Steven Slater , taking the slide

Of course the best way to start this Steven Slater story is the Taiwanese animated re-enactment. For many more Slater updates, check here (some NSFW language, it probably goes without saying).

Steven Slater is a hero. The JetBlue flight attendant acted out the fantasy of millions of working people. He told off the jerk who had cussed him out, then he quit his job in style -- in his case, by grabbing a beer, popping the emergency slide on the plane, and gliding off to freedom. Take this job and shove it, I ain't working here no more.

Steven Slater is a jackass. He overreacted to a rude passenger, made it all about himself, got arrested, and became instantly unemployable anywhere except for reality TV.

Steven Slater is a symbol -- a symbol of disgruntled workers, a symbol of our in-your-face society, a symbol of the everyday torture that comes with riding the airlines, and working for one.

To me, more than anything, Steven Slater is a warning. Because he did the kind of work most people will end up doing in this country. He wasn't a maker, he was a server. And not everybody is cut out to serve.

You know the score, but here's a couple of details. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Carolinas lost 460,000 manufacturing jobs between June 2000 and June of this year. Over the same period, the Carolinas gained more than 93,000 jobs in the leisure and hospitality field.

That's a lot fewer working in mills and factories, and a lot more people working at customer service desks.

That's not a knock on service jobs -- my mama was a waitress for 20 years. It's just reality. People are doing different kinds of work in different settings that require different attitudes.

Here's the main difference. If you work in a manufacturing plant, you have one or two bosses. You might grumble about them -- everybody grumbles about the boss -- but you probably learn to deal with it.

In a service job, you have those bosses, too. But the real bosses are your customers -- hundreds of them, maybe thousands. And in a group that big, somebody's bound to set you off.

Steven Slater didn't flip out at a supervisor. He flipped out at a passenger who had been involved in a preflight dispute about the overhead bin. There are several versions of the story, but two parts are consistent: Slater took a shot to the head when he tried to break it up, and after the flight landed, when he approached the woman, she four-lettered him.

No doubt it was a bad scene. But lots of service workers put up with worse, every day, and hold their tongues.

The customer is not always right, and lots of times the customer is flat-out wrong. Customers leave popcorn boxes on the floor of the theater. Customers stiff waiters making $2 an hour. Customers return pants they've worn 10 times. Customers do all sorts of crazy things, and then rant when they don't get immediate satisfaction.

A professional in the service business has to take that junk, swallow it, and figure out a way to make the customer happy. Most customers are good ones, and if all you do is focus on the bad ones, you'll drive yourself crazy. Which Steven Slater, at least temporarily, did.

Steven Slater isn't a hero or a jackass. He's an ordinary American worker who was faced with what's becoming a more and more ordinary situation.

What happened makes you wish that, when we're in customer mode, we have a little more appreciation for the people on the other side.

And it makes you hope that, when somebody feels the need to pop the emergency slide, we can provide the kind of job that's a good place to land.