
Flying can be enjoyable as you watch the world below shrink as you ascend above the clouds. It can also be difficult and a fair test of one's patience. If this writer has any flight advice it would be one—even though it looks appetizing don't eat the airport sushi during a layover.
Two—please keep your shoes on—the rest of us, including the attendants, can indeed feel our noses burning. They have to deal with enough during the flights, let's not add olfactory assault to the list. But seriously... leave the sushi alone, grab a nice-made pretzel instead.
Redditortheburiedsalmonasked:
“Flight Attendants and/or Pilots of Reddit, what are some things passengers do that get on your nerves?
Flight attendants jumped on this question ready to dish on their biggest pet peeves and worst experiences.
Gross...
“Leaving a ridiculous amount of garbage behind. Last week I had a grown a** couple spit huge globs of gum onto the floor and then step on it to try to rub it in. Like seriously? Why? And getting up to use the bathroom when we're already descending."
Keep it in your pants ya’ll...
“As a former FA—Don't try to join the mile high club. Just, stop."
“Don't have sex in the bathrooms y'all. No, you aren't being very quiet and yes we will know and depending on the airline policy we'll also have to politely ask you to knock it off and keep it in your pants."
“Not to mention the obvious - airplane lavs are ridiculously tiny, to the point where once on one long haul we had to make an emergency landing because a large couple couldn't get out of the lav they had shoved themselves into once they were done."
“I'll add that this is THE grossest place to possibly want to do the deed, as lavs NEVER GET DEEP-CLEANED, EVER (between same-day legs)"
“I know what your hand motions mean and I will have to come over and shut it down, especially because in most cases there are families with kids sitting behind or near you."
15 years in...
“Former flight attendant here... 15 years I've seen it all! (and sorry for the formatting, on mobile)
- Walking throughout the aircraft barefoot. Especially into the toilets... Those floors are not as clean as you think they are!
- People who talk to us and treat us like scum. And yes, we'll provide better service to the ones who are nice or think of them first when a whole row is free and they need to lie down and sleep during an 11hr flight.
- Parents that don't watch their kids during the flight. The aircraft isn't childproof and there's a surprising amount of things they can injure themselves on.
- Passengers who do aircraft yoga during the service. By all means, if lights are off and it's quiet go ahead, but if there's a buzz of activity near the galley then maybe wait a while.
- Speaking of which, assuming the galley is free for all. Sometimes we don't get provided crew food for work and bring our own. If we're busy attending to a call bell and can't finish out snack or whatever... It's not for you to just grab and eat... At least ask first!
- Complaining about how rough the flight was. I've had some cuss out the flight deck about their abilities because the aircraft hit wake turbulence... If you can magically see wake turbulence on a tiny monitor and think you can do a better job then join a flight academy, pay several thousand dollars for the training and certification and do it yourself..."
"I left Aviation in August (because of you-know-what) but that's just what I can recall from the top of my head..."
"If you'd love to really show appreciation for your flight crew, particularly when many are so close to redundancy, a complement really makes a difference. A 15 min email to the Service Delivery department of the airline you flew with praising the crew who went above or beyond on your flight can do wonders for their career progression. I do it for service staff all the time at restaurants and the hotels we stayed at, and having them remember you after months or years due to your comments is simply priceless."
*screams in sarcasm*
“Did you know that the closer you stand to the baggage claim carousel, the faster your bag arrives? It's science. Look it up.
Warp speed for the ones that let their kids on the carousel!"
You’re going to want a buffer.
“If you are booking a connecting flight and the connection times are 30min or 2 hours. Pick the 2 hour connection. I can't stand passengers who get all upset when they miss their connecting flight because they booked themselves a 30min connection."
“Your stressful travel day will be a little less stressful knowing you have a buffer. If you happen to land on time or even early, sit down at a restaurant, go for a walk, people watch, find your next flight's gate and watch a movie there, etc."
People Explain The Worst Thing That's Ever Happened To Them On Their Birthday
Repeat after me: Keep your hands to yourself!
“Poking or grabbing at me to get my attention!! And it's usually on my @ss as it's eye level with most people haha. But for real DON'T poke people! Especially if I am speaking to another passenger."
