
I Don’t Care If a Flight Attendant Almost Hit a Baby - imartin2k
http://crankyflier.com/2017/04/25/i-dont-care-if-a-flight-attendant-almost-hit-a-baby/
======
hashkb
Yes and no... we might reach an equilibrium where the level of customer
service just increases. Visit Japan and then come back to the USA- American
companies treat their customers like cattle (or cow pies).

~~~
sgift
I'm pretty sure the service level is a function of culture (e.g. ones
upbringing), payment vs expectations in ones job, overworking, stress and so
on. I think hoping that a viral video will change anything about that without
a change to the mentioned things is all washed up.

------
nindalf
Cached version - [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NnG-
aS...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NnG-
aSafUKoJ:crankyflier.com/2017/04/25/i-dont-care-if-a-flight-attendant-almost-
hit-a-baby/)

------
wetha
The reason these videos appeal to people is because it returns some power back
to the customer being mistreated.

Any fairly frequent flier will have horror stories of being mistreated by
airline or border personnel, and most times the only thing you can do is to
put up with it. But NOW, after the United incident, it feels like the customer
is no longer as helpless as before and can no longer be mistreated with
impunity. This is irrespective of validity of any of the viral videos being
circulated.

~~~
macspoofing
>But NOW, after the United incident ...

Which is ironic because the guy was crazy. He was randomly selected to be
bumped and the cops had to be called in to haul him off the plane, after
pleading with him for half hour. What a self-important jackass - sucks he got
a bad break with the lottery but if he doesn't go somebody else will have to
take his place. That's not fair either.

~~~
mikeash
What's not fair is removing a paying passenger against their will for no good
reason. United could have just increased the compensation until somebody left
willingly. Instead they chose to involve law enforcement, with predictable
results.

~~~
macspoofing
>What's not fair is removing a paying passenger against their will for no good
reason.

No, it's not fair, but it wouldn't be fair to remove another passenger because
this one felt he was too important to be bumped.

>United could have just increased the compensation until somebody left
willingly.

Sure, and United paid for that mistake and then some. But just because they
made a mistake doesn't mean the other guy did not act like a psycho.

>they chose to involve law enforcement, with predictable results.

Those aren't predictable results. Predictable results are: "United involved
law enforcement, and the passenger left the airplane promptly". A more typical
scenario would see him leave way before United called the cops.

~~~
mikeash
Nobody is saying United should have removed another passenger instead. That's
a straw man.

The results may not be what usually happens but they are entirely predictable.
Any time you get law enforcement involved, there's a decent chance that
violence will ensue. The entire _point_ of law enforcement is to be the sole
state-approved user of violence.

------
irixusr
I don't like the five minutes of hate either. And the over abundance of out-
of-context filming going on everywhere.

But I do care that a woman was hit by a stroller and that a baby was almost
hit. Mr. Flight Attendant is an employee, not police officer, _and has no
right to assault_ anyone.

What upsets me, and everyone else if they spent a minute to think about it, is
that flying (among many other things we do) has become a throughly unpleasant.

Flight crews are increadily underpaid, over worked and under extreme stress.
If they don't close that gate on time they'll miss departure, have to wait in
cue several minutes and cost their company thousands in fuel.

So they're stressed, annoyed, view us a cattle (which we are) and will lay
their hands on woman with babies.

It's not the flight attendants fault. It's American Airlines' fault.

~~~
macspoofing
>I don't like the five minutes of hate either...But I do care that a woman was
hit by a stroller and that a baby was almost hit. Mr. Flight Attendant is an
employee, not police officer, and has no right to assault anyone.

Well, which is it? Because at any given point in time there are thousands of
things happening where people are clashing over something or other - that's
called life. You're really unlucky when one of those events goes viral and has
someone like you pilling on with the rest of the mob to make sure your
sanctimonious perspective is heard.

~~~
irixusr
Except that anyone who has flown in an airplane knows that these aren't rare,
unthinkable, events. Every time we fly we get nasty, rude, on the edge of
snapping flight crews.

So, ya I hate the 5 minutes of hate culture, except that's the only defense
we, as the public, have against entrenched power.

Same goes for cops, soldiers, Uber, etc. I'm sorry but I no longer buy the
"lone bad apple" story.

~~~
macspoofing
Ahhh. I understand. You're pilling on as way to air your grievances. It
doesn't matter what the actual situation is, you feel that because you didn't
have a good experience flying you want to take your shot against another
target to make yourself feel better.

------
KirinDave
"I'm sure there is a perfectly valid and rational explananation for why this
woman was hit with her own stroller and then a child was physically
threatened."

