News accounts of the sudden departure of flight attendant Steven Slater from his JetBlue plane on the tarmac in New York City portray him as a besieged worker fed up with the thoughtless treatment he was receiving from passengers. Reports about the reckless endangerment charges facing Mr. Slater usually hint that he has achieved folk hero status among service workers who also feel exasperation at the behavior of the people they are serving.
Personally, I find it hard to laud Mr. Slater. What I’ve heard about his reaction to a boorish passenger (cursing on the intercom, grabbing a beer, hitting the emergency escape chute and sliding to the ground) sounds like a case of a grown man having a childish tantrum. Still, a tantrum will draw attention, and in some cases, fans.
It is not unprecedented in the annals of transportation for irresponsible renegades to win accolades for their foolish mistakes. Casey Jones comes to mind. He’d be unknown today if he hadn’t been driving the train too fast just to get it into the station in time. What was the rush? Back then it was easier to get an ode or a ballad written about you if you had the throttle and died using it.
These days you don’t have to be in charge, you just need to make a Big Gesture.
And it doesn’t hurt to do it in the most news-starved part of summer. Carping about “the public” passes for a type of heroism today. In a different era, Steven Slater’s antics might have led to the creation of a timeless ballad.
Something like this.
Tall tales are told of the trains of old
And their legendary crews.
How they pushed for time is extolled in rhyme
And musicians play their blues.But there is no doubt that one man stands out.
The conductor, William Lyle.
How one day at work he went quite berserk
When they would not clear the aisle.Old 98 was four hours late
And the passengers were tense.
They’d been slow to start, but with speed and heart,
They’d arrive an hour hence.The brave engineer was immune to fear
As his engine gulped for air.
But the brakeman knew, and the fireman too
That these riders didn’t care.For they filled each bench with the meanest stench.
They were dressed in prison stripes.
And each one was fated – Incarcerated!
For crimes of the foulest types.These bleak disapproved were all being moved
for the public. To assure
that these reprobates would serve out their dates
In a prison more secure.And among them strode on this steel rail road
The conductor, William Lyle.
He was not a fool. He had one firm rule
That they must not crowd the aisle.When the engine died outside Telluride
There was very deep concern.
That these souls in pain would, as one, de-train.
And then never would return.They were common robbers. Big bank jobbers.
Murderers and thieves.
Shooters. Stranglers. And grammar manglers.
Who all might take their leaves.Several of them stood. There was no one good
And most couldn’t have been worse.
Going for their duffels, they broke out in scuffles.
They were not afraid to curse.There was just one force keeping peace, of course.
The conductor William Lyle.
Who said on the spot, “You’re a nasty lot,”
“But you must not crowd the aisle.”Did they just not hear? In their rage and fear
They became an angry hoard.
The conductor brave, his own life to save
Chose at that point to un-board.He kicked out the door and dove out before
He could suffer more from fools
Even though his act was a first. In fact,
he broke just as many rules.He flew out of sight to inky night
Mr. Lyle was heard to rave,
“You’re a lawless bunch but I had no hunch
That you all could not behave!”
When is it right to exit in a huff?
Trail Baboon 
Rise and Drip Babooners:
2.5 inches in the rain gauge this a.m. in EP. (On top of the 3″ last weekend. Is this August?). And a shaking, traumatized dog in my bed. Sigh.
I don’t know that I ever heard or saw an entire, coherent report of the Case of the Exiting Flight Attendant; but I have to say that what I did see was mighty alluring. How many times have I been in work, family, personal situations in which an exit slide is a fantasy come true?! That is what caught my attention — push a button and slide out of the problem. Kind of like Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak. Poof. It’s gone, I’m gone.
Are there rules for exiting in a huff? Maybe we are making them here. Personally, I try not to do it too often. Making a habit of leaving mad is really hard on relationships. At the beginning of my career I decided to give myself one free exit out of a bad job which I used in 1998. Before and after that I just needed to cope with the situation. However, there are some situations that beg to be left in a huff.
I have a long running fantasy of somehow making Rush Limbaugh SHUT UP–YOU ARE SO FOOLISH. An exit slide out of that kind of verbal onslaught is so attractive. (My dad called that diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain). My real exit slide is the remote control, I guess. Or with MPR, ending my sustaining membership.
