You may have heard about him today: he's the Jet Blue flight attendant who apparently "snapped" after he asked a passenger, who was trying to take his luggage out of the overhead before they reached the gate, to have a seat.
The passenger cursed him, and apparently they got into a small shoving match. Afterwards, Slater was mad as hell and wasn't going to take it anymore.
He marched up to the front of the plane, went on the p.a., and cursed out the passenger who cursed him. Then he grabbed two beers, opened the door to the plane triggering an emergency inflatable slide, slid down and drove home where he was later arrested.
The news channels all show him being led away, wearing handcuffs and the very definition of a smirk you want to wipe off his face.
Here's the problem I have with all the Facebook fan pages he's getting for doing something so stupid. Flight attendants? Rude passengers? What do you need, a roadmap? It comes with the territory. It's covered in the training. And if, in fact, he's been in the industry for twenty-eight years like he says, this most definitely wasn't the first time he's been called a few names.
By opening the door and slide, he scared the hell out of the remaining passengers on the plane. He alarmed the pilots and other crew members. And he could have easily injured or killed any of the ground workers who could've been struck by the slide, which deploys at 3,000 pounds per square inch in seconds.
It's not like he's a waiter who just walked out (slid out) mid-shift. He has a bigger responsibility than that.
This, after all, is one of the people you would be depending on in a real emergency to help you get out alive. And by real emergency, I mean something a little more life-threatening than having his feelings hurt because someone swore at him.
If we all stormed off our jobs when we had a really bad day at work, there'd be a lot of jobs to fill.
Steven Slater deserves to lose his job and be charged with reckless endangerment. He does not deserve to be called a folk hero, or get the adoration of anyone - at least for this action.
The real folk heroes are the flight crews who, day in and day out, do their jobs professionally and reliably even in adverse situations. Even with unruly passengers.
Where are their fan pages?
2 comments:
well, bro. i see the potential avalanche here. i hope. mr. slater had poor form. i agree. but there's likely a LOT of employees who're are sick of asshole .."children". they're not clients or customers to him. just belligerent asses to babysit.
as I see it, he's a bernie goetz of the skies.
"Nextime, mr. asshole budget flyer, ya might wanna think twice."
oh. and Slater didn't harm, less kill, anyone. He simply stood his ground.
In a culture that worships train wrecks, a
reasonable voice.
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