Free Steven Slater!
The flight attendant who slid off a landed plane via inflatable slide at JFK Monday after telling a disrespectful passenger to f--- off is already a folk hero.
How many of us have wanted to say Take This Job and Shove It? I'm As Mad as Hell, and I'm Not Gonna Take It Anymore?
Slater did it, and he did it with flair, cursing back over the plane's public address system at the obnoxious passenger who conked him on the head with his suitcase, then releasing the emergency exit slide and jumping out and disappearing across the tarmac. He even had the presence of mind to toss his carry-on luggage down the slide first.
Cops must have been scratching their heads to come up with the charges of "criminal mischief" and "reckless endangerment."
Who was he recklessly endangering? It's not as if he opened the doors when JetBlue Flight 1052 was in the air.
Did Slater fantasize this for years or did he just snap?
Flight attendants have to take a lot of guff for things they don't control, like airline cutbacks, minuscule food offerings and charges for checked luggage, earphones, even pillows and blankets on some planes.
It's part of the frustration all over the country as employees take pay cuts and have to do double the workload as they take on the responsibilities of their laidoff co-workers.
Forget raises. I know hardworking people who haven't had a raise in 10 years - don't you?
A friend of mine just got laid off and went to her appointment at the unemployment office and walked in to meet her counselor, a former co-worker, who'd taken the job at one of the few places that are a growth industry these days.
I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often, but you gotta eat.
Steven Slater is a bit like John Henry, who became a folk hero years after hammering his way through a railway tunnel faster than a machine. There'll probably be a song about him online today.
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