TGIF
Maybe the rule
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“Take this job and SHOVE IT!” Ah, how many hours I’ve wasted thinking of that while toiling in some nasty job with a boss from hell. It is fun to plan a grand gesture as one leaves such a job. But in the end, my innate Midwestern sweetness just won’t let me howl a memorable exit line as I bolt out the door and slam it behind me. And practically speaking, the same people who oppress you in one job are likely to show up in your life later on (and oppress you again in a new setting). Don’t be too quick to assume you have seen the last of any jerk you leave when you quit a job.
What I’ve heard is that this flight attendant had quite a bit of the jerk in him. Passengers reported that he was insolent and caustic even before the incident with the storage area door. I suspect I wouldn’t like him any better than I’ve liked some of my worst bosses. What he did was to make a really cool gesture as he exited.
And what seems so sad is how quickly people have made him a folk hero. That can only mean that a LOT of people are working in their cubicles while fuming with resentment at the way they are treated. They fantasize about throwing a computer through a window as they quit and storm out, giving the boss the finger as they go.
I quit the best job I ever had when working conditions became intolerable. Boy, did I want to make a grand exit, sliding down the chute with a beer. My boss was a sanctimonious hypocrite who lectured us endlessly on morality but then got drunk at a Christmas party and pawed a secretary so hard I’m not sure her left ever matched her right again. I had a few things I could have said to him that would have made me a legend at that business. Instead I did what was really true to my nature. On my last day I went around to people in the business I admired and had exit interviews with them, laughing about the times we had shared and making it clear that I had enjoyed working with them. I’m not sure you triumph over a jerk by becoming one yourself.
I’m cabin bound, Babooners. Tomorrow is Cornucopia Day, a really cute community festival. I haven’t been to it in years. They have an old commercial fisherman that they drag out and set him up on a stage to describe the old days. He is so terrified by this that he has to be drunk to do it, but it is a challenge to knock down just the right amount of schnapps. If he doesn’t drink enough, he can’t get on the stage; if he drinks a bit too much he can get up but then can’t speak.
Have a glorious weekend with reduced dew points!
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The Old Commercial Fisherman sounds like fun– if he gets the right amount. Enjoy your weekend!
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the secret of life…get the right amount.
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if i left in a huff i’d have to back out because the sight of my backside might make those i was intending to insult break out in laughter. those exits, in general, tend to make me giggle (which really doesn’t help the situation) – in fact, those kinds of yelling, mad-as-heck events tend to make me giggle. (except, of course, when i’m mad as heck:-)
i don’t think huffing is very effective. my husband really only needs to tighten his upper lip – ever so slightly – to communicate his displeasure.
with jobs i’ve been lucky – but Duluth is a small town, so if one slid down an exit slide in a huff one would probably be looking at long term unemployment.
good morning, All!
still wet and sticky here
AND THE FLIES!!!!!
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“If you can’t leave in a huff, leave in a minute and huff.”
Well, if the Stuts Bearcat is in the garage, you would have to leave in the Huff.
My ploy is to leave silently and never come back.
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clyde they need to change the dosage on your meds. your brain is out ther today.
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Duck Soup: Groucho says, “You’d better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can’t get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that’s too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff.”
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ok i got the minute and a huff but i didn’t tie together the leave in a huff because the stutz bearcat is in the garage.
you can leave the dosages alone.
there are rules in my house when channel surfing. you must stop at once for leave it to beaver, andy when opie was little and barney was there, and all marx brothers movies. those guys were the best. was it you who informed us that no one ever heard harpos voice? or at least it was never recorded in an interview?
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Exiting in a huff falls outside the range of my potential behaviors, so I’m not really qualified to decide when it might be acceptable.
Went to hear Dr John at Dakota Bar & Grill last night. That was a pretty fun performance.
‘Morning, all.
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i went to see him last year when he was there. great stuff. love the dakota.
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tim, Wither beest thou?
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love the dakota, too.
