Ok, just to make sure that Shawn remembers me (:-p back atcha, girl!), I'm going to actually post twice within a 24 hour period! And also because it felt SO good to get comments from so many of my dear friends here on EX!
I'm so sorry to keep talking about my job, but the job I have is really a lifestyle as much as it is a job and so much of how I live is affected by what happens in my job and here's the latest... Have you guys all been reading about the FAA layoffs? What a nightmare!!! My crew was supposed to fly from Salt Lake City into LAX tonight, which is an easy two hour flight.
But due to FAA layoffs (which they are calling "sequestrations". HUH???), there were only TWO Air Traffic Controllers working the entire Los Angeles airport tonight. TWO? Yes, only TWO guys handling all the hundreds of flights coming in and going out of LAX. To those of us whose safety depends upon those controllers who schedule runway usage and guide flights in and out of airports, THAT is an uncomfortable, almost terrifying, situation. C'mon, one guy gets too tired at the wrong moment? Or spends too long on a bathroom break? Or gets distracted at a critical time? Yikes.
Anyway...due to this crazy FAA stuff, my flight out of SLC was delayed for close to four hours, so now I'm stuck in Los Angeles tonight instead of working the red-eye back to DC. Arrrgh. And I'm admitting that when we walked out of Door 7H and half my crew lit up immediately...for just a second...I wanted a cigarette.
But it WAS for just a second. And it was never a REAL possibility. It was no more than a conditioned response to stress and fatigue. And the very best part of all that was my AWARENESS of my thought process and my subsequent immediate ability to recognize that old smoker's response.
Tonight, I could step outside the momentary craving and brush the feeling off. And I could do that because, when I was getting ready to quit, I had taken the time and effort to EDUCATE myself about nicotine addiction and how nicotine actually makes physical changes in your brain. Once you understand nicotine addiction, it changes the whole way you look at your "need" to smoke. To the new folks: please go read an article entitled, "Nicotine Addiction 101" on whyquit.com. (I know I sound like a broken record when I keep recommending that article...but it made a huge impact on me. I'm hoping it will also make a difference for others.
xxxooo, Sky (P.S. Um...Shawn who? LOL!)
