Being A Pilot, and Other Good Ideas*

*another good idea: if you call a meeting, you are allowed to set the Meeting Soundtrack, which is any song of your choice.  I do not wish to host any more meetings in which I am not allowed to play 'Funkytown'.  I will sing along, to engage the meeting participants: "Well we talk about it, talk about it, talk about... revenue! *finger guns*" and because you called the meeting, nobody is allowed to leave.  Team, if you are reading this, tomorrow morning's meeting is on.

Today during a particularly trying 15 minutes at work, somewhere between trying the sugarfree RedBull and copy checking the deal for pyjama jeans*, it occurred to me that perhaps I could quit my job and re-train as a pilot.

I have many of the required attributes, like enjoying money and looking good in uniform and saying things like "Cabin crew, prepare the cabin for departure" and "We've now reached our cruising altitude" and "Gentlemen, please! Form an orderly line."

Also I am completely rubbish at parallel parking and I don't think I've ever seen anyone have to parallel park a plane.  Nobody tell the pilot training people about the time that I scraped the car on the fence because the car is big and it was dark.

look I'm sorry about the control tower but normally I drive an A380.

I would probably have to get out of the habit of saying "Ooh!" loudly whenever I make a mistake.

So after work I was still working, but in a relaxed and peaceful manner instead of a panicked, deadline-driven manner, and I saw this and the being-a-pilot thoughts intensified:

Here are some of the things I would do, if I were a pilot:

• Fill the in-flight update with puns:  "This is your captain speaking, the weather looks fine all the way to Auckland, we advise you not to try the cassava crisps because, like your current mode of transport, they're a little plain."

• Break off mid-update to say "...wow, is that a balloon?" and make everyone in the plane look out the window at once

• Throughout the in-flight update, refer to the plane by name.  The name will be something humble yet majestic, like Barnaby or Brucetifer.

• Rap the in-flight update.  I wrote an example line and then got carried away and wrote an example rap and the moral of the story is that I think my copilot will have to write the rap updates (rapdates? sounds like a date with a raptor, or maybe a speed dating event where you are only allowed to speak in verse and incidentally that idea is now my intellectual property so put the phone down) because fuck I am a bad, bad rapper. 

But anyway, here is the example rap (rapxample?)

Pilot (me):

This is your cruising altitude of 30,000 feet
Most of you are waiting for a biscuit you can eat
If you're in a window seat then you can sneak a window peek
There is turbulence ahead, it was worse last week

This is your captain speaking
This is how your captain speak

Copilot, in falsetto:  
this is how your captain do
this is your lovely cabin crew
this is NZ2300, straight outta Timaru**

Pilot (me again):

We on final approach and the weather is fine 

We be on the tarmac by the hour of nine

'cause we refined our flight time by divine design

to coincide with the arrival of the other airline 

now stop!

we switching on the seatbelt sign

Copilot repeats chorus

Pilot (still me):

put on your own mask before helping others
now relax and enjoy your flight, motherfuckers.

- - -

I really don't have anything to follow that.  See you all at flight school.


*tagline: Pajamas you live in.  Jeans you sleep in™.  I'm glad they trademarked it because I can imagine that appearing on a whole lot of other products. 

**please note that this is the actual flight number for Air NZ flights departing Timaru.  I am taking this pilot shit seriously.