Until this morning I had never heard of Elan Gale. So it's funny to me that a mere half hour after hearing about him he became my hero. God, I love the internet. Thanks to my friend Nadia from ChildMode, I was tipped off this morning about the "funniest thing she ever read" and forwarded this exchange.
The first tweet of the flight started like this:
The last tweet was this:
What happens in between in so funny that I had tears running down my face. So I beg of you please go read the entire exchange before continuing here.
While this is one of the funniest things I've read on the internet in a while, it's not what inspired me to throw Elan Gale up on a pedestal. It was what he wrote shortly after on his blog about the whole situation that made him my hero. In it he says:
"What I did today was just point out something we all know: Be nice. It’s Thanksgiving. Be nice.
Be nice everyday, but if you see a man or a woman working on a holiday you better respect that they would like to be with their family too.
So have some compassion and have some appreciation.
Most people do. Most people are great. And then there are a bunch of Diane’s in the world.
And it’s OUR job to tell every Diane to shut up.
It’s OUR duty to put the Diane’s of the world in their place.
We need to REMIND them about the way of things.
We outnumber them."
Yes! A thousand times yes Elan! Thank you for issuing the rallying call. I am right behind you.
Today being Black Friday and all, it's a good time to remind people that being an asshat this holiday season will get you no where.
We will no doubt hear countless stories today of arrests, tramplings, fights and other disgusting behaviour as people fight over the the two big screen televisions a store is offering as a door crasher. Shame on the retailers that encourage this type of behavoiur, but more so, shame on the people who act so disgusting because of consumerism run amok. Stop participating in this garbage, plain and simple.
The bigger issue though is how we treat those in the service industry this time of year. Did the person at the cash fumble your order? Maybe you should try having twenty people in line giving you the stink eye. Was the person serving you grumpy? You might be too if you were screwed out of tips by pissy patrons. Did you have to wait in a long line to make your purchase? Well congratulations, so did everybody else. Get over yourself please.
I wrote about this in 2011, after remembering that I spent many Christmases crying in the stock room because some customer felt the need to use me as their personal punching bag. I'm grateful that Elan reminded me again of my quest to protect those who serve, especially at this time of year.
No matter where you go this season, if someone is serving you, practice these simple phrases; Please, I really appreciate that, You're amazing, Great job, I understand, Take your time, I'm in no rush, I apologize for the asshat behind/ahead of me you didn't deserve that, Thank You! Let's unite against the asshats this year and make the holidays a little merrier for everyone.
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