More To The Story?

It's been fun watching the "Take This Job and Shove It" saga of JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater as it went viral this week - there were just so many juicy elements. The f-bomb-filled Farewell to the Troops oration over the PA! The beers! The dramatic slide down the slide! And was he really in bed with his boyfriend when the cops caught up with him at his home? That last part may be an urban legend, but still - it's a great story. Apparently Americans of all stripes have fantasized about walking away from their jobs in dramatic and slightly dangerous fashion and Mr. Slater is being called a folk hero. There is talk of a reality TV show. Media feeding frenzies like this, however, tend to play themselves out according to a predictable story arc, and sure enough, more information is starting to emerge.

The passengers are starting to talk, and some are saying the flight attendant may have initiated the confrontation that started it all. Some are saying Steven was rude to them throughout the flight, completely separate from the carry-on bag issue. There are also questions about JetBlue's handling of the situation. Why did they wait so long to notify authorities that there had been an incident on their flight? Was the tongue-in-cheek posting on their corporate blog really the best way to handle this? $100 to every passenger? Is that enough to compensate for the inconvenience? Too much?

The whole thing is taking on a Rashomonesque quality and we may never know what really happened and maybe it ultimately doesn't really matter. In the middle of the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer something interesting happened, something we can all relate to, and the rest, as they say, is history.