I must say, from the very start that my years at SAS were probably some of the happiest years I spent working. Having said that, I must also admit that if someone was to ask me how it was while I was going through that time, the answer would be a little different. All of the bad times, when looked at after some years, turned the corner and made them good times.
I was a young 19 year old when I was first introduced to SAS, by my next door neighbor, who worked in the accounting department. I was interviewed for a job and perhaps it was my Post Office experience that I had acquired in the months after high school that led to my being immediately hired as a mail boy. Who really cared what the job was, all I could think of in those days were beautiful Swedish girls with blonde hair and blue eyes and beautiful long legs. Stockholm, OOHH!!!! the city of free love.............wrong!!!!. Never the less, a head office job, where all of the big wigs hung out, I'm sure to get recognized for my talents there. "MAIL BOY?" said my father, "your giving up going to collage for that?" " but dad, The deal was, that if Princeton would not take me, it's off to work I go. I can always pick and choose college courses later and pick up some knowledge, besides I learned a lot in high school. What more is there to learn right now? " The mail room job turned out fantastically, During the time that bonuses were being paid out, I was extremely popular. I got all the information at least 1 day before personnel got it. You see, I was able to see the memo's coming down from the top dogs to personnel advising how much moola was being paid for each point employees earned. The point system was very easy to figure out. You earned points for years of service, sick leave not taken, job description, last evaluation, all information employees knew of themselves. All they needed now was dollar value per point. Mail boys had that info. There was nothing wrong with giving out this info. the memo's were not sealed and always delivered to personnel the same day as received, usually the last mail pick-up, so the employees would know either the next day or two. Now, also immediately next door to the mail room was the advertising stock room. All the latest items that were purchased to give out as advertising gimmicks. These were given to big accounts, travel agents etc. I still have a few. Here again, nothing dishonest, these items were there to be given out. One of the brightest moments was the Christmas party held in the Presidents office on the last day of work before the holiday. I still have on 8MM film this party, even to the point of having the Presidents chauffeur sitting with his feet up on the Presidents desk......what a hoot......
It wasn't long (about 6 months) that it became apparent my talents were found by the upper echelon. I was called into the managers office and told that personnel wanted to speak to me about a promotion. Funny, how this played out, it was also the end to my probation time and I also passed two other people that had been in the department longer. WOW!!! I sat down with the personnel manager and he explained two jobs I could go into. One was Cargo.......eeeehhhhh no thanks this 159 lb. body over a very lanky frame could not push boxes around a warehouse. Telephone Sales,......now we're talking.......or as they called it in those days, inside sales. Nowadays....reservations agent....what the hell, I knew the department from delivering mail to it, girls seemed nice and I was able to make friends with the manager and his assistant........SURE.....I'll give it a try. Turned out pretty nice. First week sent for training in the sales department training room, two doors away from the mail room, my old stomping ground. After that week, I was sent back up and began my new job. I had the have a supervisor, listen in on all my calls and every time I showed any sign of an error, she would signal me to put the caller on hold, we would discuss the situation and back I went to the customer. I never had any fear of talking to customers and covered my little errors with expertise about nothing. My peers turned out to be extremely nice and my popularity began to soar. During my years there, our department formed a softball team to play any and all other departments, held parties that started at 11 PM, since some people had to work shifts, started a happy hour club at the tavern across the street from head office, excelled in dart throwing and beer chugging and mastered the art of selling vacation trip beyond what the aircraft would hold. AAAHHHHH its OK they will take care of it at the airport. In fact, we did so well one year that they had to call in a staff from Copenhagen, just to offload foreign passengers and we in return sent a staff of agents to Copenhagen to do the same for returning US passengers. SayLaVi.
I made my first oversees trip within that first year......to....of course....Sweden just to see if all the rumors were true. Well, much to my surprise, the Swedish girls, I would have taken home to mom were very hard to meet and it wasn't long I found the only way to meet them was to be formally introduced to them. Guess, I had to pull something out of the hat. I remember going into the Stockholm city office and introducing myself to a agent as a colleague from America with the excuse of needing to list myself for a flight back home. She, wanting to know about New York, agreed to have a cup of coffee with me. Now, I had a friend that would introduce me to other friends. Way to Go!!!! I found out that she was also the daughter of the owner of SAAB MOTORS and would be coming over to New York to work for a short time and was bringing a girl friend over to work temporarily in the head office. Did I step in it or what??? It turned out that she was also one of Sweden's top rally car drivers, only one thing on the questionable list, she was a good 2",s taller than me, but who cares, I could easily get that with pads in my shoes.
That first trip, still remains in my mind. I will never forget it as it gave me an extra 16 days in Copenhagen. Of course at the time it was horrible, but then I keep remembering the good things. I was listed for the flight and placed on the standby list. Each day I went to the airport and stood by for the flight back to New York. Each day, it would end up the same way, no seats left for me. The bad part was that each day there were other employees trying to get back home to the states and I found that they were also being added to the ever increasing numbers of stand bys. We all tried with great difficulty to conserve money for hotels, we even moved in with each other or sneaked into someones room to sleep on a couch or in a chair since money was now becoming tight. Those lucky enough to be traveling on company business could go into the SAS office to draw on perdiem and would lend money to those that did not have any available. The list grew and on the 15th day, the now up to 60 standby passengers were once again told no room....but the bright side was near. The President of SAS, inc. now had convinced the higher echelon in Stockholm to put another flight on just for the standbys since 60 employees was probably 1/3 of all the North American employees at that time. That night I remember sleeping at a place called the Dixie bar, since rooms were now becoming overcrowded and everything seemed to go by seniority. I ordered one beer, sat down at a table, sipped my beer and finally my head just hit the table. Some people did not know if I was knocked out or just sleeping. It was about 6 am when my eyes opened and I could see familiar faces around the table all looking the same. Time for breakfast,(rest of the beer) and out to the airport.......again. The time with a different result, All 60 employees made it back on "SAS Party Flight 911A" It was so very nice to circle JFK. Always wondered if that was a payback compliments of the airport staff for overbooking so many flights.
