On a recent Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Burbank I witnessed a truly amazing, I believe, example of the overwhelmingly blind way human beings follow the leader or surrender to the status quo. Before we go on, please except my apology if you are the owner of a lemming, or work for PETA. It is far from the purpose of this post to disparage and slander lemmings or their relatives, the voles.
Back to the airplane.
As the seatbelt sign goes off, most of the passengers on the packed flight dutifully jumped to their feet and began rummaging through the overhead bins. From my vantage point in row 23, or there about, I could see the roughly 120 passengers in front of me anxiously awaiting the front aircraft door to be opened.
Suddenly, I felt a slight breeze on the back of my neck and noticed my body cast a shadow on the seat before me. Turning, I saw the back door of the airplane was open and the flight attendant, bathed in sunlight and motioning with her left arm, pointing out the door. In that I was four rows from the back, I asked the young lady next to me and her boyfriend to let me pass into the isle so as to deplane in the rear. She shot me a particularly snotty look and turned her gaze on the front of the plane. Her boyfriend moved, and I slid behind her and out of the row. As I turned back, i noticed a dozen people or so looking at me, puzzled; a look of “why are you getting off the plane the wrong way?” They turned, looked forward and fixed their gaze once again. The flight attendant in the open door looked at me, smiled and shrugged her shoulders in response, I suspect, to my now puzzled look.
As I walked away from the plane, looking up through the plane windows at those folks still standing, staring forward, anticipating their escape, I surely understood why in pre-flight announcements passengers are reminded in an emergency situation “to look for the emergency exit closest to you” and “remember that the closest exit may be behind you.”
Well, Duh!
In fairness, the people in rows, say 15 and forward, you’re committed; its 50/50 which way you could go. But what of those in the last ten rows? Why stand and wait, inhaling all of the refreshed and recycled airplane-air? Mmmm. Now that’s good air. Why not take full advantage of a once in a hundred flight opportunity?
How is it, do you suspect, that we become so ingrained in habit, that it robs us of our vision? How does the status quo so mesmerize us that it actually hijacks our ability to think and move on our feet? Perhaps there is more “lemming” in Human DNA, more pack mentality in the human animal than I like to admit.
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The Lemmings on Southwest Airlines flight into Burbank
On a recent Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Burbank I witnessed a truly amazing, I believe, example of the overwhelmingly blind way human beings follow the leader or surrender to the status quo. Before we go on, please except my apology if you are the owner of a lemming, or work for PETA. It is far from the purpose of this post to disparage and slander lemmings or their relatives, the voles.
Back to the airplane.
As the seatbelt sign goes off, most of the passengers on the packed flight dutifully jumped to their feet and began rummaging through the overhead bins. From my vantage point in row 23, or there about, I could see the roughly 120 passengers in front of me anxiously awaiting the front aircraft door to be opened.
Suddenly, I felt a slight breeze on the back of my neck and noticed my body cast a shadow on the seat before me. Turning, I saw the back door of the airplane was open and the flight attendant, bathed in sunlight and motioning with her left arm, pointing out the door. In that I was four rows from the back, I asked the young lady next to me and her boyfriend to let me pass into the isle so as to deplane in the rear. She shot me a particularly snotty look and turned her gaze on the front of the plane. Her boyfriend moved, and I slid behind her and out of the row. As I turned back, i noticed a dozen people or so looking at me, puzzled; a look of “why are you getting off the plane the wrong way?” They turned, looked forward and fixed their gaze once again. The flight attendant in the open door looked at me, smiled and shrugged her shoulders in response, I suspect, to my now puzzled look.
As I walked away from the plane, looking up through the plane windows at those folks still standing, staring forward, anticipating their escape, I surely understood why in pre-flight announcements passengers are reminded in an emergency situation “to look for the emergency exit closest to you” and “remember that the closest exit may be behind you.”
Well, Duh!
In fairness, the people in rows, say 15 and forward, you’re committed; its 50/50 which way you could go. But what of those in the last ten rows? Why stand and wait, inhaling all of the refreshed and recycled airplane-air? Mmmm. Now that’s good air. Why not take full advantage of a once in a hundred flight opportunity?
How is it, do you suspect, that we become so ingrained in habit, that it robs us of our vision? How does the status quo so mesmerize us that it actually hijacks our ability to think and move on our feet? Perhaps there is more “lemming” in Human DNA, more pack mentality in the human animal than I like to admit.