Originally Posted by
Bart
To quote a flight attendant who commented in this forum:
There are first class passengers and then there are passengers in first class.
You are entitled to being treated with courtesy and respect. However, you are not entitled to treat flight crews, venders and TSOs without courtesy and without respect. It works both ways.
In my classes, I tell my students that theirs is the easiest job: remain courteous and professional at all times. A supervisor (I joke) gets paid an additional 25 cents an hour than the rest of us. And for that extra quarter, TSA pays them to handle all irate, disruptive, rude, unpleasant and angry passengers. My conclusion to them is that there is absolutely no reason to be rude or unpleasant towards any passenger, flight crew, airport employee or anyone for that matter.
(FWIW, I believe supervisors are woefully underpaid for all they have to contend with. The headache-per-dollar ratio is not worth it for the job they have to do.)
For what it's worth, the way I handle line jumping is to walk up the employee/first class entrance, flash my badge to the ID checker, and then wait in line behind whoever is loading their items onto the X-Ray belt. I do agree that it is rude to stick your stuff right in front of a passenger who is in the process of loading his belongings onto the belt.
I know that everyone at the airport is in a hurry (including me), I just don't think it is polite to simply elbow in front of the passengers at the belt. I do think it is reasonable that employees should move to the front of the line for all of the reasons outlined throughout the thread.
Angry Dan