In my 17+ years of blogging, this is a first. And if this is all true, I certainly feel bad for the guy, as my goal is never to impact someone’s livelihood. But I’m also not sure what lesson I should take away from this?
In this post:
Flight attendant claims I got him fired from JetBlue
Back in February, I shared my experience receiving bad service in JetBlue Mint. In the past, I’ve had nothing but praise for JetBlue’s amazing Mint flight attendants, which were somehow in a league of their own. But the flight attendant on this flight was downright unfriendly, based on my experience, and I was curious if there was a general service shift in JetBlue Mint, or if I just got unlucky.
Fast forward nine months, and someone just left a comment on the blog (on a random post from months ago) with the username “the asian male flight attendant you complaint about.” The comment read as follows:
back in February this year you flew jetblue from LAX to FLL redeye, you wrote an article here complaint about you dislike and hatred towards an asian male flight attendant with the intention of getting him fired. why are you racist against asian?
At first I was confused if this was serious, since this just seemed so bizarre and out of left field. But I thought back to the flight, and yes, the flight attendant looked like he could be Asian, so I guess that checks out, since I didn’t mention that detail in the post (of course I didn’t, because it wasn’t a factor in my perception of the service).
Suggesting that I’m racist toward Asians, and particularly that I’m racist toward Asian flight attendants, is kind of wild. I mean, just look at my list of the airlines that I think have the best flight attendants… all five of them are from Asia!
So I responded as follows:
@ the asian male flight attendant you complaint about — I’m not sure if you’re actually the flight attendant I had on my flight (are you?), or are just trolling. Either way, my impression of the service had nothing to do with the ethnicity of the flight attendant, and I don’t know what could possibly give you that impression? Also, my goal is never to get anyone fired. I share my travel experiences online, both good and bad, and I’d hope (especially at a unionized US carrier) that the worst case scenario is that someone gets called in to their manager’s office to discuss the incident, and maybe get a warning, but nothing more.
Then he responded with the following:
not surprised to hear that, that’s what racist do best, hide behind excuses. Just because I refused you to record or use my image, you turn to your platform and falsely accused and wrote negatively about me with the intention of having me fired. Coming from someone who have no legit aviation training, that’s rich.
Wait, what?!? “Just because I refused you to record or use my image.” Let me be 100% clear — I wasn’t reviewing this flight, and that interaction never happened. Period. I just went back to my camera roll, and I took exactly one photo on the flight, which you’ll find below (it was just a picture I was sending Ford to say that I’m in my seat, basically, as I often do).
I wasn’t going to write about this since I didn’t want to get the guy in any more trouble, but then it escalated further, and he commented this:
that shows how little you actually know. because of your article they fired me. they used your article as their reason to which opens your up as liability that caused me harm. your actions caused me harm.
So I responded as follows (at this point he changed his username to tmfa, but was using the same email address and IP):
@ tmfa — When did I try to record you or use your image? That simply didn’t happen, and I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I feel really bad for you if you did in fact lose your job… that’s shocking. They fired you exclusively because of my story? There were no other contributing factors, and you had no previous issues? Did your union try to appeal the decision?
I’d reach out to this person to get more information, but he didn’t use a real email address, as the address he used was my name with some numbers at the end.
I don’t want anyone to lose their livelihood, and I’m confused
It goes without saying that reviewing airlines is one or the things that I do for a living. While I have plenty of criticism for large corporations as such, I think most OMAAT readers would agree that I take an overwhelmingly positive tone with individual, frontline employees. I frequently call out flight attendants by name in a positive way, because I think they deserve recognition, and they work really hard.
My point is to say that it takes a lot for me to write about bad service from a flight attendant. For example, to to the best of my knowledge, my previous post about bad service on an airline involved Oman Air, and a situation that escalated onboard, and got quite awkward. That was in very early 2024. Given how much I fly, I’d say that’s pretty infrequent.
If this flight attendant truly was fired exclusively because of my blog post, then I’m really sad to hear that, and also shocked. I struggle to come to terms with that, since flight attendants at JetBlue are unionized, and a single piece of negative feedback shouldn’t cause someone to lose their job. After all, people have bad days, and maybe he was having a bad day… I get it. People deserve grace.
If this is all true, and he was in fact fired, I would have assumed it’s because of repeated complaints, and maybe my report was the last straw. I don’t know.
