Working Class Hero?

Steven Slater.

Two days ago, you'd probably never heard of him.

If you still haven't heard of him, where have you been? 

On Monday afternoon, Slater finished his day as a Flight Attendant at Jet Blue by pulling the emergency slide, grabbing a couple of beers and sliding off the plane and into a car he'd left at the airport. He was comfortably at home when authorities showed up. He no doubt will be charged with something as there seems to be some Federal security violations here.

It's reported that he got into a tussle with a passenger just prior to his exit and concluded his in-flight service with a rant over the public address system, with several expletives aimed at passengers.

Some people are hailing this guy as a 'working class' hero, saying that he did what every employee has at one point dreamed of doing, leaving a frustrating job in dramatic fashion.

In my opinion, he's not a hero. Yes, maybe everyone dreams of doing something like this, but we don't as we've been told it's career suicide.

But wait, people are talking about this guy getting a reality show! And, I bet every news show is chomping at the bit to interview him.

So it might not be the career suicide we've all been warned about. It might be the ticket to something much more profitable in this day and age of longer hours and more responsibilities while being paid less.

But, it won't work for everyone and right now, when so many people are unemployed and struggling, this might be a hard story to hear -- a guy with a good job and a steady paycheck who foolishly gives it up because he's disgruntled?

If this wasn't the airline industry, which is the bane of many people's existence these day, and if Slater hadn't left in such a dramatic fashion, we wouldn't even be talking about this, would we?

For more views on this subject, check out these Yahoo article at http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100810/bs_yblog_upshot/rogue-jetblue-flight-attendant-being-hailed-as-a-modern-american-working-class-hero

And, as is always the case these days, Slater already has a Facebook page with thousands of followers at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Steven-Slater/145469768806134#!/pages/Steven-Slater/145469768806134?v=wall

Your thoughts on this one??

In a future post, I'll tell you about a similar incident I had on an American Airlines flight.

How's that for a teaser?

In light of this story, I hope you enjoy  your day at work, at least enough that your don't pull the slide, grab some beers and storm out.