“I can see you waving at me I'm not going to interrupt my assisting someone else because you want me to take your trash, just give me a second and I'll come to you next. I promise can hear you if you say 'excuse me!' Or 'Miss!' Or even wave a little in my direction. There's just no need to touch people or grab at them."
“Once I was so irritated at someone's incessant poking, I turned, looked them in the eye and poke poke poked them right back and said, 'what do you need.'"
“Slip me a twenty instead...”
“Stop expecting free alcohol because you handed me a three dollar bag of candy you bought in the airport. I'm a grown *ss man. You didn't make my day by giving me a Hershey's kiss. Slip me a twenty instead. I'll give you an open bar the rest of the flight.“
“If you are nice I am happy to walk the extra mile for you.”
“Gosh where to start. I'd say one of the most irritating and annoying thing is when people ignore or fight our instructions concerning safety regulations. I do not enjoy telling you that you can't have your bag in an exit row, that you need to put your important laptop away for takeoff and landing and that you should stay seated when the seatbelt sign is on. And no it is not negotiable. No reason to get insulting or treat us like sh*t."
“Drunken behaviour. When you start getting aggressive for not getting anymore booze, we know it's the right call. It is neither fun for us or the people sitting in your vicinity. From harassment, cussing, aggressive behavior, throwing up, or loud terrible singing/howling on a long-haul night flight. Same for medications taken with alcohol."
"If you are nice I am happy to walk the extra mile for you. Having a free seat next to you, a drink I don't have in my cart atm, extra snacks, etc. But being an @ss for things I can't change won't help anyone. Yes, I do see you are flying with an infant and I would love to give you a whole seat row but the flight is fully booked."
"You have a certain allergy and can't eat any of the foods offered and have not ordered a special meal before flight? We have only the foods onboard which were loaded and I can't create or order any mid-flight."
"The bar carts are heavy and the airplane has basically always an incline angle. Please move out of the way and go use the restroom before we are blocking your way."
"Feet in the isles during night flights. The cabin lights are dimmed and i do understand your need for stretching your legs but it is a trip hazard for us. There have been colleagues which broke bones for tripping over feet and legs in the dark."
The list doesn’t end there...
“Parents which let their kids do whatever they want. I almost had to cancel a takeoff once because a toddler was crawling in the isle just because mom said he won't sit still shortly before takeoff. Disregarding that on takeoff roll he could have gotten severely injured."
“And please bring everything you need for your kids. Diapers, food, milk. We have some items to help you out when you run out but not to supply everything for infants for the entire flight. And tray tables and seats are not changing tables. Gross. Please use the ones in the restrooms."
“And yes i cringe seeing ppl run around barefoot especially near/in restrooms. I sometimes can't understand what happened in there but its gross. And well I bet in almost every aircraft are restrooms where someone couldn't make it to it in time and vomitted right in front of it."
"You are a guest on board. A very valued guest. But please behave as such. You have passenger bins and your seat area. Don't open other cabinets or lockers. Don't help yourself to anything which isn't obviously on display for you. And if in doubt ask first."
"We had passengers eating the homemade lunch of a colleague in Tupperware. Someone took a bite from a piece of cheese which my colleague already had a bite from and placed it back, etc
"All that said I have had as well super amazing passengers. A lot of laughs, people who forgave me for drenching them with sprite or redwine, offering help to me in certain situations, etc."
"Flying since 2012"
“I am not your grandchild, I am your captain.”
“After a flight I usually stand by the flight deck and say good bye to the passengers as they exit. I get a lot of people that ask how old I am. That doesn't really bother me (I'll probably be sad when it stops), but please don't touch me as you are saying it. Seriously, strangers trying to pinch cheeks and pat my head. Lady, I'm not your grandchild, I'm your captain."
General advice? Listen to and be respectful to your flight attendants...and seriously stay out of the bathroom unless you need it—don't be the couple that needs to be peeled out of the loo.
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People Describe The Weirdest Rules They've Encountered Because Of One Person's Actions
Don't pee in a pool.
