by Haley McLennan, Manager, Marketing & Communications
By now, most people have heard about the dramatic incident involving Jet Blue flight attendant Steven Slater. Reading the breaking story by The New York Daily News, I was laughing out loud. The basic story goes that Jet Blue flight attendant Slater was involved in a verbal altercation with a passenger on a flight from Pittsburgh to New York. The passenger got up and started rooting around in the overhead bin, and Slater requested that she sit down. The passenger’s luggage hit Slater’s head, leaving a bloody gash, and she refused to apologize, cursing at him. And then Slater snapped. He got on the PA, said a few choice words, thanked everyone for a ‘great ride’ and then proceeded to grab a few beers and escape down the emergency chute. Shortly after, he was arrested at his home.
As everyone has pointed out, we’ve all had fantasies about quitting a job, venting our frustrations, or just trying to get someone to see things from our perspective. Not many of us have a story like this to tell around the campfire. In chatting with my colleague Bryce Moloney, we were having a good-natured laugh about the incident, expressing disbelief and empathy for Slater. Then we got stuck on the empathy issue.
How bad do things have to get before someone loses it and these incidents happen? Slater was just doing his job, and in the process had to deal with someone who wasn’t as kind or patient as she probably should have been. It came out later that Slater was dealing with some very difficult family circumstances, and he had been under tremendous stress.
Living and functioning (as a normal human being) in society requires that you play nice to a certain extent. We’re all in this together, whether it be working, travelling, or dealing with the day-to-day stressors that wear us down and occasionally steal our patience, good nature and sympathy. Life is hard enough – we should all be making an effort to be kinder, more generous and more forgiving in our daily interactions. You have no idea what someone else is dealing with in their personal and professional life.
Everyone can afford to be kinder.
Working in the meetings and events industry, there can be a lot of tension and stress that goes along with booking and executing events. People can sometimes get snappy, irritable and impatient. This may not be in their nature, but the circumstances and enormous expectations lead them to act in odd and uncharacteristic ways.
We represent a number of speakers who deal with behaviour, human psychology, and interaction. J.P. Pawliw-Fry deals with intention vs. impact relating to Emotional Intelligence; Dr. Hendrie Weisinger and Amanda Gore also speak about communications, human connections and Emotional Intelligence. Dr. Brian Little researches personality differences and group dynamics, and David Allen deals with productivity and stress. Hearing these speakers and learning about their research reminds us that we have physical, emotional and mental limits – and stress can make us crazy if not dealt with properly.
Most clients, meeting planners and speakers that we deal with at Speakers’ Spotlight are friendly, patient, understanding and kind. We’re eternally grateful for these qualities – thank you! That level of generosity and thoughtfulness goes a long way in keeping us from smashing open a bottle of wine and escaping down the back staircase in the office.
To Steven Slater:
That was hands-down the best exit of all time. Bless whoever posted your bail.
Tags: Amanda Gore, Bryce Moloney, Dr. Brian Little, Dr. Hendrie Weisinger, Emotional Intelligence, empathy, group dynamics, Haley McLennan, human connections, J.P. Pawliw-Fry, Jet Blue, Jet Blue flight attendant, kindness, meetings and events industry, patience, personality, quitting a job, speakers' spotlight, Steven Slater, stress, sympathy, The New York Daily News
