You don't really need to warm up to sing 12 consecutive bars of E flat. If the choir really stinks, it's unlikely the altos will be blamed. You have lots of time to chat during soprano solos. You get to pretend that you are better than the sopranos, because everybody knows that women only sing soprano so they don't have to learn to read music. You can sometimes find part time work singing tenor.
Altos get all the great intervals.
When the sopranos are holding some outrageously high note at the end of an anthem, the altos always get the last words. When the altos miss a note, nobody gets hurt. A minister was planning a wedding at the close of the Sunday morning service. After the benediction he had planned to call the couple down to be married for a brief ceremony before the congregation. For the life of him, he couldn't think of the names of those who were to be married.