Like... who did that so that it had to become a rule?
Who was that dumb?
Rules are rules, and there are many good rules.
But so many rules are just arbitrary because some idiot chose to be... well, an idiot.
RedditorGoogunkwanted to hear about the times we've all been hindered because someone else was a mess. They asked:
"What stupid rule did your work have to make because one idiot ruined it for everyone?"
I've always hated rules implemented because of other's nonsense.
No Kissing
"Not at a workplace but at a summer camp (YMCA). Only children under the age of 9 were allowed on the playground due to the fact that 2 older kids (don’t know how old they were) were caught kissing on the playground."
Puppet007
Yes, creepy dolls...
"Only one personal item in your office. This was a financial institution so customers came into our offices. This was put in place because of one lady who had her office packed with trinkets including a handful of dolls. Yes, creepy dolls. Come and get your auto loan also don't worry we have some dolls here to witness your transaction."
luminescentbluedot
That went nowhere...
"A video game company I worked for provided free snacks and sodas. One Friday HR had just done a shopping run and was bringing in a truck load of junk food. One employee was caught sneaking a case of soda out of the parking lot. He wasn't fired or disciplined, it was just made public why the perk was ended. He quit shortly afterward and attempted to sue for a hostile work environment. That went nowhere."
DarrenEdwards
Pringles Please
"No popcorn. I work at a financial company and not once, but twice, someone burned microwave popcorn during end of day processing and caused the building evac. Every once in a while a new person is cooking some up and I just imagine the talking to they're about to get."
katrascythe
"We had this, but with microwave ramen. Someone managed to try to microwave it without putting water in. Twice."
_MaddAddam
Fun Over
"We used to get a free beer after our shifts at a pizza restaurant I worked at, until the manager’s little brother got in a car accident after work (he ran a red light or something). That was fun while it lasted."
boi-juice
I thought rules were designed to make sense.
Ask First
"Well, I went to the Dr office the other day. At the bathroom there was a sign. It said 'Due to misuse of hand soap, you will have to request soap from front desk.' I'm weirded the f**k out. What the hell are they doing with the soap?! At the doctor's office?? I was just too afraid to ask."
Ok-Reporter-2688
Get a Manager...
"At a restaurant I worked at needed a manager override to make any price adjustments, remove items, or process certain cash transactions. This was done because another service found a way to discount their own meals or something. Anyways, this was a huge problem for everyone because there were only two managers in the whole restaurant, and often only one was on shift at a time."
"So when it would get really busy, which happened almost every night, it was next impossible to get a manager to help you out. Often times they'd scream at you for asking for help, meanwhile your tables are getting pissy because they've been sitting there for 15 minutes waiting for me to cash them out, and I can't do anything about it."
"So between my managers yelling at me and getting stiffed, the job because insanely stressful. I quickly put in my two weeks and got the f**k out."
14thCluelessbird
Confrontations
"We used to be able to pop in an ear bud at work with the offset being that we couldn't spend more than a few seconds here or there to switch podcasts or something. Naturally, some people took a mile and spent minutes on their phones. Since everyone was afraid of confronting these people, phones and earbuds were banned in work spaces altogether."
DYGTD
"OOPSIE"
"If you derail a train you have to get drug tested. In my time at that company members of my team caused 3 derailments. After the second one, the employee's official statement was 'oops, no further comment.' It was operator error and the guy owned up to it."
"After the third one, the guy driving hops out and screams 'OOPSIE.' He was being a real prick about the problem he just caused. So we ended up rewriting the drug testing policy to drug test the guy, and sure enough he failed. So then he was gone."
thedankbank1021
Damn Bob
"Former boss here. My total pet peeve was company wide memos about 'behavioral' problems that were really about a single employee. Not on my watch! Supervisor has a problem with “Bob”? F**king talk to Bob. That draft memo is not going out. I feel your pain y’all."
Rules are made to be broken. Especially stupid ones.
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We as a people have been throwing shade for generations.
And it's only getting better.
An insult lands better with finesse and wit.
Let's get creative.
