"If you keep pushing me, I'm gonna . . . go down the escape slide!"

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If there's any sort of justice remaining in the USA, the man will only have to pay for the used exit chute. At a drastically reduced price after the REAL idiot (the customer) has paid for most (if not all) of it due to being an a-hole and a douchebag.

Anything else and this become yet another proof that there's something *severely* wrong over there.

 

I disagree entirely. Just because someone else did something stupid first doesn't excuse you from doing something stupid yourself. If your friend is throwing rocks off an overpass, so you decide to join him, and you hit a car and cause an accident, you're going to jail. Your friend may or may not be held accountable for what he did, but you're entirely to blame for your part.

 

Sir Rechet -- Only if you believe Slater's side of the story. Other passengers on the flight do not portray him as the model employee.

 

Another one of your false analogies, NOG? Slater's exit has drawn attention to a problem that needed it. What he did was stupid, but not criminal. In fact, the focus is on how some eimployees are treated every day (a "Jet Blue Exit" has now made it into our national discourse). In this sense, Slater is a workingman's hero. Nevertheless, this is really a civil matter (or should be) between Jet Blue and Slater. Believe me, I have seen negilgent employees cost companies more than Slater has cost Jet Blue, with NO consequences. T2 is right to say that Slater is an 'idiot," but sometimes that what it takes to get the attention of these corporate bastards.

 

Chandos, tampering with safety equipment on an airplane is a federal crime -- activation of the emergency exit slide is prosecutable (at least from what I hear, I'll need to look it up to find out where it is in the code).

 

I put quotations around the words oppression and enslavement because I do not agree with your opinion on the matter, plain and simple. The rest of your post, id est: the suggestion that anyone disagreeing with your views must be experiencing a cognitive dissonance/Stockholm syndrome is, in my eyes, a sign of immaturity, not a constructive statement worth replying. Very dramatic rhetorics, as well - too dramatic to sound credible.

 

You may want to rethink that.

 

Yes, I should have said "phony analogies" instead. And you may want to "rethink" attempting to use analogies that have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Just a suggestion.

 

Chandos, what was wrong with my analogy, other than that the person in question wasn't physically harmed. One person doing something wrong has never justified someone else doing something else wrong, and our criminal justice system has operated on that precept for, well, since the beginning, I think.

Additionally, my comment about 'rethinking that' was more to the 'his actions weren't criminal' position.

 

No one is arguing that "two wrongs make a right." That's just not an issue. But you are comparing a malicious, intentional action, which is to try and cause an accident and cause injury, with a guy who just lost it with poor judgment. Despite you insinuations, Slater had no intention of harming anyone, except making a statement of protest. You don't know the difference? Maybe you should stop your "Mama" NOG lecturing and stop and think.

 

People are getting tired of being treated like commodities. I can't help it myself, I'm a kicked around guard...but don't really care. I don't take life seriously.

 

I was watching the local news the other night, and they said that JetBlue has *reportedly* offered Slater his job back.

Now, I personally think Slater is a hero. Not in the sense of, "OMFG!!!! You saved 20 puppies from certain death! You're a GOD!!!!" No...he's a hero in the sense that *someone* eventually had to stand up and say, "Hey S**T for brains! The customer is NOT always right! So sit your F***ing A** down, and shut the F**K up! Oh...and go suck on the end of a shotgun you worthless piece of S**T!"

I really want to see/hear actual footage so I can applaud the man for a job well done.

I also think that using the emergency slide was a big mistake on his part. The security footage I've seen on the news shows that the plane was attached to the jet bridge, so he could have just walked right out.

Still, I salute the man nonetheless!

 

Wow...

When did we get a 'shoot me' smiley?

Actually, I knew several kids in HS that did just this, not realizing they could actually hit a car and cause an accident. Thankfully, someone stopped them before they did, but still, there was no maliciousness, or intent to cause an accident. I was comparing poor judgement resulting in illegal action to... poor judgement resulting in illegal action.

 

Kit has been using his own for a while now

 

When I was a kid I knew some other kids in the neighborhood who did just that, trying to hit a car with the intention of causing an accident, and they were even arrested for it. Nevertheless, that's a specific, personal analogy, based upon your own/my own personal experience, (and everyone's can be bit different), but that again has little to do with Slater. Now that you have changed it, it's just not a very good analogy. However, if you wanted to say was that it was "poor judgment" on Slater's part, then we can agree on that, certainly. Yet, while it was poor judgment, it got him national attention and I heard he may be offered his own reality TV show. Figures.

I agree. No one is right all the time.

 

Slater is far from a hero. Yes, he did go postal without hurting anyone, and that is good. In the same way that shooting yourself in the foot is better than shooting yourself in the head. "I didn't kill anyone! ... but now I'm out 25 grand and 2 beers..."

I support the concept behind his actions: that people can be self-righteous snobs who place a false sense of entitlement upon themselves. However, I cannot in good conscience support stealing or intentionally damaging property. Especially property 'that' expensive. $25,000 is a lot more than many people make in a year. Flight attendant's salaries are supposedly between $20,000 intro up to about $35,000. Depending on what his annual income is, that's more than or almost a year of Slater working that will have been wasted if he has to pay for the property he damaged.

Slater is an idiot. I'm all for telling the customer off, but shouting in a rage and harming his own future probably hampered the customer less than a serious comment would have. I don't know the regulations of the airline in question, but I've never heard of anyone being jailed for 7 years for saying, "Ma'am, you're doing nothing right now but embarrassing yourself. You need to take your seat and stop acting like a child." Some people would be surprised, sit down and shut up, others would only decline further into their ignorant sense of superiority. If they get rowdier and more hostile, then call security and have them removed from the plane. Then the passenger is out their ticket, and they've figured out they can't always get what they want by whining (whether what they want be a reaction, better treatment, or to be above the rules). That sounds like a better course of action to me.

If he wanted to quit and find a job where he doesn't have to deal with pathetic ignorant people, more power to him, but this just wasn't the way to do it. He's not a role model or a hero. Jail time is excessive, but a fine for the full amount of damaged property isn't. (And if he weren't still in the limelight (for God knows why) I doubt they'd have offered him his job back). In the end the only person he hurt was himself (not counting the possible delay of the whole airplane of passengers), so I could care less what happens to him.

Then again, I'm an American, so I'm probably retarded anyway.

 

Hopefully this guy will get enough $ from the publicity he's getting to pay off his fines.

I agree with the guy telling everyone to go stuff themselves but not the costly way in which he did it.

But to all things a purpose so maybe, just this once, an outrageous example had to be set.

 

Anyone here know what the passenger said to him or he said in reply?

I would be curious of both before I figure out who did the most immature thing.

I do have some sympathy for flight staff because my understanding is that their wages have been dropping to the point where their encourage their children to find work elsewhere.

Note that the pilot that saved many people's lives by successfully doing a water landing in a river by New York (if I remember right) said he only stayed a pilot at great financial cost to himself. Meaning that highly experienced pilots may be becoming increasingly rare.

That said I can also say that he guy didn't have to needlessly blow thousands of dollars of company property just to quit his jobs. If a company was doing something horrible pollution and a worker quits and reports it that is doing society a service and costing the company money-and I can be totally supportive of the worker in that case.

I don't see this as the same as he was just reacting to his emotions.

But going back to the first question I have about what this man and the passenger said to each other see people approving or disapproving of him without saying what was said. I would like to know that before I decide more.

 

Yeah, SP doesn't have all the smilies that I require in my posts, and it's too much of a pain to try to get Tal to add them, so I borrow them from the car enthusiast forums I also frequent.