Flight attendant: 'To start the flow of oxygen you have to first stop screaming', Southwest Airlines - 2015

17 June 2014, Southwest Airlines flight San Francisco to Chicago, USA

...Boeing 737 700 series aircraft.

In the event you haven’t been in an automobile since 1960, flight attendants still have to show you how to fasten a seatbelt. So to fasten a seatbelt you do this, to unfasten the seatbelt you do that, and that seatbelt needs to be low and tight across your hips just like the hot pink Speedo I’m gonna be wearing when I finally get the three of us to a hotel hot tub tonight.

Folks, if you don’t like the jokes or the service today, there are six ways out of this airplane. You feel free to use them. There's two forward exit doors, two over-wing window exits and two rear exit doors, the signs on the ceiling and disco lights on the floor shall lead you to these exits.

In the seat back pocket in front of you the safety information card shows safety features of the aircraft, as well as our evacuation processes. Please take a moment to look it over. And in the event that our captain decides to turn the love airline Southwest Airline into a cabin cruise today, we're going to instruct you in how to remove the life vest from underneath the seat, and folks please, it is a life vest not a toilet seat cover. You place it over your head, you bring the black strap around your tiny little waist, you snap it in front and pull to tighten. To inflate the life vest after you exit the aircraft you pull down on the red tab and for those of you that have to do absolutely everything the most difficult way, well you blow into that red tube located at the shoulder, the very best of luck to you with that, and then kick paddle over to the shore. The cabin crew will be behind you shortly, you'll be able to recognise us, we'll be the ones carrying the liquor kit, and thefamous fresh peanuts.

Now the ladies passing through the cabin at this time to make sure your shoes and socks and handbags match -  I'm so sorry, but what I noticed during the boarding process, an awful lot of you need a little fashion consultation.

Folks, underneath that seat, kick it, cram it and shove it all the way underneath.

We're booked the non smoking flight over to Chicago today for three hours and thirty, but for those of you that have to enjoy a cigarette today, we have two entertainment lounges for you. One's out there on the left wing and the other one's right across the hall on the right wing. And if you think you are talented enough to light it, you can certainly smoke it.

The rest of us, well we're going to enjoy two feature films this evening, Gone with the Wind, and Bye Bye Birdie.  Ladies and gentlemen, the message is clear and very very simple -- do not be naughty in that pottie, leave the webcam alone or you end up on Youtube next week, oh it's $2200 for tampering with the smoke detector in the lavatory, and you know if you had $2200 you'd be on United Airline, in first class and not ....

And the ladies and I certainly wouldn't have shown up for work tonight if we had anticipated a decompression, but in the event of a decompression, four bright yellow buttercup masks designed by Gucci & Martha Stewart -- well they're gonna drop from that compartment overhead, and to start the flow of oxygen you have to first stop screaming. You let go of the person next to you, you reach up there for that mask, fully extending the plastic tubing, place it over your big nose and mouth and you continue wearing that mask until otherwise notified by one your three uniformed crew members.

As the crew members that you'll see running around our cabin naked today, they just simply cannot be trusted. Now ladies, for those of you that are travelling with someone that's going to need your special assistance, ladies, you know who I'm talking about, that very dear husband of yours. Ladies, you may want to take my advice, sit back, think about it for a bit... diamonds! diamonds!

For those of you travelling with your children, ...why?

For those of you that are travelling with two of your children, what in the world were you thinking? But when those masks fall, you'll want to put the mask on the bright one, that one's going to contribute to your retirement most successfully.

Ladies and gentlemen, do us a favour today, sit back, relax, enjoy our hospitality, or you can sit up and be tense, that choice is yours. The pleasure to serve you today is certainly ours. Now, one final message for you. (sings) We love you, you love us, we're much faster than the bus, we hope you enjoy our hospitality, marry one of us and you'd fly free.

Now folks you have three hours and thirty minutes to think about that proposal, but you need to know that one of us is a little higher maintenance than the other two.

Chris Daffey: 'You know you're an articled clerk ... ' Minter Ellison Articled Clerk Revue - 1996

July 1996, Regal Ballroom, Melbourne, Australia

You know you’re an articled clerk, ladies and gentleman, when you’re sitting in a room full of people you hardly know, and you’re sitting there and some guy storms into the room, and he says to the people that he’s got some high powered finance deal that he’s organised, and you think, ‘this is going to be exciting, I’m going to something really interesting, the years of study are going to pay off.’

But then he adds a rider. He says: ‘the first thing I need doing in this very exciting project, is that I have ten thousand pages of documents and these pages need to be (a) spread over the widest area humanly possible; (b) numbered in reverse alphabetical order; and (c) I want you to colour them in.

We all speak from experience when these types of things happen. And the thing is, you’ve got your normal response, the response you would have given when you were at uni, the person hands you the crayons, tosses them over to you, and suddenly your mouth is about to say, ‘I’ll tell you what you can do with your Faber Castels’ - when suddenly this hidden dweeb that’s been there for about fifteen years starts speaking, and you come out with ‘I think crayons will be a better go here, I worked with them extensively when I was at kindie, and you're thinking to yourself, ‘dear god , what has become of my life’.

