All I am asking is for flight attendants and gate agents and anyone else with access to an airplane-related microphone (except for pilots, I’ve learned my lesson, I won’t tell pilots what to do) to read the room. Or the plane. Whatever enclosure we’re enclosed in.
There is a time for the shtick. That time is a mid-morning flight on a sunny day when everything’s running on time and the airport isn’t too crowded. If you do the shtick at that point, great. But otherwise, if you’re going to try to be funny, can’t you just sneak it in there instead of doing it in a way that only makes the tipsy mother of two in 18B on her way to a bachelorette party in San Antonio even louder? (We’re talking about the kind of person who shrilly asks for doubles before the drink carts at her row and loudly asks Uber drivers why they don’t have a real job and posts all the time on Facebook with an uncomfortable quantity of emojis.) Subtlety, guys. I don’t need to hear the gate agent tell us he’s 34 and likes long walks on the beach when my flight’s already 28 minutes late and I’m sitting next to a woman who just splashed relish onto my backpack due to what I can only hope was a tragic misunderstanding at the Nathan’s down the concourse by the escalator. Just tell us when we’re boarding, man. Save the routine for another day.
I understand that people are people and that people want to have fun at work, but again: Subtlety. Jokes are going to land better during the security demonstration if you sneak them in deadpan for the eight people who might be listening than if you talk so loudly into the mic that it’s physically impossible to not listen. You don’t have a laugh track. And thank God for that.
