I would disagree with your comment about politeness in Germany/as commonly practiced by Germans. I find Germans to be very polite, using the words for please and thank you very often.

Yeah, I think "bitte" doesn't have a 1:1 mapping to English. A lot like "prosím" in Czech.

There's no evidence that the request that prompted "Please?" was anywhere near as snarky as "yeah, gimme a tea."

Which is why taking a job as an FA is a choice, just like taking any other job. @:-)

Yes, from a customer, please and thank you are important. But these are two different issues.

ANY SERVICE STAFF MEMBER that goes out of their way to throw out snide comments is hardly representing the company and, at bare minimum, needs to be reminded of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. I wish this staff member were youtubed. Not a career ender, but certainly warrants a sit down, a warning, and an understanding that re-occurrences will lead to greater scrutiny and more...

Comes from two sides really. Maybe the FA was having a bad day. Maybe some other passengers were being rude and demanding. Obviously she shouldn't have taken it out on someone that's just making a pretty easy request.

All in all, just give everyone a little respect. We're all human!

The good old days?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Think-of-her...item5af266ed87

Yum! I get turned on by reading this. Was "Mrs. Robinson" being flirty?

wow..am i the only one not to see huge problem with "not your mom" comment

agree that i feel like i'm missing something from the exchange..but op allowed that he is on the younger side...its not like the fa shoved the poster tube back in his hands...she just in a very colloquial manner was posting op that it was HIS responsibility to remember to ask for it back when he de-planed....that she wasn't going to search him out to make sure he picked it up.

maybe a touch informal, but i read her comment as trying to be human and humorous, not snide and derisive.

Wow, I wish I was alive back then.

The problem I see is that she probably should have said "I'm not your grand-mom!";)

^

Reminds me of this song. They need a Grand-Mom version :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ENMaN6bg9U

Poster tubes are standard fare for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to take their presentations to scientific conferences. All airlines are familiar with them, and they are nominally taken as carry-on luggage. They fit just fine in overhead bins (maybe not on the smaller CRJs, I don't exactly recall), but are small enough to fit in nearly any closet. The OP is correct that they can interfere with multiple other passengers' use of the overhead bins due to their length, and for the sake of not hogging space, are best put in a closet on a full flight.

In my field alone (neuroscience), there are tens of thousands of presentations annually, each of which has a poster, most of which are carried on. Over all fields of science, there must be a million posters transported annual (but that's a WAG). I'd assume that any FA that isn't familiar with posters must be new.

So, why the comment about not being the OP's mother? I don't care how bad a day the FA was having, or how young and helpless the OP looked, such comments are not appropriate for a professional in customer service.

Did you ask nicely in the first place?

I will say it is a little annoying when you use your manners, as you should, "please" and "thank you", and what you get back is "uhh-huh" and "yup". Like it is so painful to return the courtesy.

Oh well . . . still better to take the high road.