Ah, but some of you do, and it ruins things for the wiser of you. I have all the empathy in the world for airline employees who are trying hard. But for the many who pass crazy, arbitrary, made-up rules off as "FAA regulations" or treat customers with unprovoked vindictiveness... no sympathy.

I feel the same way about schoolteachers. You can't speak ill of a public school teacher; they're our national martyrs. And I gave them the benefit of the doubt until I saw them in action with my kid for ten years. A goodly number are stupid, venal, lazy or incompetent, and they hide behind the skirts of the good ones, impossible to weed out, and they ruin perceptions of the whole class of people.