It comes round every 10 months. It’s a right pain for your brain. But pain that is necessary if you want to earn money. Because without, well, you’re screwed.
Before I go anywhere else with what a recurrent training in Safety & Emergency Procedures (SEP) is actually about, I must give credit to Heather Poole for coming up with the expression “Barbie Bootcamp” because that’s what it is. Glossed up, high-maintenance women testing their skills at opening a heavy door and being absolute neurotics during a planned emergency.
So every year or so, we have to freshen up our knowledge on SEP. Meaning our company must, under GCAA and IATA guidelines, test us on our abilities to evacuate, attend a first response case and so forth. This will determine if we are fit to fly for the next 10 months. We will be doing scenarios in the simulators, have written exams here and there, will have to demonstrate a full CPR (Cardio-Pulmonary Rescucitation) in front of a examinator. The process takes two whole, loooooong days and is usually filled with stress, sweat and little sleep.
The 2 weeks prior to those two days are usually very intense (for my case it seems to be that way). Little sleep, a lot of studying and an very odd impression that nothing, absolutely nothing is going into my head at all. Thank god we have the SEP challenges (web-based self-assessment on all things SEP) on our portal so studying is a little easier on the nerves. It’s basically a quiz with thousands of questions ! In the past week I scored pretty much everytime ! So I think I’m kinda set on the questions I might get on the actual exam. As for CPR, I need to practice with a cushion or go to one of their training modules as soon as I come back from Nice (yes I’m blogging from France).
The amount of information we have to digest is incredible. It’s insane. From every piece of loose eauipment onboard the different types of aircraft to the exact number of passengers we can fit on a raft at a specific door or even the differences between Airbus & Boeing aircraft is just mind-blowing. There’s just so much to take on, I really don’t know where to start ! I’ve been at it all through my brilliant Nice layover and getting uber-fed up with it at this point ! We have to learn 3 different types of aircraft and by far the Airbus ones are the hardest for me. These french engineers have no brains at all ! Where’s their logic ? I have no idea but these guys were high at the time, I’m pretty sure ! At times I’m thinking of moving over to the Airbus 380 so I only have one aircraft type to worry about, but just seeing the Airbus way of doing things, it just sets me right back.
I just hope I’ll be ok and pass these two days. We’ll also have a refresher on Hijacking procedures, Dangerous Goods, Bombs and everything nightmare-ish that could happen up there at 38,000 ft. I’m also quite looking for it, because we’ll get to see our old batchmates from the very beginning. Share some gossip and have some laughs hopefully. I already know I’ll be with Szilvia, good times !
Otherwise, my reserve month is starting just after SEP. So I won’t know where I’ll be heading to in May. All I know for sure is that I’ll be moving out of Blue Building and, fingers crossed, be relocated to Al Barsha in a swanky new flat with two new Flatmates (more on that when it actually happens). It will be quite a busy month.
That’s all from me here in Nice, France. Hope you are well. Peace out fools !
Ugh, I have SEP coming up soon too. Better start studying with all this free time on my hands! Though it always seems that the week before SEP is full of min rest trips and callouts, thus ensuring maximum effort to study with very little sleep!
I wish we got to do once a year, at this rate we end up doing 3 times per year (it’s meant to be every six months) but to get it done before expiry mmeans like every 4-5 months… yuck!
Just a note, way back in the 70’s I heard about “Barbie Bootcamp”…it was when they came out with the “Flight Attendant Barbie” and “GI Joe.” Not to take anything away from Heather, but it’s been around for a long time, way before “blogs.”
I’m more worried about First Aid, I hate it with a Passion lol Good luck studying and with the move, BTW the video on the home page is brilliant, reminds me a bit of the tv reality show in the USA called THE AMAZING RACE, which is about people traveling the world with little or no sleep in between destinations and at destinations !!!
Is it a good idea to display your ID #?
I would love to see myself remembering an ID like that lol ! Marco, this isn’t my ID. A made up one. Anything you see on this blog that relates to personal information might it be my info or others, it will most likely be censored/changed.
Okay that is good to know. Just don’t want you getting into trouble.
What are those big red cushions for around the Emergency chutes in the pic above. Are they supposed to represent the inflatable raft? Also noticed the A380 Emergency evacuation trainer!! Perhaps a sign of things to come for you
Just cushions to sit on for waiting all the others to jump and slide…
I can’t see it in the photo, but maybe they just don’t show up very well- do they have nets around the top of the slides? My airline was very very particular about us not falling off the top… we can’t even slide one after the other, we have to wait in between to slide! Takes the fun out of it a bit…