When Another Flight Attendant Pushed Me, This Is How I Calmed Things Down

A lot of people have recently been getting a kick out of the story where a Delta flight had had to divert due to a “fist fight” between two flight attendants. What can I say? Sure, it’s “funny” from the simple place of it being such utterly ridiculous behavior from two adults in a professional setting. But it’s really not funny at all. It’s incredibly damaging to flight attendants as a whole, who already have to deal with plenty of passengers who do not take us seriously as professionals or authorities. There’s also the fact that if these two flight attendants were so consumed in their disagreement that they (you could say) lost sight of where they were, then they also weren’t paying attention to a lot of other things they should have been paying attention to.

Am I surprised? Yes and no. Sure I am, from the point of view that I expect more from my work group. We all do. It’s not uncommon to work with colleagues who don’t gel, but it’s no big deal. Nothing but a touch of crew drama to banter about later. Thankfully, stories like this one are beyond rare.

The only point where I’m not surprised is on the simple truth – and one of the major intended themes of my crew life writing – that flight attendants are just a bunch of regular humans. Airlines do their best to put forth the image of cookie-cutter consistency (taken further in some cultures more than others), but there are all sorts in the air.

Just like you, we can struggle with the pressures of being cooped up in confined spaces, long periods of time without food, long days on our feet without adequate rest, worries about security concerns, health concerns (including the growth of “fuming events,” which I’ll be covering next week) and paying bills. I’m not giving these crew members any excuses. I’m saying, sometimes people just crack a little.

The thing I find most interesting is that the argument was allegedly over work rules. That aspect does strike me as funny in a way – the irony of people being so serious about “getting the rules just right” that they break many others and lose sight of the whole plot.

As it happens, the only work skirmish I’ve ever gotten into was over work rules, too! Remember my Rule of Three (people I don’t get along with), my strategy for keeping the peace with over 20,000 colleagues? I mentioned that there are two permanent members of this list. This is one of those stories.

“Becky” and I were both working opposite Business Class aisles on a 777. A family I was servicing was taking casual photos of their two small kids in their seats. I’d had a friendly chat with them; there was nothing suspicious about the situation. Becky marched over to my side and scolded them about the photography. She then scolded me and said they weren’t allowed to take photos. I said they had my permission, yet she attempted to overrule me. I detailed the nuances of our official policy, which the family was adhering to.

She dismissed the facts I presented and said she was going to force the family to stop anyway. I pointed out that I had the situation in hand and she had her own half of the cabin to concentrate on. She became angry and literally challenged me to look up the photography rules in our FAA manual. I happily agreed, and several crew members gathered to read the wording as well. When the policy was written exactly as I had said it was, she slammed her book shut and pushed me on the shoulder!

The observing crew members froze in shock. I took a deep breath and a step back and said, “I’m going to remove myself now,” and walked away. Becky and I kept to our own aisles the rest of the flight, and it was a year or more before I saw her again. She is the one who now can’t remember why she “remembers me so well” and thinks we really like each other – and I just let her think just that.

Flight attendants get pushed in all sorts of ways, and we have to be able to stand up for ourselves in order to do our job well. However, sometimes being able to walk away is just as important. I understand how these things can escalate, but airlines have a zero tolerance policy for violence from passengers and it has to be the same for employees, which is why I’m pretty sure more than one job is getting lost over this.

All that said, my curiosity is still burning to know just one thing – what was the work rule that they lost their minds over? I hope it was something “sexier” than some strangers’ family photos.

[Image: Used with permission, art by Kirsten Johnson]