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> and they aren't as well trained as united employees I'm really getting (maybe needlessly) a bit irate over the endless stream of "they didn't have the traini

> and they aren't as well trained as united employees I'm really getting (maybe needlessly) a bit irate over the endless stream of "they didn't have the training" comments each and every time some employee attacks someone. For this incident too but also for many previous ones, in a lot of forums from reddit to local newspaper websites I found this line of reasoning or explanation. I may get flak for this, but as a German who once (very happily) lived in the US for a decade, the stories as well as the comments seem to come mostly from this country, and I did not notice them (in this number) until this millennium. What's happened in the US, I wonder? Let me make my position clear: It should be obvious that not attacking people does not require "more training"! That's just being a decent average human being. I don't know what I'm more worried about, the number of incidents (might just be because of ubiquitous smartphones and the Internet) - or that sooooo many people (US-Americans mostly?) seem to think that this is a "training" issue. To me this seems like a large culture of "it's their fault", meaning "management". Part of it really is, since so much of the work culture (service jobs especially?) is designed to be extremely hierarchical. "Sorry, I can't use common sense, I have to call in a manager, he is allowed to use 1% of his brain but I'm not." (The higher level management is allowed to use ever more brain/judgement.) So it seems the success of this "education" of creating an obedient workforce unquestionably following procedures and rules is too great, it changed the way people think and look at everything, not just those jobs?

NotSammyHagar 9y ago
I agree, training shouldn't be necessary to tell people not to beat up passengers. But training can help people to learn to deescalate situations, and help people learn to sometimes take a second to think about it.
mike-cardwell 9y ago
Presumably, the "the lack of training" is related to how to resolve situations without resorting to force. When people say that they lack training, it's not about being trained not to attack somebody, it's about being trained (and more importantly empowered) to resolve situations before they get to that point. Because when there are no options left, you only have force.
- IIIIIIIIIIII 9y ago
  That does not change anything I wrote. > Because when there are no options left, you only have force. It actually makes it worse that you try to justify it. You used your brainpower to find a justification for what is. But there is none. This is a non sequitur - there is no reason to use force even when people don't cooperate! Also, the vast majority of such instances require no special level of competence to deescalate, only common sense and decency, including a lot of police incidents I had to read about (I myself never had an issue with US police, even though I encountered them a lot when in my youth I crossed the US sleeping in an old car that I had bought). The entire "deescalation" that was required in this particular case was to just let it be. What training do you need? Not even the next step of offering just a tad more money needs any special training. You make it sound as if we are talking about hostage negotiation or something requiring skills.
  - SilasX 9y ago
    What are you taking about? In Germany, to this day, if the airline decides to remove you from a flight, based on reasons they deem justified, and you steadfastly refuse, they don't just shrug and say "oh well, guess we're stuck with you, let's go ahead with the flight". And once security is tasked with removing a noncompliant person, then yes, it does take training to do it without hurting them. You're right that they could have avoided needing to remove someone who didn't want to. But that's a separate issue from your blanket claim that somehow force is never justified in these situations. You're taking like no one gets forcibly removed from anywhere in Germany or police are always experts in the minutiae of contract law and instantly see through any unjustified eviction.
    - IIIIIIIIIIII 9y ago
      The numbers for police actions comparing Germany and the US speak a clear language. Any kind of violence is on a far lower level than in the US. We don't need to talk about the reasons - policing in the US is harder - but your argument does not work. Nor does any of it contradicts my argument, I'm tempted to call yours "whataboutism" (that doesn't even have a basis). We certainly have our own issues, and things like profiling, the same (completely innocent) people getting controlled over and over wherever they go (darker skin, wrong haircut, etc. - who knows the criteria), but none of it pertains to this issue.

NotSammyHagar 9y ago

I agree, training shouldn't be necessary to tell people not to beat up passengers. But training can help people to learn to deescalate situations, and help people learn to sometimes take a second to think about it.

mike-cardwell 9y ago

Presumably, the "the lack of training" is related to how to resolve situations without resorting to force. When people say that they lack training, it's not about being trained not to attack somebody, it's about being trained (and more importantly empowered) to resolve situations before they get to that point. Because when there are no options left, you only have force.

IIIIIIIIIIII 9y ago
That does not change anything I wrote. > Because when there are no options left, you only have force. It actually makes it worse that you try to justify it. You used your brainpower to find a justification for what is. But there is none. This is a non sequitur - there is no reason to use force even when people don't cooperate! Also, the vast majority of such instances require no special level of competence to deescalate, only common sense and decency, including a lot of police incidents I had to read about (I myself never had an issue with US police, even though I encountered them a lot when in my youth I crossed the US sleeping in an old car that I had bought). The entire "deescalation" that was required in this particular case was to just let it be. What training do you need? Not even the next step of offering just a tad more money needs any special training. You make it sound as if we are talking about hostage negotiation or something requiring skills.
- SilasX 9y ago
  What are you taking about? In Germany, to this day, if the airline decides to remove you from a flight, based on reasons they deem justified, and you steadfastly refuse, they don't just shrug and say "oh well, guess we're stuck with you, let's go ahead with the flight". And once security is tasked with removing a noncompliant person, then yes, it does take training to do it without hurting them. You're right that they could have avoided needing to remove someone who didn't want to. But that's a separate issue from your blanket claim that somehow force is never justified in these situations. You're taking like no one gets forcibly removed from anywhere in Germany or police are always experts in the minutiae of contract law and instantly see through any unjustified eviction.
  - IIIIIIIIIIII 9y ago
    The numbers for police actions comparing Germany and the US speak a clear language. Any kind of violence is on a far lower level than in the US. We don't need to talk about the reasons - policing in the US is harder - but your argument does not work. Nor does any of it contradicts my argument, I'm tempted to call yours "whataboutism" (that doesn't even have a basis). We certainly have our own issues, and things like profiling, the same (completely innocent) people getting controlled over and over wherever they go (darker skin, wrong haircut, etc. - who knows the criteria), but none of it pertains to this issue.