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spokane, pacific time raise hell with am blogging. when i turned on my computer last night after the legion banquet and two beers with the parents, it said it was 1:45. my computer stays on central time to help me remember where i need to reference my world from.
so when i got up at 7 it was 9 in baboonland.
clyde, george brett was the speaker and did a rousing job of being a motovational speaker telling the boys to work hard and develop their average abilities into above average by wanting it and keep a positive vision in front of you (i was impressed with the presentation) but he would not shake hands, sign autographs or make himself available for interaction. seemed like a guy who is a bit resentful of the burdan celebrity has put on him. i had heard he was anti autograph, but i thought it was a great presentation by a guy who is not totally happy in his skin. watch out what you wish for. he is a star who comes to be admired but doesn’t want to talk about it. oh well.
turns out his family owns the minor league baseball team and the hockey team in spokane. spokane appears to be stuff to do starved community.
sorry to hear about all the water up there. i imagine the bike riding is a bit treacherous.
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tim, thanks for telling me about Brett.
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I’ve always endeavored to anticipate when the last straw might come, and leave three or four straws short of that. That’s helpful if you’re the sort of person who likes to avoid the spotlight. (Steven Slater obviously isn’t.)
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Morning – quiet group today…
The big storms skirted just North of us so we only got about half an inch (so far) with lots of thunder and lightning…. didn’t get much sleep either with the storms waking me up at 3 and 5.
I can’t seem to find any sympathy for Mr. Slater… I understand he was fed up and perhaps the woman was having a bad day as well, but when you make that much of an exit… well, even if in hindsight he realizes ‘Gee, that wasn’t the best way to handle that…’ I don’t think the airline should give him that job back. A different one perhaps but I don’t think he should be a flight attendant anymore.
I will admit that in one tech rehearsal I threw off my headset and stormed out. Yep, just fed up with everyone and everything. Actually, I didn’t quite get out… stood in the middle of the stage having a, um, ‘ loud discussion’ with the people involved and then we got back to work. (There was only 3 or 4 of us in the theater).
Milking cows it was easier to get fed up with those 4 legged beasts. Especially in weather like last week; hot, dirty, sweaty and then that tail in the face and you just have to go take a walk for a few minutes. But, see the problem in that situation is, you still have to go back and finish the work; the cows aren’t milking themselves.
I think that’s why I never had much patience for a co-worker who would threaten to “Quit and walk out of here!” every couple days. “So just go already!”
My Mom tells of me playing with a neighbor kid when I was about 10 and him saying if he didn’t get his way he would go home and I said ‘So go!’…. the kid didn’t know what to do then…
Had a college student here a few years ago, he was in the audience watching a play and was on his second loud cell phone conversation. I went out and told him to get off the phone or leave. He got mad. I got mad. I put my finger in his face, he called me names– and at that point I just left; clearly I wasn’t going to ‘win’ this argument.
He went to the teacher to complain about me; thankfully the teacher supported me.
A few weeks later this kid came into the shop to work. We both apologized for our behavior and agreed we could have handled it better. He was a good worker.
So, you should only exit in a huff if you’re going to learn something from it.
Have a great weekend– enjoy the cooler weather!
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I think I’m too Minnesotan (and too Lutheran) to be capable of a good huff. Or at least leaving in one. I did once throw a prop table across a stage when I was ticked off – but it was a table that needed to come apart anyway. And I made sure I was alone before I did it…or at least I thought I did. A guy who was not understanding “no” (getting back to an earlier topic this week) saw me toss that table and decided that if I was capable of that, I probably really did mean “no” and not “maybe” or “yes, but only if you ask five more times.”
Leaving a job in a huff? I wouldn’t want to burn any bridges by doing that. And I have been blessed with jobs that have mostly been pretty good. Did find myself one that I decided wasn’t a good fit (who gets dinged during an employee review for having too large a vocabulary?…me, it would seem) and did my best to leave gracefully – which has paid off in the long run.
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Dale, your funny poem at the end reminds me of the guy who ducked a foul ball right in front of his girlfriend, only to be dumped.