So I’m not sure what to make of all of this. I’d like to think that I’m a pretty compassionate person, and that I try to learn from stuff that happens in my life. But I’m sorry, I can’t bring myself to think “well, in the future I just won’t say anything if there’s bad service.”
It’s one thing if I were someone who does anything possible to create drama (not that I can think of anyone like that!), in which case some soul searching might be in order. But that’s not me.
Bottom line
Earlier this year, I wrote about some bad service I received in JetBlue Mint. I fly a lot, so if service stands out so much that I write about it in a negative light, then you really know it wasn’t great. Over nine months later, someone who claims to be that flight attendant is commenting on my blog, claiming my complaint was racially motivated, and that I hated him and wanted to get him fired.
I’m shocked to hear all of this. Yes, the service was bad, but I wouldn’t expect that any US airline would fire a flight attendant after a single piece of negative feedback.
I wish I could follow up with this person, but he hasn’t left a real email, and it’s not like the airline will tell me anything about an internal discipline matter. And this seems to be legitimate and not a prank, in the sense that the flight attendant appeared to be Asian, a detail that’s not relevant and that wasn’t disclosed, but that’s mentioned in the comment.
What do you make of this strange situation? Is there any chance this guy otherwise had a good record, and was fired over my negative post?
In this state, the proletariat’s prefrontal cortex has gone offline and so its ability to rationalise is diminished. Indeed, any discussion or action is being interpreted as an attack and as such only fuel’s the fire.
He probably mistook you with Josh Cahill
Move on. The guy doesn't deserve your attention. You written an honest review and that's where the story end. Do not feed trolls.
Ben, you shouldn't feel bad about this. Even if your article was a contributing factor in his termination, you probably did future passengers a service, as what we know about this person so far is:
- He performed very poorly on the day you flew (might have been a bad day, might nit have been)
- He came to your blog and directly insulted you with baseless accusations of racism (honestly, this is...
Ben, you shouldn't feel bad about this. Even if your article was a contributing factor in his termination, you probably did future passengers a service, as what we know about this person so far is:
- He performed very poorly on the day you flew (might have been a bad day, might nit have been)
- He came to your blog and directly insulted you with baseless accusations of racism (honestly, this is extra bad since many people are really treated bad due to still existing racism and accusations like this weaken the situation for everyone)
- He then directly lied about what you did (You didn't mention it in the article, but recording / taking picturees of people is something you never do, even on a ereview flight)
Honestly, he sounds like he is a piece of work and I'm confident there where many other issues that led to him beeing fired.
Everything is "racist" these days. Make a complaint about bad service and you're "racist". Look at someone the wrong way and you're "racist". Comment on a hairstyle and you're "racist". It's become so common a claim that it's effective meaningless.
If you're crap enough at your job for someone to publish a blog post about you, then you deserve to be fired. I'm not sure that's what really happened here, though. I think it's a troll.
I love when the woke eat their own
Can you define woke?
An FA in a union would probably have more going on than just your article to be fired, I wouldn't lose sleep over it. It sounds like the guy is a lazy pathetic loser who shouldn't be in the industry.
The timing with the Josh Cahill drama is interesting, and the claims/context... Would be easy enough to look through your previous posts and then post this to try to create drama/smear against you.
The proletariat’s fury may mask sadness, loneliness, or even something more existential …. a fear of change, of being irrelevance and of being dismissed out of hand.
It’s probably something to do with Josh. Smear you and you appear no better than him. Well played Josh
No one gets fired over a single incident this tame. You didn't accuse him of a crime or a critical safety violation. Ben - you're not THAT powerful in the industry!
The guy sounds like he has deeper problems, and maybe it's for the best that he's no longer in a customer-facing role.
The proletariat’s prefrontal cortex (the brain's reasoning and empathy centre) has shuts down, while the limbic system (the brain's emotional threat centre) takes charge, driving the proletariat’s instinctive fear and anger.
While your newfound class consciousness is welcomed, you seem to have totally missed the point...
I’m sure there’s way more to the story than both what you and the (former) flight attendant are disclosing.
But this should be a valuable lesson to you, you have a huge burden to write responsibly and with care. You’re almost kind-of a big in a certain way deal.
@ Alvin -- I swear there's nothing I'm not disclosing here. I shared the entirety of my thoughts on the flight in that blog post. Nothing else happened onboard... I barely even interacted with the guy, as I slept most of the way (but despite that, came away with a very bad impression).
It does seem likely to me that there are things about his history with JetBlue that he's maybe not disclosing, if he actually was fired.