You know you’re an articled clerk when your sitting in a room full of, again, people you hardly know, and somebody has made the most appalling gag you have ever heard connected with mezzanine debt, and you turn around to the person next to you, and you’re about to say, ‘who was that cornball, how bad was that gag’, and suddenly you realise that everybody’s laughing. And they’re laughing hard. And they’re slapping their thighs at the mezzanine debt gag. And you’ve got no idea, you’re thinking ‘what is mezzanine debt, and how on earth could it possibly be funny.’

Ladies and gentlemen you know you’re an articled clerk when you spend two very hard hours doing research on the UN and you present it to the partner, and you’re really sort of excited -- you're thinking, 'this is really great work, I expect some kudos out of this one,' and they say,  ‘thanks alot for you work Chris, I’m sure my thirteen year old son Waldo is going to absolutely kick it in his social studies assignment.’

Once again I speak from experience, of course the names were changed to protect the innocent -- and also because I couldn’t remember the name of Michael P’s daughter.

Ladies and gentlemen, for all the things you come through in law, all these frustrating things, all the crappy tasks you have to do, there’s one thing that’s very important, and that’s your relationship with other people. And we must say that the thirteen of us have bonded together, both with each other and all the other members of the firm, and that’s been one of the highlights. Of course we haven’t taken this 'bonding', if you will, quite as literally as last year’s group of articled clerks – we’re a clean living bunch this group. We’re either married off or perhaps completely unattractive to the rest of the firm

So a bit of what we’re doing tonight. Essentially we’ve decided to go without the theme tonight, no theme tonight, the only I can say is that all the skits are linked by one thing, and that is that they are funny.

GLADIATORS SLETCH [DELETED]

For the beginning of our next video sketch, I’d like to introduce one of our articled clerks who has stood out above all others. She has been both our emotional and spiritual 'mothers'. Essentially, what she does is keep the other ACs in line, every time we want to do something -- we’re irritated at, say, for example a photocopier, we think about going berserk, Rita Zammit gives us the verbal spanking that we needed. Her wise pronouncements make the things that Yoda say sound like the incoherent ramblings of Ronald Dale Barassi. And this woman is about to introduce a skit that cost $750 to edit, so management, enjoy it, because you’re getting the bill on Monday.

So now I’d like to introduce, Rita Zammit.

TWELVE ANGRY ARTICLED CLERKS SKETCH

Ladies and gentleman, you have no idea how much fun that sketch was to do.

The next skit revolves around the principle -- what if all of a sudden for some strange reason, our group of ACs suddenly gained the power in the firm. Basically, not a lot would get done if I was in charge of the AC’s work schedule,  but we thought we would try to make the partners do the same sorts of menial things that we do. Not only would we do this, but we’d have to do it too far, essentially we’d get them doing things like cleaning out our ears with cotton buds. Ladies and gentleman, we’re basically children, and if given the chance to have power in the firm -- we’d take it .

ABUSE OF POWER SKETCH

As articled clerks, we do a lot of amazingly menial tasks. Say for example running down to the ASC and filing something. Well quite frankly, some of these tasks sometimes lose their initial sparkle. There’s only so many time you can do these things and still find them -- arousing. Ladies and gentleman, we suddenly thought to ourselves, and this is the basis of the next three skits, what if we tried to spice it up a bit.  Instead of heading down to the Titles Office and trying to file, say a caveat. Let’s go to the Titles Office and try to file -- a fifteen pound cod. We thought about it, and so then we did it.

FISH SKETCH

The next sketch is essentially the same thing again, but it’s one of my personal favourites. This time we thought to ourselves, haven’t you always wanted to don a chicken suit, storm around the streets of Melbourne, and then raid the main reception at Blake Dawson Waldron. We thought about it, and then we did it.

CHICKEN SUIT SKETCH

For our last segemnet today, we’d like to present to you a bit of a musical number. About four of our group can sing, and the others will be staying as far as way from the microphones as is humanly possible.

SONG: ‘YOU MADE ME LOVE ME’ – JUDY GARLAND

Dear Minter Ellison

We are singing this to you

And we hope that you are listening so you know

Our year’s been so rewarding

Over partner’s we’ve been fawning

To keep their smug and condescending glow

You know we’re just adoring fans of yours,

But now we’d like to tell you where to go-ooooo!

You gave us crap jobs,

We didn’t want to do it, we didn’t want to do it,

You made us eat Schwobbs

And what was with those pickles,

And who the hell eats pickles

Why did you hire us Trevor,

Get off the piss

There must be easier

Ways to suicide than this

About that missing file

I didn’t want to tell you, I didn’t want to tell you

I think law’s grand,

That’s true, yes I do, ‘deed I do, you know I do,

I must tell the world how I’m feeling

Doing tasks that are inane send my heart reeling

You know you made me, love you.

 

I don’t care what happens I’m an articled clerk

As far as work’s concerned we couldn’t give a f*ck

You really made me, love you.

 

Chris Daffey took his own life on 21 December 2013. This was one of his eulogies in his honour, delivered by close friend and collaborator on this production, Tony Wilson.