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Clyde – I saw that video clip. I think the sappiest thing was the guy tried to finesse (that is, lie) his way way out of looking like the cad he was. Best case scenario: the woman involved would have had her glove with her so that she could have made the catch, kept the ball and THEN dumped her boyfriend : )
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I would leave in a huff by slamming doors — when in an argument with Ma, Sister, Former Husband. But, as mentioned above in other ways, eventually you have to come out of your room.
Thanks for covering this, Dale – I’d hoped you’d use it, so I didn’t read the articles… 🙂
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dale what a poem! excellent epic poem of the gut with the 15 minutes of celebrity. i have been driving from sun up until sundown for the last couple of days and the discussions on this guy are enough to make you sick. the people who want to say this guy was the role model to live up to are enough to make you understand why its nice to stay home sometimes. the world does have a relatively large population of twits out there.
the guy goes to work for a new york city based airline and is surprised when the people he is flying back to nyc are rude and abrasive. look around you little twit they were all rude and abrasive when you took the job to be their server as your job of choice. new york is famous for people who are brilliantly “in your ear” to whatever your problems may be.
if a passenger got fed up with a bad flight attendant and pulled the cord to open the slide they would put him away for a long time.
i’ve had it with you, i’m throwing my shoe
and running right out of the door.
i’m taking my ball and leaving you all
i’m not taking this crap anymore
i’ll just grab my wife and run for my life
and live in complete isolation
i’ll move to a cave where i just have to behave
and avoid twit contemplation
i have problems with folks who dont laugh at my jokes
who are not who i’d like them to be
so if i just stomp my feet and tell then to retreat
unless they fulfill my decree
the attendant was huffy and his head was a bit puffy
from banging it on the overhead rack
today folks pack their bag to avoid added price tag
from airlines who cut you no slack
he was abusive abrasive and quite in your facive
not the traits wanted in your air elf
you want me to serve you? youve got lots of nerve. you
should leave me alone, screw yourself.
for the rude little man to be racking up fans
for behavior they would all like to model
its quite easy to do, its simply up to you
to consume the contents of a bottle
a jerk, a big zero, a self proclaimed hero
a real life state of the state
what have we become to elevate this bum
to admire him, i just can’t relate.
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“…twit contemplation…” Love it!
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Oh tim, I held managed to stay composed until:
“he was abusive abrasive and quite in your facive” —
well done! 🙂
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“All the burning bridges that have fallen behind me……”
A big cyber prize to any and all who know the origin of that lyric. Hints will be given.
I am too big of a coward for the big dramatic exit. Mine big exits involve keys being left in the early born, rosy-fingered dawn.
I do have a story of marginal provenence from the San Francisco Opera for you:
Fitting non-standard size people is a large part of the job, but sometimes plus-size people have some unrealistic expectations. We do our best, but sometimes, that is just not good enough. As they say, the show must go on-but at some point, one decides it is going on without them.
I am told that the head draper was once fitting Pavaroti and things were not going well. At one point, the maestro burst out with, “this makes me look fat!” to which the draper responded, “Mr. Pavaroti, you ARE fat”, picked up his scissors, turned on his heel and left, knowing he would never return.
True story or urban legend, I leave it to you, dear friends.
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I know many costumers (and other theater folks) who would probably like it to be true – whether it is, or not.
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Morning all! Did any of you happen to hear Mr Slater’s mother’s comments on his behavior? She supported it 100%. Said she couldn’t blame him and that she would probably do the very same thing. Sheesh! I was amazed and had to think about what my Mom’s reaction would be:
My Mom would say,
to S.S’s display:
“Come down off your pedestal, Bub!
You’re acting so foolish! So Junior High-schoolish!
Get upstairs and scrub out the tub!”
Mom had zero tolerance
When her kids acted like a dunce,
And her cure was to work us like heck.
We couldn’t ‘slide’ out of it,
Would not have dared thought of it –
We knew she’d be coming to check!
So to S.S. I say,
“At the end of the day.
Mom set some good rules down in stone.
We learned to endure,
Rise above, feel secure;
And to leave slip-n-slides back at home.”
Thanks, Mom
Mom had zero tolerance
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i like your poem ,
i like your mom!
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Suspicions confirmed. Bad behavior is learned. I have a mom like yours. I hope I AM a mom like yours. I begin to realize we are the minority.
