With great respect... so what? Name me a job that isn't difficult these days. These people aren't EMTs, or Navy SEALs, or small business owners struggling to figure out where next month's grocery money is coming from. They're not pouring asphalt in the blazing sun or lifting heavy objects. They're not running anything, or making hard strategic decisions.

FAs ride around in airplanes a few days a month, hack up ice blocks, and dole out Diet Cokes. Then they hide out behind the galley curtain and get paid to read People magazine and do Sudokus. They may not be getting wealthy but that wasn't in the brochure to start with. Meanwhile they enjoy relatively terrific job security. Judging from the freedom many apparently feel to ignore, lie to, or abuse their customers, they don't worry too much about getting fired. FAs have the luxury of undermining their management and mistreating their customers without penalties. Most workers who do only one of the above find themselves on the street within minutes.

In an era of 18 percent real unemployment these people might have the grace to cut the caterwauling about how awful their jobs are. As Mom used to say, it's harder when there's none.

As for the "safety officer" rap, the whole "We're here to save your a@@, not kiss it" line... spare me. One in several thousand flights has a safety issue requiring an FA to do anything more complicated than arm or disarm the doors. Most will complete their careers without ever being so challenged. And when emergencies occur, many FAs fold like chocolate teapots; aviation records are full of accounts of FAs freezing up, weeping, collapsing, etc. at the one moment in their careers their safety training matters.

I don't know if there's another class of workers in America that displays more attitude with less justification.