Board 8 > Who are you more sympathetic towards in this situation?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I was inching towards my seat on the plane when I witnessed the situation. The mother was taking the aisle seat on the left side and the father and son were taking the aisle and middle seat on the right. As the mother was getting into her seat, the flight attendant said something like "let's quickly move into our seats." The mother snapped back with "I am at my seat," then I think the FA said something like "little kid, let's move into our seat," to which the mother snapped again with "he is not able to get into his seat." When the FA walked away, the mother gave him a look

As I was watching this unfold, I initially felt the mother overreacted. I don't know how long the family was taking to get into the seats, but I can't imagine it being very long. I was debating with myself who I thought was more in the right/less in the wrong and I still don't have a clear answer. It feels a bit like neither side was right or wrong. Although I felt the mother overreacted, I may have reacted the same way if I were also a mother. Curious to see what b8 thinks

i don't see how we're supposed to give the mom any sympathy here, even if she hadn't been taking very long it's always inappropriate to be snapping back at any point to someone gently doing their job

Travel is stressful so I can get why the mother reacted the way she did here.

I still side with the flight attendant who was just doing her job.

Where's the crazyisgood option

VintageGin posted...

Where's the crazyisgood option

that's option A

BlueCrystalTear posted...

Travel is stressful so I can get why the mother reacted the way she did here.

I still side with the flight attendant who was just doing her job.

Yea, I can understand kids being a handful and trying to manage everything around them, which is why I didn't just wanna go "MOM BAD." I also sometimes feel that FA's can be wordy

But how many YO is the flight attendant?

Yeah, I can empathize with both, but the fa was objectively behaving more correctly

The mom was either more frazzled, or inappropriate for another reason. Smiling and saying "we're working on it" or "sounds good" would have gotten the point across just as well if she had her wits about her

It took me a little introspection to get over frustration with the (sometimes imagined) criticism inherent with being told/asked to do something, but I did. Feeling defensive doesn't grant any benefits in 99% of cases

Did the mom bring an empty shopping cart onto the plane with her? If so, did one of the other passengers steal it when she wasn't looking?

If I were the Mom, it doesn't matter how stressed I am, I would attempt not to snap at anyone ever. But if I did, I would apologize ASAP. If I were the flight attendant, I would think I didn't do anything wrong, but in order to remedy the situation, I would just apologize.

The answer is to sympathize with both. If both people just think "what if I was in the wrong?", a lot of problems would go away.

The customer is never right.

Xiahou_Shake posted...

Did the mom bring an empty shopping cart onto the plane with her? If so, did one of the other passengers steal it when she wasn't looking?

nice try

barreldragon88 posted...

Curious to see what b8 thinks

why

FA by default because I feel zero sympathy for the mom

While regardless I don't think anyone was wrong here, the amount of ire that could be reasonable from people would depend on the age of the child. If we're talking a toddler, grace needs to be given because it's really hard to get a toddler to follow any directions, especially in a unique situation such as boarding an airplane, and that could've had the mother very frazzled. Also maybe the father could've been doing more to facilitate the situation.

Either way I think it's a dumb situation for anybody to have any real emotion towards. Boarding and unboarding a passenger plane is a shared terrible experience for the general public. It's why first class is so valued.

ZaziGuado posted...

Either way I think it's a dumb situation for anybody to have any real emotion towards

Basically this, but this also applies to any situation where you're a customer. There's really no reason to ever feel stressed as a customer. It's all self-inflicted. You can make 10x more mistakes than you think, without there being any real problems.

For employees, it can matter a lot though, because they have performance metrics that they need to hit to keep their jobs or get raises and such. So it's fair if an employee is stressing to some extent.