Uniform and the public: being recognised in the supermarket, the questions in the street, and the one time it mattered

Emirates, South African, and I stopped at a supermarket in uniform after a flight last week and got three conversations, one photo request and a job application from a teenager's mother. This is a normal Tuesday. Let us collect the uniform in public experiences, because they range from lovely to strange to occasionally important.

Lovely

The elderly man in Dubai who saluted, formally. The child who asked if I was a pilot and, told no, said 'that is better, you get to talk to people'. The woman in Johannesburg who said her daughter had just joined and asked if she would be all right, and I said yes and meant it.

Strange

The questions. Can you get me a discount. Do you know my cousin who is also cabin crew at a different airline in a different country. Is it true about the pilots. Do you get scared. Have you met anyone famous (yes, they are shorter than you think, all of them).

The photo requests, which have a specific etiquette: yes if it is a child, yes if it is quick, no if it is a man who wants his arm around you, and a smile that ends the conversation.

The one time it mattered

A man collapsed in the airport terminal, not on my flight, not my responsibility, and I was in uniform walking to the bus. The uniform meant the crowd parted and let me through, the uniform meant the man's wife trusted me instantly, and the training meant I knew what to do until the paramedics came. He was fine. The uniform did half the work.

The rules

In uniform you represent the airline, always, and the airline knows it: no eating in the street in some airlines' rules, no drinking anywhere in uniform, no visible phone use in the terminal at some carriers. It sounds strict and it is, and on the day a man collapses and the crowd parts, you understand what the uniform is for.

Yours. The lovely, the strange, and the ones that mattered.