Alvin
Out of curiosity. Do you think Ben should censure himself if it's bad service just in case someone is held accountable?
I'm not on that crazy guy's side but... if you only took that one photo how do you remember the FAs ethnicity? Can you recall the appearance of every FA that's served you over the past nine months? That doesn't make any sense.
@ BigT3x -- No, I don't recall every flight attendant who has served me since the beginning of the year, though I certainly recall the most memorable ones. And this one was among the most memorable (not in a good way), as I explained in the post...
Ben, I am actually surprised that this is your "first". As someone with such far reaching blog I would expect you would get more of such trolls.
In any case, just ignore it, as most of the comments here suggest. Those who write such nonsense want you to engage and to respond, this is their goal. Draining other people's energy to feed their own frustrations.
Perhaps he was fired for bad command of the English language. How is it JB allegedly hired him to work inits their premium cabin, but he can hardly string a sentence together? JB standards would seem to be drastically slipping.
Anyhow, why are you continuing to engage?
Shrug, roll your eyes and move on.
Pot calling the kettle black? You can’t write coherently either - just look at your first sentence.
Which part of this is not coherent to you?
"Perhaps he was fired for bad command of the English language"
There's a higher proportion of people with chemical imbalances amongst active internet commenters than exists in the general population. Be advised and act accordingly.
lol. I cannot stand people that simply pull out the most inflammatory word in the book to try and gain sympathy from others rather than being honest with themselves about their own shortcomings
been a flight attendant for nearly 40 years....no one loses his or her job because of 1 blog or complaint letter.....if in fact a flight crew member loses their job its been bulding up for a long time
People will deflect their issues on something which comforts them. Instead of him thinking about his work issues and ethics which most likely caused him to get fired he rather deflecting it on you. I wish the bloggers and vloggers had power to get FA fired by just one bad review. If that was the case 50-60% of the staff would be fired.
You continue posting honest reviews
Another person that has been taught their failures and shortcomings are because of society. Maybe he's in the wrong job.
Ben, it's not clear from your posts, did you actually complain to the airline using a post flight survey or otherwise? Or did they allegedly fired him based solely on your blog post?
@ echino -- I didn't complain beyond the post that I wrote.
the "flight attendant" calling you racist on a public platform opens him up to defamation liability. But DavidW is right. Stop writing about him and move on.
Ben. STOP WRITING ABOUT HIM IMMEDIATELY and do NOT reach out nor respond to this person any more. Chances are you are either being trolled or someone was actually fired and blames you (rightly or wrongly does not matter). In the small chance he takes legal action anything you write in this subject can be used against you. Now, you may think what you write can't possibly be turned against you, but in the hands...
Ben. STOP WRITING ABOUT HIM IMMEDIATELY and do NOT reach out nor respond to this person any more. Chances are you are either being trolled or someone was actually fired and blames you (rightly or wrongly does not matter). In the small chance he takes legal action anything you write in this subject can be used against you. Now, you may think what you write can't possibly be turned against you, but in the hands of an attorney, who knows? Walk away and move on. Even if the guy is just a crackpot, nothing good can come out of further comment.
Full disclosure, I am not an attorney, just an educated person who's been around a while.
Clearly you are a nice empathetic person with a conscience. However you can't always make things right and one can unintentionally make them worse.
Looking forward to your next post.
Based on what is written in this blog entry here, there is no legal action to be taken by the email sender that would ever see a courtroom or a settlement from OMAAT; no attorney would even take the case.
Except for Lionel Hutz.
"Full disclosure, I am not an attorney"
.....we can tell.
Oh, geez, feels like this whole incident is just a massive 'troll' by Gen Yinjing Youguan...
(That's what Xi said...)
Maybe the guy confused you with Cahill, since all sandy hair Caucasian travel bloggers all look alike.
I'm confused about why you think this guy is real, rather than just a troll who posted some random stuff in hopes that it might seem close enough to something that actually happened, just to see if he could get a response out of you. If he legitimately had something to discuss with you, he'd contact you privately with more details.
@ snic -- I was skeptical of that as well, but the fact that he specifically mentioned he's Asian stood out to me, since that was something that a random person wouldn't know.
If you constantly bring up race just because you got fired cause you suck at doing your job or hate working with customers, then YOU ARE the racist.
Just based on his comments on your blog, he doesn't belong in customer service. Good riddance.
Its Josh Cahill hiding behind it trying to stir things up.
