Poole says that after training she and the other flight attendants were given four days to find a place to live in New York, a tough task with their low beginning salary. (She made less than $18,000 a year.) In the first few years of working on the beginning salary, Poole remembers hoping that passengers would refuse their in-flight meals as she passed them out. She knew fellow flight attendants who would go on flights to get the airline food for no charge, and remembers other co-workers who accepted offers of dinner dates from a men they didn't necessarily like, just to get a free meal.