Redditorfuturesbloodlinewanted to hear all the best shade we have to throw. So they asked:
"What is the most creative insult you've been told that you couldn't even get mad at it?"
I still love a good, subtle... "Bless Your Heart!"
Drive On
"During heavy fog, I was driving extra cautiously. My passenger looked at me and said:"
"'There's a funeral home out there somewhere looking for you to be their hearse driver.'"
Back2Bach
Roll Down
"Student asked me, during sex Ed, about the bar code that printed near the base of every condom. I said I didn’t know that condoms had barcodes like that. He smiled and said, 'Oh, you don’t gotta roll yours down that far, huh.' I laughed and told him that was one of the funniest things a student ever said."
this_name_is_banned
Scrambled
"My step-sister can be kind of an airhead. On Christmas one year, her dad gave her something that required her to set the day and time. She asked him what day it was. Her dad just laughed and said 'oh honey, you could hide your own easter eggs.'"
Celesticle
"Sounds like a burn on people with ADHD. My apartment is filled with surprises I accidentally hide from my as elf."
Flyingwheelbarrow
God Draws
"Overheard 'I might be fat but you look like something God drew with his left hand.' I still giggle when I think about it."
forevertwoc
"Speaking as a lefty that can't really draw and isn't really artistic, this kinda stings."
PitBullFan
"Well there's the whole 'The Right Hand of God' thing. So I guess some have taken that literally"
shewy92
LOL
"I don't know why but my friend called me a dense liquid once and it was hilarious to me."
maybe_spoopy
Some of you are savage AF. And I am living....
Let it Dry
"It was a rainy day, I was at a construction site for labor work, I had nothing to do so I was just standing there next looking at the dirt mounds around the site. Some fella walks pass me and says 'what’s your job, watching dirt dry?' Cheeky."
Ike_The_Sir
I See You
“'You look like someone who enjoys pro wrestling.' At the time, they were absolutely right."
sanibelle98
"It's one of those things where yes, a lot of it is stupid bullsh*t, but one can appreciate the better stories they've told (Undertaker being a good example), and the olympic skill it takes to be 7' and 300lbs while managing to do acrobatic flips and NOT hurt anyone. It's genuinely impressive."
Bacxaber
"As someone in the pro wrestling business, never be ashamed of being a pro wrestling fan."
MaskMan193
So Pretty
"My great grandma used to say you can’t be pretty and smart on the same day. When one of us would do something dumb, she would pat us on the shoulder and say 'you look so pretty today' and usually the person would take it as a compliment from Gran and not realize until later."
SneezyMcBeezy
Shout
"My mom ‘shouted’ at my brother in the kitchen to go get his laundry cause it was sitting in the dryer getting wrinkled and he replied without hesitation 'yeah well you’re sitting on the couch getting wrinkled so.' It didn’t go well lmao."
DarkWing2274
"Nah, unlike my father my mom isn’t violent. she just said 'this is why amber left you.'"
"Amber was my brother’s girlfriend of 5 years, and on the night he was gonna propose he found out she’d been cheating on him for 3 years with like 8 different people. amber sucked anyway, i didn’t like her, so i’m kinda glad but he’s still depressed about it."
DarkWing2274
Cheap
I asked a bartender 'What’s cheap and has a lot of alcohol in it?' And he said 'You.'"
NickyAndretina
I have a whole new list of shade to share. Thank you.
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If zombies arrived right now, none of us would be shocked.
The way the world has been working, I think most of us would be like... "Sounds about right..."
So maybe we should prepare.
I feel like there is a lot of detail shows like "The Walking Dead" ignore.
When we're not squabbling with the undead... what do we need for the day to day.
RedditorHouseGrasswanted us to get prepared... just in case. They asked people to divulge...
"If a zombie apocalypse were to happen, what is an issue people don’t think about?"
So far my biggest concerns are banks and the liquor store. Tell me more...
Enemies
"There are so many flies. Flies."
Acceptable_Floor166
"Flies eat dead flesh - they'll be zombie enemy #1."
