Former Delta flight attendant talks about how her ‘dream job’ turned into a nightmare after the company ‘crushed her dreams’
- Annie Hernandez became a flight attendant at Delta straight out of college
- While she thought she had achieved her dream job, her enthusiasm quickly faded
- Her health and lack of a consistent sleep schedule were some of the reasons
A former air hostess has condemned the role that was once her ‘dream job’ after becoming disillusioned with the reality of the role.
Annie Hernandez had just graduated and decided to look for work as quickly as possible to pay off her student loans.
At 22, she got a job as a flight attendant with Delta, which she thought was a dream come true as it allowed her to travel the world – something she hadn’t been able to do much growing up.
But, as she revealed in a slideshow on TikTok, the grunt work that came with it quickly exhausted her — and in successive selfies, she went from smiling broadly to appearing gradually less enthusiastic to outright crying while on the clock.
Annie Hernandez started out excited about her job as a flight attendant at Delta, but her enthusiasm quickly faded as the reality of the job sunk in
“Watch my smile fade as my dream job turned into a nightmare,” she declared in the first of several slides apparently documenting her short stint with the airline.
“This isn’t as great as I expected, but it’s okay, I know the work is worth it,” she wrote in text overlay on a selfie taken from the bounce chair.
In the first of two tearful selfies, she wrote: “The company took advantage of me, and I was driven by fear to say nothing.”
In a second crying selfie, she lamented: “Tears again.
“I’ve learned that I’m just a number to this company, they don’t care about me or my well-being at all.”
The slideshow concluded: “Me on my flight home after my last day. Dreams crushed.”
Annie then outlined her reasons for quitting what was once her dream gig in two other TikTok videos.
Her first reason was her health, arguing, “When I worked for the airline, my health suffered in so many ways that it shouldn’t have happened to me.”
One of the things Annie struggled with in this position was maintaining her health amid the tough schedule and not seeing friends or family for long periods of time.
She then explained that she couldn’t work out because of the “demanding schedule” and physical labor that came with her job, and that by the time she was free, she felt too exhausted to go to the gym.
With that, she felt like the food options were unhealthy, which made her “feel so disgusting,” and she couldn’t commit to meal preparation.
She then described how the job also exacerbated her anxiety, as she never knew what to expect from day to day.
Another major problem was being “constantly” away from her friends and family, while also being “all alone in these big cities” – all of which took a “toll” on her mental health.
‘Sleep too? I never got enough of it because I worked super early in the morning, super later at night. Red eyes,” she explained.
More generally, she had serious problems with the ‘scheduling aspect’ of life as a flight attendant.
“People don’t know this, but flight attendants don’t get paid if their flight is delayed,” she said, citing an instance in which she was delayed for six hours for which she received no additional compensation.
She further emphasized that flight attendants “generally have no say [their] planning’ – nor do they have ‘a say in where’ [they] to go.’
‘Basically the company owns you for the first few years. They tell you where you’re going. They say what time you go. You just really have no say in your schedule,” she continued.
Another of Annie’s biggest complaints was the lack of work-life balance.
“When it comes to work-life balance, I didn’t feel like I had that at all,” she said.
In addition, Annie said that the first-year salary was “terrible” and that she didn’t get enough money for what she “had to deal with.”
DailyMail.com has contacted Delta for comment.