Respect does go both ways...it's too bad that there are some F/A's who have absolutely no respect for the pax and treat each encounter as an unfriendly and contentious one. That does not give the F/A a license to treat all pax with contempt. I certainly don't treat all F/A's with disdain even though there are a few I think should be thrown out of 1L.
You guys certainly put up with a lot and I have never said that you need to tolerate rude behavior, but I am sick of the F/A's who fallback on the bs "it's a safety issue" line when the reason that two F/A's are conducting a conversation in the front of the galley is not because of a safety issue--particularly when pax are boarding.
The fact that YOUR captains asked YOU to keep the lights on is a factually sensitive scenario and is not a mandate by the FAA that the front light be kept on during redeyes. Who knows what the reason was for that request being made. Suspicious pax? The point is, you cannot generalize and say that the two FA's conducted an apparently very loud conversation in the front galley during a red eye flight due to a safety issue. (I know that YOU didn't condone the loud conversation, but others did.)
I am not pissed, but we can play that same game...the next fat a$$ F/A I see will be reported to the company as being a safety issue for all of the above reasons and more. The same goes for the F/A's who choose to conduct a personal conversation during the boarding process. You see, those letters don't look too good in your file...especially when they start piling up. I am from the Howard Stern school of NO MORE BS. Those FA's can be as self-righteous as they want, but it doesn't mean we believe it and will tolerate it. And the more self-righteous an F/A is, the more I will hold that pompous individual to his own standards.
If you don't like working redeyes, then find a new job. I certainly don't like staying up all hours of the night working on TRO's and injunctions, but that is part of my job and I do it--and you know what, I don't whah whah whah about it either. I don't go back to my client and say, I could be sleeping right now, but instead I am working on your stupid bs. Look, redeyes suck, and I understand you don't like them, but I guess my point is that an F/A cannot use the fact they are on a redeye which they don't like flying as an excuse to be rude to a pax.