JustAnotherFool896
Yuck
"The smell. You ever see them movies where the cops find a corpse and they puke because of the smell... of one dead body? What's the smell going to be like when:"
"A huge percent of the population is decomposing and walking around everywhere. Or if you kill them, lying there not getting buried... just lying there getting more stinky."
"No refrigerators so all existing food in everywhere is going to rot."
"Toilets will eventually stop working so you have that to deal with."
"That and diseases other than being bit by a zombie and lack of medicine to treat them."
_ImNoJedi_
Get Soap
"Hygiene. A lot of people take the fact we have easily accessible soap and don't realize just how easy it is to die from a small infected cut without it."
Wolf-Track
"I've thought about this in every zombie film/show I've seen where two characters have sex. They're sweaty, dirty, sometimes covered in blood and zombie guts. That has absolutely got to give you a serious infection, and you won't even be able to find antibiotics to treat it. Yuck."
lovelyxcastle
Power
"Batteries. I’m one of the few left who is watching fear the walking dead. Just saw someone use a flashlight YEARS after sh*t started. 2 weekends ago when our power went out, our flashlight from last year had dead batteries."
funnylooking09
"Most batteries sold these days advertise a shelf life of 10 years. But a battery sitting in a flashlight is likely to drain faster than one sitting in a box."
industrialScreen
Easy Death
"Simple illnesses such as strep throat."
Zkenny13
"Diarrhea will be a potential death sentence again."
Crabtoe
The basics are always the things forgotten in the movies and shows.
The Collapse
"Uncontrolled release of toxic and hazardous materials as a result of industrial facilities collapsing due to a lack of continued maintenance."
"Dams collapsing and flooding out everything downstream. Power plants overheating or pressurizing and detonating. Toxic chemicals seeping into the water table or aerosolizing in fires. We made a world that we can only survive in if we keep it going."
Stentata
Can you write me something...
"Your prescriptions. I personally don't take any meds daily but i know people who do and would eventually die without them. Even if you broke into a pharmacy or something the meds would only last you so long. If you're lucky the zombies will decompose until they die but it's never safe to assume that will happen."
CitizenOfInnistrad
Bad Ideas
"Sex in the zombie apocalypse is just overall a terrible idea. Becoming pregnant means you need more food and are much less agile, both major detriments. Even if the baby does get born, that new human is now going to be slowing you down, a hassle to take care of, quite loud and zombie-attracting, and cannot work or contribute to the group, but is still another mouth to feed and water."
MaeBeaInTheWoods
How to Fuel...
"Gas expires."
Link22_22
"'The Last Man on Earth’ explores this after two years I think. He pours petrol from a can and it comes out kinda lumpy. One of the other characters points out that he warned everyone that this would happen and they should’ve been setting up solar panels which is what they do next. Obviously it’s not 100% accurate and it’s a comedy series but it reminded me how fossil fuels would become useless after a while."
reecedutoit
$$$
"It's not gonna be good for the economy."
Flintz08
Well that is a solid list compiled. I'm ready. Just need liquor.
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Gunshots. Car accidents. Stalkers.
I've avoided them all by mere seconds.
But I'm not unique.
Every day we all live a balance between life and death.
Redditor TheWingsterwanted to hear about the times we've all thought we were about to leave this Earthly plane but found ourselves still breathing. They asked:
"What moment made you think 'yup, I'm dead,' but you survived?"
I believe we all live moment to moment literally just surviving. So let's hear about when death is being loud.
A Goner
"Briefly trapped under the raft while in rapids white water rafting. Didn’t get the breath I thought I would when my head hit the bottom of the raft. Thought I was a goner. A second later I was to the side of the raft and only mostly still freaking out."
spaceman_danger
Stop Smoking
"I was 11. I had just developed asthma and my mother refused to quit chain smoking in the house. One night I have a severe attack. I'm trying to use my rescue inhaler and its not working. Each time I try to inhale it just goes right out my nose. I panic."
"I vividly remember my mother smoking a cigarette as the panic is giving way to hypoxia. She's screaming at me to use my inhaler. Right before loosing consciousness I realized that was it, I'm dead. There wasn't a whole lot of life to flash before my eyes. A sense of calm and peace settled over me as I collapsed."