What a world.
Go to pick up the s&h this afternoon, so life can get back to normal at our house.
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Nicely done, Thyrkas!
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I’d like to think I WAS that MOM. If Visiting Geek tunes in he can tell you.
LIKE Thyrkas
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Good Morning to All
There have been a few times when I have left in a huff. Some times I just do not want to hear another word said on some topics by people who don’t see any thing wrong with doing some very horrible things. Enough said on that.
In some cases it would be good to leave very fast. What is the saying about “better to run and live to fight another day”? The fast exit approach might be especially good after using some poorly choosen words. Also, certain gestures could get a response that would make a quick exit desireable, but I guess retreating is not the same as leaving in a huff.
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This is a welcome relief, Mr Connelly. Good to read your words again.
I just found Trail Baboon, after missing out on so much of what went before. I was a lurker on the old Trial Balloon, and a long time listener (20+ years) of The Morning Show, the Radio Heartland.
I was stunned by what happened to you. Stunned, saddened, shaken, sent into a deep funk. We’ve stopped listening to Radio Heartland via robot and HD. Just not a lot of there there. Mornings are so much reduced now. Apparently quality means very little anymore.
Enough. No more about that. I just wanted to say Thank You, however belatedly, for all of the joyful hours of great mornings, listening and laughing and getting the day started properly.
Final thought: about this infamous “quitting”: my thought was about the nervous passengers, hearing this over the speakers. Reading what people said they heard, made me very glad I was not there, for to me it sounded like the ravings of a crazy man who was about to take everyone else with him. Which is why I hate sitting in those flying tin cans, waiting for the jet fuel to ignite and thrust me into the sky. Hearing his parting words would have been such a comfort, don’t you think? No? Perhaps not.
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welcome bc. the old lurkers and many regular bloggers of the past have found a comfortable home here. mike pengra still blogs in lurker form for the most part and the snappy patter of the old radio show are missed but in a remembering the old days sort of way. encourage dale with us to figure out a way to crank it back up in one form or another. for now the blog has developed into a living entity of its own and taken a new form with spinoffs into the book club, poetry collection, recipe collection and a way to link your stuff to the mix with photographers, quote collections and the like. check it out and play the music of choice in the background.
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Yes – welcome bc. I hope you will visit often and join the conversation when the spirit moves you. And thanks, Tim, for the great paragraph describing life here at the Trail Baboon – very nicely put!
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Thanks for the kind words, bc! Nice to have you aboard. Store your bags overhead or under the seat in front and keep your seat belt fastened unless we turn off the light! You are a good example of why I have no real standing to comment on customer service issues – public radio listeners are unfailingly polite.
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Um, this is a tough one for me – on a lot of levels.
I wrote a small thesis on this topic, but I’ve just deleted it. Suffice it to say that customer service representatives, attendants, clerks and assistants of all kinds respond to situations that they did not create every day. They are always required to smile and be pleasant while being blamed for every imaginable fault of the universe. They need their jobs. They will smile while being treated badly.
Recently, someone whose “friendship” I accepted on Facebook wrote an entry about making a trip to Target, ostensibly to return some item of cheap plastic that he never really needed anyway, but really to rail on the first Target employee he encountered. One person commented “Like” and cheered this guy on. But a few of us frowned deeply. It never does any good whatsoever to take out your frustrations on customer service people. They are not the ones who made the decisions to do whatever it was that caused your ire. They are just people who have limited opportunities and fewer choices and who really need the job. They are required to keep smiling and remain pleasant while being treated badly. Depending on the situation, they might do this for years. Try to imagine what might become of your attitude.
You might have to try sitting where I do to understand this, but I do imagine raising a beer in a toast to Steven Slater. I imagine pushing a button and seeing a chute magically appear across the hall from my windowless corner. Hooray! This is my last flight! Grab a beer! Heck, grab two! Wave hand gestures at the self-righteous, self-centered customers (and coworkers)! Jump into the chute! Hit the asphalt running and don’t look back! But I’m just imagining – I really need this job.
