Sunday, August 15, 2010

I'm Not Saying I CONDONE It...But I Understand

Latest Newspaper Column:

A recent headline on the ABC News website asked the question: "Steve Slater: Criminal or Folk Hero?" One wonders if ABC is perhaps outsourcing its headline writing to India, because anyone who knows anything about America knows that, in this country, you can be both.

In case you're not familiar, Steven Slater is (or was) a flight attendant for the airline JetBlue who became a media sensation after an encounter with an unruly passenger.

According to published reports, the passenger, who before takeoff had been involved in a near fistfight with another traveler over space in the overhead bins, continued to behave badly when the plane landed in New York. She was up before the plane came to a stop, yanking her suitcase out of the bin. When Slater tried to stop her, she cursed him and struck him on the head with the luggage (whether deliberately or inadvertently is not clear).

At this point, Slater had had enough. He got on the plane's intercom and delivered the following soliloquy: "To the (bad word) who called me a (bad word) and told me to (bad word) off: (bad word) you! I've been in the business 28 (bad word) years. That's it. I'm done."

Then Slater popped the emergency slide, grabbed a couple of beers from the airplane fridge, slid out of the plane, walked to his car, drove home - and immediately passed into legend.

You might expect that the consensus would be that this was another example of arrogant and rude flight attendants throwing their weight around. But for some reason (perhaps the flamboyance of his exit), Slater became a symbol for all of the people who've had to deal with a rude and unreasonable public.

Bloggers and commenters hailed him as a hero. Folk singer Jonathan Mann even released a YouTube video called the "Ballad of Steven Slater." "Every day in a million ways," one of the verses goes, "he was subjected to the worst kind of impotent rage, like a bubble about to burst." (The chorus incorporates Steven's uncensored rant in its entirety, so you may not want to watch it at work.)

Many who commented told their own tales of having to deal with cranky, unreasonable and downright insane customers. Having worked in a variety of public-contact jobs, I can certainly say I have some sympathy for them, for Steve Slater, and for anyone who's wanted to say, in the words of the old Johnny Paycheck chart-topper, "Take This Job and Shove It."

It should be noted, however, that we really don't know much about the passenger's story. Don't get me wrong, she behaved abominably, and nothing justifies hitting someone on the head with a loaded bag, but it's possible she was under some stress, too.

Has anyone considered that perhaps she was trying very hard to make a connection that the airline had put in jeopardy because the freaking plane sat on the tarmac for an hour and a freaking half before takeoff and her connecting flight left in 10 minutes and the stupid airline put that flight at a gate that was a 15-minute walk and a freaking train ride away?

(Why, yes, I have flown through Atlanta recently, why do you ask?)

Again, nothing justifies the passenger's behavior. We should all try to remember that whatever stress the airline is putting everyone through, it's (usually) not the flight attendant's fault. But anyone who's flown the unfriendly skies in the past few years understands a little about "impotent rage" from the passenger's perspective too.

The thing about outlaws, though, is that, well, they did break the law. Slater was arrested at home (by a SWAT team, no less), and charged with criminal mischief, -reckless endangerment and trespassing. (I guess the last charge is because you're not allowed on the slide absent an emergency.)

The passenger who struck him was apparently not charged. But the people who shrink the seats more and more so as to cram passengers in like cattle, the people who are charging an outrageous fee to check luggage which they then lose, the people who make sure that  wherever you go, you first have to go 400 miles in the opposite direction and have to stress over connecting with the flight that actually goes to your destination (see above)  no one's even talking about putting them on trial.

Maybe if we did, there'd be a little less "air rage" from both sides.

4 comments:

Jerry House said...

Evidently, there are some doubts whether the passenger ever existed. Whatever the case, nobody -- neither person, company, nor industry -- came out looking good.

Doug Riddle said...

A couple things....From everything I read and from the passengers I saw interviewed, the plane was stopped on the runway. And for the true weirdness of this story....the cut on Slater's head did not happen when this woman was getting her luggage down, but happened at the begining of the flight when he was trying to help someone put their lugggage UP...now for the weirdness....it was bleeding during the entire flight, as he served people drinks, etc.....YUCK....other passegers commented to him that he was bleeding....to which Slater replied..."Oh, they are always trying to kill me around here." So, it sounds to me like someone was having a bad day, way before this incident happened.

And, as someone who has sat on a plane for 3 hrs on a runway, only to be taken back to the gate and told there was a problem and not another plane....my hero is the passenger....because I would love to tell the entire airline industry....F##$% You. These guys make the insurance industry look like Zappo's. No other industry treats their customers as poorly.

Stacey Cochran said...

Yeah, this whole story and how it has been portrayed in the news is just weird... as in "We here at CNN are going to spin this completely out of sync with reality" weird.

Some of the rudest people I have ever met were flight attendants. And I'm talking about "We're oblivious to the fact that you've got a screaming 3-year-old who has diaper so full it's leaking all over the seat" rude.

Just two years ago, the media was playing up the customer's bill of rights story on planes because of the criminality of how poor airline service is, leaving people on the tarmac for ten hours I think was what happened at JFK with JetBlue.

Now it's the customers who are at fault?

Stacey Cochran said...

It was actually the same airline, JetBlue that made headlines for the complete opposite side of this story.

I'm realizing that journalists have completely forgotten their own story from 2007 in their rush to get the headlines with this one.