One of the interesting parts about this trip has been the opportunity to see air travel from the airlines' side. I've spoken with people from nearly every part of the industry – ground crew, airport administration, inflight, airline executives, air traffic controllers. Out of all of them, the ones with the most contact with passengers (and arguably the most visible part of any airline) are the flight attendants.

Anybody who's flown, or anybody who knows someone who's flown, or really, anybody who doesn't live in a cave has some sort of story about a flight attendant. With airport staff left on the ground and pilots locked behind an armored door, they're the people passengers have to interact with, for better or for worse.

And so, I took some time between speaking with seatmates and catching up on sleep to talk to the people behind the drink cart. All for you, Wired. All for you.

A few steps away from beginning work as a controller, I knew some of the qualifications for that particular role: you can visualize things 3D well, you're a good multitasker, you're a geek, you're up late at night anyway and may as well be working.

The entry into direct, daily interactions with passengers was a mystery to me, though, so the question I'd lead off with most often was how attendants got into their job. The first one I met was Pascal. One of the more senior crew members, he joined JetBlue "before anybody heard of it." On a furlough from Air France, Pascal saw an ad in a supermarket and signed on.

But cases like Pascal's, where an employee signs on through their own initiative, tended to be more rare. More often attendants find themselves with an airline through friends or family. Michael, working alongside Pascal, had been encouraged to sign up through a former coworker. Both Frank and Kelley, who I spoke with on a later flight, also had friends in the industry. And Pat, who had been with JetBlue for nine years, had no intention of becoming an attendant whatsoever.

"I never, never, never wanted to do this," she explained, scooping ice into cups as we spoke. "I went to a hiring event – a cattle call, really – that a pilot friend said I'd be good at." Several rounds of interviews followed, and out of three hundred initial applicants, Pat was one of only three chosen.

Seem like a competitive field for a simple job? Passengers only see a small portion of what attendants are trained for. "People think that the FA's are just there for drinks and stuff," explained Pedro Hernandez during my recent visit to JetBlue's training facility in Orlando. "The training is extensive. And demanding. If they miss just one minute of it, they're warned and have to repeat the entire course. The second time it happens, they're fired."

Matthew Keogan, who teamed up with Hernandez to take me through some of the attendant duties in the facility's full-motion simulator, agreed. "What you seen on the planes, serving drinks and doing a briefing, that's the perception of what we do. We spend like one to two days on that, and twenty one days on the safety things." And that's just the initial training, which doesn't include the continuing education and recurrent training that attendants must go through on a regular basis.

But the less of the attendants' training passenger see, the better, as the bulk of it is on how to safely and effectively handle crises. Belligerent passengers, drunks, and handling a growing number of air rage cases are just the start (and on that note, don't try starting any fights with attendants, who go through extensive self-defense conditioning). Weightier issues of identifying system failures before pilots are able to, managing water and land ditches, controlling inflight fires, and ensuring the safety and survival of passengers during emergencies are all covered.

With that said, the American airline industry is one of the safest in the world, so most of our experiences with flight attendants are much more mundane. That doesn't mean the job is boring, though. I've spoken with over a hundred attendants by this point, and I've only found one who expressed any dissatisfaction with their career. "I love it," said Pascal. "It's the schedule, the independence of what you're doing."

"You don't have a boss standing over your shoulder every day," added Michael. Among other reasons given were travel benefits – employees are generally allowed to travel for free on other airlines – the opportunity to meet new people, the unique nature of the job, and in a few rare cases, even the pay. While the ongoing slump in air traffic since 9/11 has taken its toll, senior attendants can still make upwards of $60,000.

However, the drop in scheduled flights, along with fare wars, slashed amenities, and the commonality of air travel have taken away some of the allure of the job. "It's lost all of its glamour since 9/11," explained Michael. "Passengers aren't what they used to be. I remember when you would walk through the terminal," he said, making a spreading motion with his hands as he spoke, "and people would part the way for us. Now, we get shoved around."

The drop in respect for a once venerated job extends well past the terminal, of course. But it's only one side of the erratic behavior of some passengers. The pressures of air travel, which have become second nature to me by this point, cause some people to act in strange ways. If you ever find yourself bored on a long flight, head back to the galley to solicit stories from the attendants. They've seen it all.

"Calls asking if I'll change the TV channel for them. Or fights over armrests, we see that sometimes. And people who won't clean up after themselves," said Frank.

"Things you'll find in seatback pockets," added Michael. "I've found dirty diapers, bloody tampons, used condoms, band aids, fingernail clippings."

Going to the restroom without shoes was one that Kelley saw a lot. "Or the way people'll ask what we serve when we've told them three times and have a menu in the seatback pocket. They'll ask for things we don't have, like sandwiches. And people who'll do rude things to get your attention, like poking or snapping their fingers at you."

Pascal's story was one of the best. He told me about a passenger who brought a massive box of frozen fish onboard and placed it in the overhead bin, unbeknownst to the crew. Midway through the flight, it began to melt, dripping down onto the passengers sitting beneath it. The smell spread through the cabin.

As an ironic epilogue to Pascal's story, I experienced something similar myself a few days later when my flight out of Boston was briefly delayed. Apparently we were overweight and needed a few extra minutes to remove excess cargo from the baggage compartment. The culprit? Frozen seafood.

"We have a saying about troublemakers," said Michael. "They check their brains when they check their bag."

Having seen my share of bizarre passenger behavior over the past three weeks, I can sympathize with what attendants have to put up with. And while the relentless schedule I've maintained hasn't dampened my enthusiasm for a future role in the industry, the day-in, day-out duties of an attendant give me pause.

"So in the end, do you still like your job?" I asked Frank and Kelley.

"Definitely," Kelley responded, without hesitation. "Our job is what you make of it. You don't know what passengers have seen in the airport, why some are stressed. One of our roles is to make them smile. After all, if they're not in their seats, I don't have a job."

Other notes from the terminal: Well, the inevitable happened - airport food finally caught up with me. Really, I expected to start having problems with it sooner, but food quality has improved since airlines started cutting meals. On Friday, in Ft. Lauderdale, this post was interrupted as I got sick over something I had eaten recently. I'm most of the way back now, but will be laying off some of the heavier stuff for another day or two. Besides, there's always more $9 salads to be had.

Follow Terminal Man’s travels on Twitter @Flyered and check out his itinerary on Google Maps. An RSS feed of his posts is available here. You can also track his flights on Saturday to Orlando, New York and Burlington, and those on Sunday to New York and Phoenix through FlightAware. And check out his previous posts here.

Photos: Brendan Ross / Wired.com. The main photo shows Pat, Michael and Pascal on Flight 296.