up my phone and checked my phone. It had become an automatic response every time I picked up my phone. 

An email from the recruitment team. 

Congratulations. 

I cried. 

I was successful. 

I had, once again, beat other people who had previously been cabin crew. 

What on earth was going on? 

And here I am. I am in the talent pool, waiting for a response from the Airport about my training date. 

I am that one step closer to being up in the air.