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HI Krista – I appreciate your thoughts. I think a key phrase in your comment is ” I do imagine raising a beer in a toast to Steven Slater.” And in that phrase is the key word ‘imagine’. We can imagine all kinds of things – I imagine myself wringing a few necks of people down at MPR for letting Dale go – even though Dale himself walked out the door with grace, wit and astonishing comportment. The difference between ‘imagining’ and ‘doing’ is vast, and I think Mr Slater crossed to the dark side with his actions.
Also, I don’t think anyone approves of the horrible behavior of some airline passengers, customers ,or, in my line of work, patients. I saw a badly injured, drunk motorcyclist spit in the face of the emergency room physician who was trying to save the injured man’s life. The doctor stiffened with rage, then he grabbed a cloth, wiped his face, and went on treating the patient. We all have tough moments like that; we all have times when our dignity has been assaulted when all we are trying to do is our job – no it is not easy to do the better thing.
Ultimately, even though we think we will feel better about ourselves after getting a few digs into the other guy, people rarely do. And as Mom would say, two wrongs don’t make a right, anyway.
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So true. Thank you for comprehending me so well. It does wonders for my attitude when someone hears and understands. And yes, the key word is “imagine!”
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You’re right, Krista. People who work in customer service take it on the chin for policies they did not write and decisions they did not make. I’m for everyone staying calm and behaving decently towards one another. The people who set Slater may have crossed the line. I don’t know. Thyrkas is right that when faced with abuse from anyone, particularly someone you’re trying to help, it is far from easy to “do the better thing.”
While we all can imagine making a cool, vengeful exit like Slater, I think he will ultimately find he did himself no favors AND he was being thoughtless towards the more sensible passengers, his co-workers and the ground crew. I just don’t see the heroism in what he did. To me, real heroism is the dignity shown by the doctor Thyrkas described, and the self control of service workers who are provoked every day but do not respond.
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I do agree.
Have a good weekend, Baboons!
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I was just reading he has a lawyer–and thus the course of all modern news stories is fulfilled–claims he had a head injury, hinting it caused it. A few people who dealt with him are saying he appeared to be drunk.
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krista, i hear you loud and clear. people can be such self righteous toads it is exasperating. i get to deal with them on issues of warranty and also on issues of how they think i ought to run my business. it can be pretty funny sometimes. they think you should bend over backwards for them when they are totally at blame. when wal-mart first hit th e big time they were famous for the customer is always right return policy, target, home depot, menards , everyone followed in policy decrees. it took two or three years to discover what a bunch of liars and thieves there are amongst us. the policies have all been rewritten to be very protective of the manufacturers who produce products that offer the correct value, not the bulletproof run over it with your truck then turn it in as defective policy the toadies would like.
we all need our jobs and we all need to mask our true thoughts when dealing with twits. i hope the day is twit free for you and that the remainder of august is less twit laden than usual.
if we can ever figure out a way to do what we want, in a way we want to without having to check in to see if it is acceptable. ah the bliss.
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crass or coup,
what slater did
when slater slid?
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Cool, Dan, the minimalist approach.
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Less is more!
Thanks Dan.
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One thing I love about it here is, by the end of the day I will hear both (heck, many) sides of an issue, thoughtfully communicated, and if countered, that done respectfully. It would be a wonderful world that would require our bosses and co-workers, clients and customers, teachers, students, and families to treat us with the respect I find here.
Have, as tim would say, a twit free weekend – we’re trying something we heard from Kerry Miller’s guest (William Powers: Author of “Hamlet’s Blackberry”) this morning — a technology free weekend.
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Cooking over wood, are we?
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Well… I suppose we could…
but I’m not giving up fridge, or the radio.
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We used to have lots of tech free weekends–we called it camping.
Just having fun; it sounds like a good idea to me. Dale, actually tried that the first couple of weekends of this blog.