Oh. Okay. Yeah. I bet she was asking for this treatment. Just look at how she
was dressed, right? Right!?

While it is _cough_ unfortunate that now you have to see a clearer and less
imperfect window into fellow human experience and feel those damnable pangs of
empathy ever now and then, this is inevitable.

There are 2 kinds of global surveillance. There is the kind kicked off by the
government to quasi-legally spy on anyone at any time for "national security".
There is also the kind that is bottom up, the population sharing it's
perspectives with itself.

The later has been increasingly influential. It has shown us police brutality.
It has debunked ideas that women at the Berkeley riot was armed (and shown
Reuters doesn't vet photos very well). It has shown us black citizens trying
to stop white antifa activists from starting a riot in their neighborhood.
It's shown us Nazis being punched. It reminds us of the lies and about-faces
of politicians. It has shown us the poor driving skills of our peers. And
that's this month alone.

And on and on.

For all it's flaws, this surveillance led by individuals (who recognize they
own their own perspective and have a right to share it) is changing society
far more than anything else we've seen in recent memory and it is
accelerating.

It's a good thing, on balance

------
accountyaccount
I really don't understand why people get upset about this type of news,
engaging with it is completely voluntary. I read the news every morning and I
had no idea this was even an event.

------
athenot
tl;dr: Stop reacting to videos of humans not being at their finest.

Well, yes and no. Yes overreacting with outrage to situations where we don't
always have the full details is fraught with pitfalls.

At the same time, perhaps we can as a society use these moments, not for
outrage but to make us better at being human. Recognize that in the grand
scheme of things, we are all humans and in the same boat, and that it is
better for us to suffer a _LITTLE_ injustice instead of escalating to _A LOT_
of injustice for someone else (aka. revenge).

Fun note: the old Moses law of "an eye for an eye" was meant in the context of
not retaliating with greater force than the original injustice, precisely to
avoid conflict escalation.

------
rekshaw
This got flagged? Why? How can one vote to unflag? [Edit: seems to be
unflagged now]

~~~
throwanem
There's a karma threshold past which the option becomes available.

------
angryasian
While he has a point, the way that the flight attendant reacted when the man
wanted his name by wanting to fight was uncalled for. This is a big indication
to me that again they handled this situation poorly and the man that
supposedly hit the woman and almost her child, was probably not in a good
state of mind. If you hurt or injure someone as a person working in the
service industry, your first reaction should not be wanting to fight someone
that is being abrasive while trying to help.

------
thesmallestcat
I too am tired of the Five Minutes Hate. Seems like every day there's another
person, company, entity the news says I'm supposed to dread and boycott.
United, American Airlines, Uber, Macys, Chick-fil-a, the list goes on.

~~~
hashkb
That's the exact attitude that leads those companies to behave badly. Its
crazy that we love chicken enough to let CFA, a proudly bigoted org, succeed
in NorCal.

~~~
triangleman
Do you have any proof that Chick-fil-A is "proudly bigoted"? Like is there a
page on their website somewhere saying "gays need not apply"? Or is it ok now
to redefine words whenever we want? Because that would be... ungood.

------
mtgx
Hell yeah! Way to stick it to _Big Consumer_!

------
dave_f
I hate my job, but I thank God that I'm not a flight attendant.

------
NetStrikeForce
What's the point of this post? And why is this on front page?

P.S.: Wow! that was the fastest downvote ever (1 minute!). Waiting for the
comment including the reasoning...

Edit: I see some users mentioning this story has been flagged. Just so you
don't get more angry at me, I haven't flagged this (or anything ever), nor I'm
sure I could if I wanted to. I have questions and would like to read answers
about it, I'm not up for shutting down the discussion.

~~~
Etheryte
I'm not the one who voted you, but I do see where the downvote may have come
from – your comment doesn't really add much to the discussion. As for why it's
on the front page, seems other people found it interesting and upvoted it. You
don't have to agree with them, but I think it's easy to see why this article
may be of interest to people.

~~~
NetStrikeForce
Thanks for the reply!

The downvotes keep coming, I guess that's the hivemind at work.

But anyway, allow me to disagree: My comment has two very valid questions.

1) What's the point of the article? The rest of the comments here are just
people being angry because a dude said he's tired of being angry, and that he
can't be angry without facts. Really, please someone explain to me, what's the
point of the article? I'm calling for civil discussion.

2) Why is this in front page? I understand the technical aspects of this being
front page; but I'm baffled this is #1 and I thought people would be able to
explain why they think it's relevant.

I guess there's no room anymore for difficult questions and it's all about
being angry and downvoting.

