It doesn’t matter if you work in the mail room for a soulless corporation or in the quality assurance department for a Fireworks, Ice Cream, and Porn Star Factory, everyone imagines quitting their job from time to time. However, in all of our wildest dreams of escaping the daily grind, I’m sure most people have never imagined doing so in as fantastic a way as Steven Slater, a JetBlue flight attendant who used his plane’s emergency chute to get away from annoying passengers earlier today in New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Sure, he may be facing some legal problems for his actions, but he’s sure to be the hero of clock punchers everywhere for years to come.

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From the Wall Street Journal:

“JetBlue Flight 1052 from Pittsburgh had taxied to a stop at Terminal 5, Gate C around noon Monday when flight attendant Steven Slater, 38, was struck in the head with luggage that a passenger was trying to unload from an overhead compartment, according to an airport official with knowledge of

the incident.Slater demanded an apology from the passenger, the official said, but the passenger refused. The two argued before the passenger told Slater to ‘f— off’, the official said. The official said that Slater then got on the plane’s PA system and directed that same obscenity at all the passengers and added that he especially meant it for the man who refused to apologize.Slater is alleged to have then activated the plane’s inflatable emergency slide, grabbed two beers from the galley, then slid down the chute, the official said.”

Holy crap. All Slater needed to do is wave the American flag over his head and shotgun one of those beers on the way down the chute and he’d probably be the greatest human being who ever lived. The Wall Street Journal goes on to detail how Slater ran through the terminal, hopped in his car, and drove home to Queens where he was soon picked up by police all of which are details that will be used in the later verses of the folk songs we will all sing to our grandchildren about this living legend.

The intrepid reporters over at the New York Times looked up Slater’s MySpace page (Eww, MySpace, really? This is the first uncool thing I’ve heard about this guy) and discovered he’s been a flight attendant since 1990 which is a long time to spend every day telling obnoxious travelers

that, no matter how hard they push, that suitcase is not going to fit in the overhead compartment. He was also “chairman of JetBlue’s uniform redesign committee” and “serves on the airline’s in-flight values committee,” a committee whose rules he probably broke today.

So, God speed, Steven Slater. You are an inspiration to us all.

(UPDATE 08/10/10) Watch the report from CBS News Below:
Tags: JetBlue, Steven Slater