Furious flight attendant quits over the tannoy, grabs a beer then uses jet's emergency slide to exit plane

We've all had one of those days at work where we've had enough and fell like walking out. Well, this guy did it in style.

Here's the story...

When fed-up flight attendant Steven Slater got into a foul-mouthed row with a passenger after landing at JFK airport he decided enough was enough.

The 39-year-old immediately announced his resignation over the public address system, grabbed a cold beer from the galley, activated the jet's emergency slide, slid down and headed for his car.

According to eye-witnesses on the JetBlue flight from Pittsburgh, Slater 'snapped' after he was struck by a piece of luggage a passenger was taking down from an overhead locker.

When the unnamed passenger refused to apologise, the flight attendant walked straight to the front of the plane and used the plane's public address system to announce his immediate retirement.

Passenger Philip Catelinet told how Slater announced: 'To the passenger who called me a mother-f***er, f*** you. I’ve been in this business 28 years. And that’s it, I’m done.’

Then, pausing only remove his airline tie and to grab himself a beer from the galley, he deployed the emergency slide and headed into the sunset.

Temporarily at least.

New York Port Authority officials arrested the by now ex-air steward at his beachfront Belle Harbor home a few hours later.

Slater happily confessed to police that he had deployed the escape chute and used it to make his dramatic exit - complete with baggage.

'Oh yes I did! I threw them down first and I went down after,' he told arresting officers.

He has been charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and trespassing.

He was later released from Port Authority custody, displaying a painful-looking cut on his forehead which is said to have been caused by falling luggage from an overhead locker.

The airline, Jet Blue, said at no time was there any risk to the safety of either passengers or crew members. The company is co-operating with the ongoing police investigation.

According to a passenger who overheard Slater talking about the incident on the Airtran shuttle bus: 'He said he had a bad day, that this passenger had set him off, I thought it was a crazy way to quit your job.

'And I thought if only we could all quit our jobs so spectacularly, but not get arrested in the process.'

Slater had been with JetBlue since 2008. He was the chairman of the airline’s Uniform Redesign Committee and a member of the Inflight Values Committee.

Slater has already become something of a folk hero online, with Tweeters, bloggers and Facebook groups celebrating the theatrically final resignation of a put-upon 'trolley dolly' who had taken enough abuse, and wasn't going to take any more.

WAY TO GO, STEVEN!