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i loved my trip out where i had huge chunks of the mountains where the phone simply didn’t work. no signal. i used to love that about yellowstone, they wouldn’t allow towers in the par so there was no way that your phone was going to work. i camped in idaho in the midst of mining country and att has very little coverage so my wife was going ballistic because i wasn’t answering my texts or phone calls. pretty funny howw the world changes and we can;t imagine going back to life before when everyone wasn’t walking around with a smart phone attatched like an appendage to your hip. guitar, wine, fire and sandwhiches of my favorite ingredients . low tech to be sure, instead of comfort food it is comfort oneness with the universe. i love camping without phones etc.
we used to be in yellowstone every year at the time of the nba draft and my boys wanted to go and see who the wolves would pick up. it was like a electronic sin we entered into as a group wher watching the television was the only thing that mattered for one night out of the trip. a very pointed exception to the norm. it was interesting that everybody got it and there was o dissent. i enjoyed those times without knowing why. the low techness of the sins were the appeal plain and simple.
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Ditto to the first paragraph Barbara. It is respectful and thoughtful, no matter the opinion! Thank you all for the fine writing and poetry today.
I still think it is the fantasy of the immediate relief of the situation–that button and the slide is such a fun image for that relief. SS just pushed a button and was gone. That is what hooked my attention–so easy, so out-of-there. Such a simple “solution” to the disrespectful passengers. And when people do such a thing, they don’t think about consequences. No one is focused on the legal charges. The “heroism” seems confined to the slide.
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Greetings! People behaving badly — my, that’s a rich topic! Apparently, both Mr. Slater and the impatient customer are both massively guilty. Of course, everyone can rationalize and justify whatever behavior they want, but in truth, you choose how you react and should submit to the consequences.
Being a Libra, I can understand how both of them felt. For better or worse, I’m unfailingly polite — even to telemarketers and bill collectors. When a company I deal with has done an egregious error, I might be a tad strong on the phone, but never rude. Dealing with the unwashed masses is a dicey deal and you take your lumps as part of the job — unfortunately. The whole “customer is always right” refrain and slow economy has made folks rather bold and pushing the envelope to see what they can get away with, it seems.
The times I’ve exited in a huff is usually during a difficult time with spouse or family, that I can’t deal with and just need space. And yes, I’ve slammed doors to make a statement, too. I empathize with frustrated cubicle dwellers, retail and service folks, factory workers and all the menial tasks that have to be done for our massive economy to work.
Have any of you seen “Office Space?” I think that’s the name of the movie — it’s really funny and it sort of a cult classic. The protagonist is an office drone for a tech company that just gets fed up and won’t take it anymore. So he starts coming in late, playing games on computer, takes down a wall of his cube so he can look out window, etc. So happens there’s outside “management consultants” coming in to revamp company at this time. During his talks with the two Bobs, he is totally honest and up front, tells them all the problems, etc. The Bobs are impressed with him and recommend him for promotion, while his two buddies are laid off. It’s crazy and fun what these guys do next. If you’ve worked in Corporate America, you will recognize characters as some folks in your very own office, probably. Great fun … Golly, I’m long-winded today.
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Funny movie, but then I have never been in that world.
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Missed you this week, Joanne.
Ditto about “Office Space” definitely a fun time.
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i was thinking about you joanne, there was some guy talking about how he worked at a health food store and the people who come to health food stores in general are kind of a demographic unto themselves but then when you talk about their expectations of the knowledge and response to their wants/ needs / concerns it gets compounded. well i thought of you and how that likely never even occured to you. you are there dealing with whatever comes up as it comes up in the best way possible and never feeling like these over the top expectations are an exceptional burden. thats what i love about you joanne, give you a calender where you can go beat up on little kids with your gear on and the world is fine. life can be simple…
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Thanks for the compliment, Tim. That means a lot to me. I learn way more than I want to about folks’ health problems, sometimes. If a customer has cancer or other difficult, chronic conditions, I encourage them to see a naturopathic physician and admit that it’s out of my realm of training. And yes, sparring and karate are wonderfully therapeutic for me!
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I admit I lost my cool with the RNC when they called me for the tenth time in about a week when I have told them I do not take their calls and this one was at 10:30 at night. One part of the issue is that being aggravating is in certain instances a proven market strategy, which is a negative measure of the state of manners in the U.S.
On the happier side: I have been off work today, with grand-kids, running around. I have wanted to paint clouds all day. The sky the last 2-3 days have been spectacular here, and tech-free.
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paint em and post em
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