Hey, so when you’re on an airplane and you pull up to the gate, you wait until the seatbelt light turns off to get your bag, right?  I mean, I know it’s been awhile since I flew anywhere (like I have time for vacation), but considering the tighter security everywhere else in the air travel industry, this rule has probably remained intact.  It did?  Okay, good.  That’s what I thought.

I guess some people are more important than others, then, because when an asshole passenger cursed out the flight attendant who asked him to wait and then yanked his bag out anyway, hitting the flight attendant in the eye, who can blame said flight attendant for being all fuck this shit and telling the customer off over the plane’s intercom?  Who can further blame the flight attendant for effectively retiring via said intercom, grabbing a beer from the fridge, deploying the emergency slide, and getting the fuck out of there?

Not me.  I concede that an improperly-deployed escape slide could have squashed someone if they had been underneath, and I accept that the passengers who behaved themselves were probably a little bit inconvenienced.  Which is unfortunate.  But I’d rather have this flight attendant let off steam in this fashion rather than coming back with a gun and shooting up the cabin.  Which is what happened at one of my company’s distributors recently, and what could have happened in my own building when an employee showed up with a knife and announced that he could do a better job than the Hartford shooter.  They fired him, of course, and now we have security guards lurking around our parking lot all day and night.

So it’s understandable that Steven Slater isn’t working for JetBlue anymore, and that the cops are involved.  But two felony charges?  For what, refusing to continue being treated like a receptacle for abuse?

Working in service – any kind of service, from flight attending to answering phones to waiting tables – is hard.  I’m not saying that I resent my station in life or that I deserve better; on the whole, I’m content with my job.  I’ve never been terribly ambitious or competitive.  Fair pay and not going insane are far more important to me than being in middle management.  But people have got to stop acting so goddamn entitled.

Your parents LIED, okay?  You’re not special.  You’re not better or smarter or more attractive than everyone else on earth.  You are one of billions of very small pieces in a very big world, and in a place where it’s guaranteed you’ll eventually be forgotten, the only thing that everyone else is going to remember about you is how you treated them.  There are too many people out there who treat everyone else like shit.  Not because everyone else deserves it or because the situation calls for it, but because they think they can.

Guess what?  You can’t. My position may require me to answer your call and be polite to you, but under no circumstances are you allowed to speak to me like I’m five years old.  I know it makes you feel better to try and make me feel stupid, but the thing is?  You’re asking me something because you don’t know the answer.  And maybe you treating me like I’m an idiot might not be the best way to receive competent assistance.

I’m not cowed by the tone of your voice.  I’m not scared of your request to speak to my manager (invariably, before you’ve even given me the chance to offer to help you, because apparently I am totally incapable of understanding the insurmountable issues of your life).  I’m not impressed that you have things to do or a plane to catch.  Complaining that this always happens to you isn’t going to help.  Know why this always happens to you?  Because you’re always an asshole.

See how that works?  Shut up.  Listen.  Get in line.  Treat others with a little bit of respect for a change.

Until then, fuck this shit.

WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

(via Post Secret — No, actually, we keep you on hold because you’re asking us to do the impossible and threatening to talk to our managers if we don’t.)