Originally Posted by
mats184
Everybody, OP:
I work as as purchasing manager at at a medium firm. Last week a person asked me if I could hold the door for him as he removed a chair from the workplace.
Obviously according to FT I should have told him to stuff it as it is not in my job description. Needless to say: I helped him and survived!
I just have one comment to this case as I have a degree in contact law, if AC and all other airlines advertise with their 'magnificent staff', helpfulness, service levels or similar than clearly the cabin crew are not only there for safety. I know that it is said their job is safety related, not service, but is it really? Then airlines should stop advertising and start hiring marshals without any service.
Of course there is two sides to this story and the OP could have been more nasty to staff than in his post. Things happen and gets heated. It is a bit childish, but also understandable.
The cabin crew should have helped or at least handled the situation better. The treatment after the incident is also sub par.
Making unhelpful and empty comparisons, aiming for relevance based on unrelated experience does tend to make the analogy you make pure demagogy. And yes, you could have told him to shove it. What you did is based on pure social norms, and it is possible that at that moment, you had an injury, an emergency meeting or your phone rang and it was a phone call you absolutely had to take. Even within social norms, ... the point being the person who asks in your example has to assume that they are asking a yes/no question and that no is a possibility, and that that possibility shouldn't lead to an argument.
The OP asked a yes / no question, and he did not take no as an answer, repeatedly with first FA, and then, even after the IC's explanation. Again, what is that if not entitlement? No was a valid answer to his question.
What it does, is vindicate the FA, as faced with ignorance and stubbornness, even with the explanations of the IC provided afterwards to pax, there was nothing more to do than expel him.
To compound the ignorance... Let's talk about security, it's the second comment at least that refers to marshalls... Please look up what security means, as part of the job description of FAs. Or look up Air France flight 358 at least. That's what they spend hours and hours learning and training for, every year. Not catering. Of course, service is a component of their job description, but not at the expense of security.
Why does everyone have to think security means holding a gun to someone's head?
And what's contact law anyway? Is it full contact?
