The Flying ARSE: Under Development

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I was taken with the detailed and at times horrifying responses I got to my post on Airplane Arseholes — the very worst was from a woman who wrote about a tuna fish eating pervert. But the more mundane stuff — about people slamming their seats back or hollering into their cell phones — also generated a lot of emotion too, and indeed, airplanes are places where asshole poisoning sometimes runs wild. These responses were provoked by my plea for help with a little piece that I was writing for the ValueJet magazine. Frankly, I got so carried away with the assignment that I sent them a piece about three times longer than requested, and I haven’t heard back from them yet. I suggested a 12-Item self-test that passengers could take that I called the Flying ARSE — inspired by the original workplace Asshole Rating Self-Exam (ARSE), which has now been completed by about 45,000 people and attracted over 70,000 unique visitors. They will likely trim it way down or might decline to publish it, but I am happy the outcome in any case.

All this has further inspired me to develop a full-length Flying ARSE test, an asshole self-test for airplane passengers. Right now, to allow some rough comparison with workplace ARSE levels, I planning on also making it a 24 -item test — although that may change. And I am starting to talk with people from Electric Pulp about doing a web-based version like we did with Kawasaki. I hope to have this up and running a few weeks. The comments and emails I got yesterday gave me great ideas for items, but now I need to generate more questions, so please make suggestions. Your stories are wonderful (and horrible), but also don’t hesitate to suggest specific items.

As a bit of inspiration, I offer my favorite item in the current draft, which your stories inspired:

"You are skilled at multi-tasking – walking on the plane, dealing with your luggage, talking on your cell phone all at once. Sure, you sometimes stand in the aisle a little longer and
bump into people, but it is a good use of YOUR time."

P.S. Check out this New Yorker story called Turbulence by David Sedaris, one of my favorite storytellers and writers. It shows how asshole poisoning can spread on a plane, as usual with his writing, very funny.

Comments

6 responses to “The Flying ARSE: Under Development”

March 6, 2007

CKG

Wonderful news! Now, all you need to do is develop a test for the “service-providers” in the airline industry. Or at the very least a detector so that we can have the private satisfaction when dealing with such of saying to ourselves: “I know what YOU are.”

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March 6, 2007

Bob Sutton

CKG,
I agree! I have had some amazing experiences, sometimes because they have been beat down by management and sometimes because they just are not very nice, but frankly, so many flight attendants work under such tough conditions that I marvel at how civilized and helpful most are to passengers.

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March 7, 2007

ann michael

Bob – I just finished your book and I loved it. But something about the test doesn’t sit right with me.
If you really want people (that might not already know) to find out they might be assholes and do something about it, the wording could be less leading or the motivational aspects of the question could be removed.
In your example above – the part about it being a good use of YOUR time may not be what the offending party is thinking or conscious of – but they are still acting like an ass to other passengers regardless of why they think they’re doing it.
In the book the one that got me was “You constantly interrupt people because, after all, what you have to say is more important.”
I can be guilty of interrupting people – I get excited about things and sometimes don’t exhibit the best self-control. I never feel that I, or what I have to say, is more important than them though. I know, maybe my actions are speaking louder than my words, but just taking off that last part would have made this a no-brainer for me to check TRUE.
I also think that most respondents wouldn’t go through the thought process I just illustrated – they’d see the motivation, not relate to it, click FALSE, and move on.
Contrast this to points like:
19 – People avoid eye contact with you, or
22 – People seem to hesitant to divulge personal information to you
These questions ask you to make an observation with out putting a motivation “in your mouth”.
I think that people that might be assholes and not know it are more likely to answer these questions honestly – not because they choose to be deceptive – but because the wording doesn’t push them into rationalization mode or make them defensive.
Just my 2 cents!

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March 11, 2007

Lilly

I read both posts and the comments associated with them. As someone who has flown several times with EasyJet (I live in UK), I have to say that a lot of the ideas are irrelevant here.
Let me explain. For instance,
seat reclining. Well, seats are set to recline max 20cm (8 inch). Carry on luggage is currently restricted in UK to specific size and only one piece (so a woman can not have a hand bag plus another piece) and that means bum bag too.
These flights have no seat allocation, you stand in a queue divided into two groups based on the time you checked in. So, none of the calls are for allocated seats. Since the seats are cheap, plane does not wait for those who are late, their luggage (if any) is taken off.
Mobile phone use is forbidden on the planes in Europe and there are no phones fixed in th seats. What can be annoying is when people get out their mobiles while waiting to get out from the plane and then hold the queue while trying to juggle luggage and the phone.
I have to say that in the main, the flights on budget airlines in Europe are much more hassle free than on the conventional airlines.
You would have much more interesting points about assholes to include if you were to look at their flights over school holidays vs those at other times. Then the travelling public demographics changes and the behaviours of some families and people in queues before boarding, especially on return trips when they may have drank a bit much is potentially rich asshole territory.
Hope this gives you a flavour of the type of flight one would be talking about.

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March 12, 2007

Peter Warne

As an editor, I would describe as ‘arsehole’ the behaviour of someone who sent back a piece three times longer than requested, but maybe that’s just me?

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May 14, 2007

Susan Abbott

Here’s a question for you:
When traveling as a couple, you try to book a window and aisle seat in the hope the middle seat will be empty. If it’s not empty, you offer to change seats so you can sit together an talk.
(Can’t have all answers positive or negative)

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