Years ago I had a meeting at DHS headquarters in DC (a tech sales call).
Literally everyone we interacted with there was an asshole - from the receptionist, to the people we met with, to the security guards in the building. That whole organization is rotten from the head down and there’s an internal culture that celebrates and promotes rudeness, aggression, and ineptitude.
Thankfully we didn’t win the work.
Coming home to the US from an overseas trip through Atlanta, I walked past the “crow’s nest” that was supposed to be monitoring the traffic for the overall international intake. I peeked over the rail to see the big shot tough agent with Desperate Housewives on one monitor and Facebook full screen on the other.
I’m all for putting people to work but the TSA is bullshit. Don’t get me started on how lame pre-check is. Ugh!
Maybe it’s as bad to work for DHS as it is to be serviced by them?
I also opt out. It doesn’t add a lot of time and I arrive at the airport early, planning to either eat breakfast there or just grab something quick and bring it on the plane if delayed.
But often the TSO will order me to push my baggage through then direct me to stand where I can’t see it. This often ends with what seems to be retaliatory wait time - they take their sweet time finding someone to pat me down because they perceive me as having been “rude”.
A TSO at SFO told me it helps to avoid pushing items down until called for a pat down. Often when I say “hey I’ll step aside and when the TSO arrives I’ll push my items in” they say sure.
But every once in a while they insist. So I do so, because disobeying is illegal. Then they order me away and I remind them I have a right to monitor my items, and they feel challenged and annoyed.
It frustrates me deeply, because basically even if I go out of my way to be polite and make the process smooth, they will get offended and bully me.
Morons. That’s the word I use to describe the traveling public. Nothing but morons. I bet working for tsa is about 10x’s worse then the most shitty customer service job. Can you imagine it? Having to touch combative disgusting ugly ass people… It doesn’t help that people seem to loose their minds the moment they walk into an airport. The process is simple. The officers are people too. Really if you are polite they are willing to work with you. They have with me many times. It’s when you start acting like a dick that they level it up. Who wouldn’t?
I think people fail to realize that while the organization sucks the officers are trying to keep us safe. Also don’t forget they aren’t the ones flying out that day… You are. So why distract them but being that asshole?
Not really. Especially when agents within the airport seem to never be on the same page about what exactly is and isn’t banned, much less agents in different airports.
How about the TSA spend its colossal waste of money on at least being bureaucratically consistent and evil, instead of capriciously evil.
So, you’re saying they have plenty of time to trolley message boards?
They really have a problem with TSA at LAX. One incident I will never forget happened there a few years ago. The line at the base of the stairs before the security area was moving extremely slowly with a lot of expected grumbling by the passengers. A few feet before the TSA person, though, the grumbling stopped.
Why? Because it quickly became apparent that the TSA person assiduously and slowly inspecting every document was developmentally disabled. He was very nice, had a big sweet smile on his face the entire time, was obviously trying to follow instructions to the letter, but it was also obvious to everyone that there was some sort of cognitive impairment present. My guess was that he was a nepotism hire – “He’s a good boy. Give the kid a chance!”
At that point, I’d long been sceptical (to put it mildly) of the TSA’s security theatre. That incident just showed me definitively how little the TSA actually cares about security.
I often get the “random” follow-up pat-down search after I choose to go through the scanner. Being a male passenger travelling alone is probably what triggers it.
Also, TSA agents everywhere really do not like it when I opt out of the scan. It means they’ll have to do some actual work, and they make sure to make me wait and always have some comment about the pornoscanners being perfectly safe, etc – because of course I’m the one hassling them. These days I usually split the difference and opt out only when there’s not a major crowd at security.
Every single time TSA is mentioned on BB or BBS, TSA astroturfers ooze out of the swamp. It’s so very tedious. Not much different than the boot-licking copologists who show up in every thread about police committing extrajudicial executions.
Just a friendly reminder that airlines can choose to handle security screening themselves but have chosen to use the TSA.
I don’t know what it is with the TSA. I fly a lot out of Rhine-Main Airport here in Frankfurt, Germany, and the security screening staff I’ve encountered so far are invariably reasonably nice, courteous, and fairly efficient, especially if you’re reasonably nice and courteous to them. They’re probably not paid a lot better than minimum wage, either.
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