"My parents did CPR on me until the paramedics arrived. I woke up in ICU days later with a tube down my throat. The doctors were surprised I survived. My mother never smoked in the house again after that. The car was still fair game for her though."
Saiyanman007
Lungs
"I was choking on food, almost a full blockage and couldn't get any air in. After several attempts to get it out, it sunk in that it was really lodged in my throat and I was screwed. Started to feel dizzy and everything moved slowly. I remember thinking what an embarrassing way to die and that I didn't want my kid to be watching (it was at breakfast)."
"I started dialing 911 when my husband came up behind me and started first aid. He got the blockage out and I started vomiting everywhere. It was very intense. I still went to get checked by a doctor to make sure my lungs were clear because I felt dizzy for hours after and my throat was raw. Took a day or so to heal. He 100% saved my life!"
shadowball46
Oh Crap!
"When I was a 6th grader I was cutting plastic with a box cutter, knife slipped and sliced a 6 inch long and .5 inch deep cut into my wrist, cut almost every vein and the tendon some people have, my first thought was oh crap I’m bleeding, followed by me running to the bathroom and then slipping on the blood and smacking my head of the floor, knocked out and somehow lived."
sovietsexyboi
Just a Graze
"I went under the wheels of a semi while riding a bicycle. Trapped for 2 hours until they cut my bike apart around me. Walked away with a graze on my leg and elbow."
PokesPenguin
How in the world? My stomach is in knots.
Lived to see another day!
"Squished in the middle car of a multi-car highway accident."
"Air bags deployed/car totaled/smelled burning scent (not sure what it was but assumed the car was about to explode). And stuck in the fast lane on the highway as other cars whizzed by this cluster-f#% at high speed. Lived to see another day! Felt extremely shaky from adrenaline for hours afterward…"
LBinSF
BOOM!!
"House explosion, 3 years old Edmonton, AB. I vividly remember standing next to a stove that someone was fixing in the basement apartment of my Dads friends house (who we were visiting) and next thing I was opening my eyes in in the daylight outside. I completely blacked out while the gas stove exploded and I landed clean in the driveway. My dad and mom were on the front page of the Edmonton Journal 1993."
"I remember distinctly thinking the brightness was heaven and that I had died and fell into heaven- my baby sister had died several weeks prior to SIDS and my mother and father had to explain where she had gone and I thought I was in heaven but it was the sky."
AD_Skinner_no_shirt
So mission accomplished...
"Car accident. We hit a patch of ice and went over a guardrail and off a 40 foot cliff. I knew was dead the moment I pulled my leg free from the piece of door stabbing through it and the blood came out like a faucet. I figured I could at least climb back to the road for help before I passed out so I did."
"I flagged down a passing truck and passed out and died in the ambulance before they brought me back. The firefighters used my blood trail to find my friends car which saved his life. So mission accomplished."
Shes_dead_Jim
fade to black...
"Had a car crash into my house and hit me when I was a child. I was sitting on the couch at the time and it hit me, drove through the next wall into the garage, then came to rest on top of my lap, pinning me down to the couch with it's full weight. I wont go into too much detail about my injuries: suffice it to say that it was pretty gorey."
"It took over an hour for the emergency responders to get me out from underneath it. That hour is foggy at best. I remember so much pain, and at some point I felt this overwhelming sense of peace about the situation. Like, I instinctually knew that all I had to do was let go and the pain would stop."
"I started to let go, and I began slipping away. The pain stopped, the world slowed, and everything started to fade to black. It felt like I was floating on water, and all the fear and agony was taken far away from me. I snapped back into myself to the sound of a firefighter yelling at me to stay awake. Immediately the pain returned and I was fully 'here' again. Didn't hit me until much later in life that I was interrupted in the middle of the death process."
Apprehensive-Donkey3
"I'm laying in the hospital right now typing with one hand. I found out a few days ago that I remained conscious enough to call 9-1-1 myself even though I don't recall doing that. Pretty much the only reason I'm alive is because I didn't injure my head."
FormerUniform
Good for all of you. Do great with the rest of your lives.
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