Is there anyone out there who hasn’t heard of Jet Blue flight attendant Steven Slater’s profanity filled tirade and exit down the emergency chute carrying beer?

From the Asian animation of his battle with the passenger, 140,000 Facebook fans and T-Shirts, we finally have an authentic working class hero who symbolizes all the frustrations of trying to survive the surly attitudes so common in today’s recession. Or do we?

Turns out that no passengers actually saw the altercation with the passenger that resulted in a gash on Slater’s forehead. In fact, one of the first passengers on the flight claims that Slater had the gash before any passengers boarded the plane.

He was mad as hell and couldn’t take it anymore.

But was his anger based on something that really happened, or did it just happen in his own mind? Maybe this doesn’t matter to you, but if we’re all going to nominate this guy to hero status, I’d like his story to align with other people who were on the flight.

Okay, I saw the movie Red Eye. When Jodie Foster’s kid disappeared on a plane in flight. So the woman who slugged him could have gone all Hollywood and disappeared. But the fact that no one corroborated his story and how he got that nasty gash on his forehead does trouble me.

Earlier in the year we had Conan. Remember when Coco was bounced from his Tonight Show perch. Sure NBC didn’t handle this very gracefully. But he did get many millions of dollars. And ratings have improved dramatically for his replacement, Jay Leno. Oops another working class hero who is hard to relate to.

Can’t a guy get an authentic working class hero anymore? Is that too much to ask?

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.