Sliding down an evacuation chute with a couple of beers — and without an exit interview — sounds like a great way to tender one’s resignation, doesn’t it? That’s why it didn’t take long for Steven Slater to become a cult hero.
As Americans debate the propriety of using an airplane’s PA system to cuss out the customers, I suggest this is one of those rare events when we should not get bogged down in details. Yeah, maybe the JetBlue flight attendant might have been more of a provocateur than a victim. It doesn’t matter. This is still a great story.
The last time quitting a job captured this much national attention was back in 1977. Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job and Shove It!” rallied the lunch-bucket brigade like no other anthem. To this day, that song remains one of the most heartily bellowed saloon songs in the land. Bubbas who can’t carry a tune in a dumpster suddenly morph into blue-collar Pavarottis.
What many of them fail to realize during their robust caroling is that the disgruntled worker who was immortalized in Paycheck’s song never actually managed to execute his gutsy adieu. The song’s first verse ends: “I’d give the shirt right off of my back if I had the nerve to say …” and the second verse concludes, “Lord I can’t wait to see their faces when I get up the nerve to say …” So, he was hardly the most outspoken of factory workers.
Best I can tell, the song’s hero never mustered the gumption to blaspheme the boss, grab two beers, deploy the evacuation chute and turn a bad day at the office into a “Wheee!”-filled descent to the tarmac.
Again, though, let’s not worry about the details here. It’s still a great song, certainly more enduring than other Paycheck offerings such as “Motel Time Again” or “I’m the Only Hell Mama Ever Raised,” which turned out to be sadly authentic. Poor Paycheck battled many demons of drugs and his own incivility, went bankrupt and to prison in the 1990s, and died in 2003.
This hero isn’t fictional
What happened last week might eclipse even the popularity of Paycheck’s honky tonk classic, which was born in an era stained by disco. Steven Slater stepped out of fiction’s shadow to become the real-life hero that Johnny Paycheck always wanted to be. Whereas Paycheck’s nemesis was the line boss, Slater’s foes were rude airplane passengers, and who among us has not been infuriated by cell-phone shouters, seat-back pullers and jerks who get up before the plane stops?
One of my pet-peeve violations is the seemingly intentional over-slamming of cargo bin doors, so imagine my delight as I read that Slater’s tantrum included a parade down the aisle with his ceremonial exaggeration of that exact misdeed. Well done, sir!
But beyond the aggravations of aviation, Slater’s story appeals to all workers who dream about quitting jobs in memorable ways. A few preachy columnists and editorialists have criticized Slater’s stunt, but I can’t join that chorus. So he was charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and criminal trespassing. Big deal! Mere trivialities compared to the social-network fame that has erupted.
How many of you wish your office had an evacuation chute outside the window and a cooler of beer just inside the window? For now, the recession has most Americans cherishing whatever jobs they have, not even considering a breathtaking farewell. And that’s what makes the sliding Slater so special. Soon, I predict, he will enter the American lexicon, a noun, in fact. Instead of just “resigning,” folks will “take a slater down the chute.”
As my four decades of work have played out at four newspapers, I’ve seen more than a few, shall we say, electrifying exits. Most of them cannot be described in a family newspaper. But I’m not the type to flex such bravado. I lack both the audacity and the experience, having quit only once in the past 32 years. The last time I resigned from a job (2003), it seemed embarrassingly inconsequential. The boss didn’t quiver, kneel and beg me to stay as I had expected. He just looked at his watch.
If only that newsroom had had an intercom. Testing! Testing! Is this thing on? OK …
John Laird is The Columbian’s editorial page editor. His column of personal opinion appears each Sunday. Reach him at john.laird@columbian.com.
