I must admit that sometimes I feel like my generation (millennials) get a bad reputation for their social media engagement and “zero fucks given” for anything other than avocado-toast, but I really feel like we are not all bad.

I’ve been trying really hard to reduce down my Snapchat and Instagram use and admittedly I have found it hard, but one thing I have never done is take that act onto the flightdeck. I had heard rumours of First Officers doing that stuff but honestly I hadn’t seen it myself until this week.

One assumes, naturally, that when a 56-year-old man from Australia arrives to the briefing that the last thing he’s going to do is start taking selfies and posting them on Instagram. The Captain for our flight to Montreal was exactly that guy. Doing it as we were commencing the brief and walking to the aircraft was one thing but that was merely the starter ahead of the main course.

From the moment we sat into the flightdeck he was pointing his phone at himself trying to get the perfect selfie. This continued while we were taxiing to the runway; mother of god I thought I was going to kill him. I am probably a bit too volatile to be on the flightdeck with this kind of asshole. I just had to exercise excellent CRM.

It was my take-off so I just focused on my job. When the camera flash went off at around 100kts on the take-off run I lost it. Knowing exactly what I said to him is hard to determine as I was trying to focus on making sure the 200 plus tons of airplane got into the air safely. Suffice it to say he put the camera down, but only for around 5 minutes.

I tried a different approach and informed him that we had a very clear procedure in regard to the use of personal electronic devices on the flightdeck. He reacted with utter disdain as though someone had told one of my millennial brethren that their tattoo was there for life and not the weekend. Zero fucks given!

Once we attained our cruising flight-level I was relieved to see the Cruise Captain enter the flight deck and I was further excited when I noticed that Captain-Kangaroo had left his phone on the flightdeck. Normally I would immediately be taking pictures of the most inappropriate shit and making outrageous comments by posting on his Facebook page. In this case I realised that he would be much more hurt by the absence of his phone than a racial slur attributed to him on social media.

With his phone hidden so well I’d probably find it hard to find it myself at the end of the flight, I just sat back and relaxed. Sitting there with a big old smile on my face we were greeted with what may be the most idiotic request we’ve ever received on the flightdeck. A passenger sitting just behind the port side engine was complaining about the noise of the aircraft and was wondering if it would be at all possible for us to turn it off – so that they could get some sleep! Yes, you read that correctly. A grown-up, presumably educated, asked us to shut down an engine so they could get some sleep.

Our first reaction was to burst out loud laughing and although the Number 1 was telling us because she herself found it hilarious, she further indicated that the individual was deadly serious and was stating their intent to file a complaint about the noise.

I was utterly confused as to how anyone could actually think this was a possibility. It turns out the person who requested the engine shutdown was a young man in his mid to late twenties (millennial), which led me to only one conclusion. No matter how hard you try you can’t learn common sense if constantly taking pictures of avocado-toast and posting them to Instagram.

As a millennial all I can do is apologise. We really are a shallow group whose legacy shall be the creation of cloud computing in order facilitate the relentless Instagram posts that we think make us look cultured and hip.

What I can’t apologise for is Captain-Kangaroo. WTF!

Photo by Rami Al-zayat on Unsplash