Crazed Flight Attendant Hero

A new working-class hero emerged today: Steven Slater, a 38-year-old veteran flight attendant for JetBlue (also on that company’s uniform-redesign committee and its in-flight values committee) who, pushed to the breaking point by an obstinate passenger while taxying to the gate at JFK Airport (“Please remain seated until the plane is parked at the gate and the pilot has turned off the seat belt light”), snapped yesterday. Here’s the summary of the scene from The New York Times:

One passenger stood up to retrieve belongings from the overhead compartment before the crew had given permission. Mr. Slater instructed the person to remain seated. The passenger defied him. Mr. Slater reached the passenger just as the person was pulling down the luggage, which struck Mr. Slater in the head.

Mr. Slater asked for an apology. The passenger instead cursed at him. Mr. Slater got on the plane’s public-address system and cursed out the passenger for all to hear. Then, after declaring that 20 years in the airline industry was enough, he blurted out, “It’s been great!” He activated the inflatable evacuation slide at a service exit and left the world of flight attending behind.

The Daily News expands on Slater’s cursing: "To the f-----g a--hole who told me to f--k off, it's been a good 28 years. . . . I've had it. That's it." Also, he didn’t just activate the slide and jump off; he first grabbed two beers from the beverage cart, opened one, threw his two carry-on bags down before him, and made his triumphant exit. He then walked to the AirTran and took it to the employee parking lot where got in his car and drove home. One of the passengers on AirTran was quoted as saying, “I wish we could all quit our jobs like that. He seemed kind of happy about it. He was like, ‘I just quit my job.’”

And that’s why Steven Slater has almost instantly become today’s online hero. His saga has become the number one topic on Twitter. Several Facebook fan pages have popped up in support of the disgruntled flight attendant, such as the Steven Slater Legal Defense Fund. And of course there is already a Free Steven Slater t-shirt.

For the past several years I’ve fantasized a number of times, when faced with either individual students or a classroom of students who were being f-----g a—holes, of just going Slater, screaming “I’ve had it. That’s it,” and leaping onto the inflatable evacuation slide of teaching. And no doubt that is what fuels the celebrity of Steven Slater, the shared frustration that many if not most of us who work in service jobs have to put up with. Most of us, though, are able to silently endure, if only because we have to. I was fortunate enough to take a much more comfortable and amicable exit from my career with early retirement. But there is a part of me that not only understands Steven Slater’s eruptive resignation but is also envious of it. I hope he’s able to accept whatever his legal punishment is as adequate cost for self-contentment and that he’s able to move on to much bigger and better things — surely there has to be a reality show in his future.