Hey lucky you really don't need to acknowledge things like that at all
If this person wanted to make an actual legitimate complaint, then he/she would have used a better method of communication other than a comment on your blog with broken grammar, no substantial details, and no evidence to support the claims. Until you get more details, ignore and move on.
It's so poorly written that I'd expect that it's from a family member of the actual person.
Why not reach out to Jetblue?
Maybe the PA of Josh Cahill had some spare time?
lol...my exact thought.
I think the bottom line is don't give credence to the crazy crap that gets posted in comments online. The internet is a horrible place. I'm an employment lawyer and this reads to me like you're being trolled, not like the actual flight attandant.
Regardless, I feel like the comments section on just about any internet page is a cesspool. People leave all civility behind. It's a problem with this stage of civilization.
When...
I think the bottom line is don't give credence to the crazy crap that gets posted in comments online. The internet is a horrible place. I'm an employment lawyer and this reads to me like you're being trolled, not like the actual flight attandant.
Regardless, I feel like the comments section on just about any internet page is a cesspool. People leave all civility behind. It's a problem with this stage of civilization.
When you elevate crap from the comments section to your main post, however, you give credence to the idea that people make scurious claims of race discrimination.
Let me give you a real example. We had a DEI program with the [my city's] Bar Associaiton and we invited an asian attorney to talk about discrimination. But when it came time to talk, it was just too painful for him and he couldn't talk about it. He just kind of choked in front of a cle full of attorneys.
So it does make me cringe when people promote the trope that people make false claims of discrimination. Like we all know the story about the boy who called wolf, we're programmed to believe people make false claims. But if it really is the flight attendant and the sirens song of the comments sections called to him to make an scurious complaint, it's an aboration.
You made fair and accurate comments about a particularly poor experience you had with JetBlue. Period. Perhaps this was the final straw between this FA and JetBlue. That supposing the commenter is legit.
Unfortunately the words racist, fascist, nazi, bigot and lacking empathy have all become meaningless now because the far left regularly throw them out like confetti, without knowing their meaning, against anyone that does not agree with their extreme and often nonsensical views.
Stfu.
if you keep getting called a bigot, maybe the problem is you
So by this logic, Ben is a racist...?
B6 has standards? Who knew?
Oh, friend, they've always had better food and seats in Mint, like, this whole time.
Maybe J.C. has started sending his trolls to discredit you or something, since you wouldn't submit to his generous offer of an outright mud fight ;-)
If anybody gets fired, then it's on them not anybody else. For some reason, people find a lot of reasons why I went wrong with them, but they never seem to figure out the one major reason that it comes in all those failures, that is them.
I'm not sure I would take this user at face value. The ethnicity could just be a "lucky guess". The user's command of written communication is especially poor, considering that this is supposedly a trained, commercial flight attendant leaving the comment.
#Troll (you know what they say ""if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is probably a duck")
@ NomadDC -- And I would've just assumed it was a troll, but the Asian "detail" gives it some credibility, since that's not something someone else would've known, no?
The he comments on a random post and not the actual original post seems weird too. You would think he would know which exact post that got him fired and that he would put the comment there.
If this isn't some troll, sounds like someone was bitter at getting fired and used the blog post as an excuse.
No way a blog entry that didn't even identify the person would be used, there was no clear identification made. Jetblue would be reckless in trying to fire on that alone.
More than likely it would be other complaints or reasons.
Based on this person's emails, there's a problem here that extended way beyond poor service on a single flight.
I'm in two unions and, unless you're fired for cause, there are many hurdles that must be jumped through to terminate someone. It is certainly possible, but it usually means you have a very thick file of issues with you as an employee, and the union will still fight for you (unless what you've done is so egregious that they seem it not worth the risk). Finally, there are several avenues of appeal before a...
I'm in two unions and, unless you're fired for cause, there are many hurdles that must be jumped through to terminate someone. It is certainly possible, but it usually means you have a very thick file of issues with you as an employee, and the union will still fight for you (unless what you've done is so egregious that they seem it not worth the risk). Finally, there are several avenues of appeal before a final decision is made. So, I'm guessing you're right that this person already had a "rap sheet" and his termination was already ongoing when you posted your review.
Either that commenter was making everything up just to troll you, or he is vindicating through his posts that Jetblue made the correct decision in firing him.
If a unionised flight attendant is actually fired and it sticks, chances are there is much more to the story than just your review. I wouldn't lose sleep over it.