saizai

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...oing-our-jobs/

FliesWay2Much

He's a union guy -- what should we expect???

CMK10

I agree with the general point, whatever the problems with TSA are, taking it out on the individual screener and treating them with purposeful disrespect is not the answer.

GUWonder

When the screeners are stroking against passenger genitals and other private parts as part of the screening process against the passenger's wishes, "just doing our jobs" is the reason the TSA screeners get the deserved criticism even on an individual basis at the airports and elsewhere.

No civilian in the US is forced to stay engaged in employment that involves dehumanization of "the other". It's a personal choice of the screener to put aside their empathy for passengers and get desensitized to how their deliberately chosen actions are disturbing passengers who react at the airport.

FliesWay2Much

That's part of the answer. We need to end this crap from both ends. From the top down is easy, because it's basically hot air and the security theater of which we've been accustomed. Kelly Hoggan is a good example. Absolutely nothing will change with his resignation and he will land on his feet in a well-paying private sector job. Certain members of congress can feel good about it because they "forced him out."

Equally as important is to attack the TSA from the bottom up. Every chance we get, we need to make sure the rank & file clerkforce understands that we think they are the scum of the earth and that we have zero respect for their agency and them as individuals. "Individual screeners" are the TSA and all we despise about them. Sorry -- this is just the way it is.

Boggie Dog

Totally disagree. If I cause one screener to quit then I count that as a win. To be fair I treat screeners well until one shows their true colors, then it's game on.

Carl Johnson

He's suggesting without evidence that the "disrespect" he receives is a result of dissatisfaction with "TSA;" he ignores the possibility that the "disrespect" might be a result of dissatisfaction with the way the individual clerk is behaving. There's no TSA policy that requires a clerk to be so lazy he doesn't know that a NEXUS card is acceptable and there's no TSA policy that requires a clerk to insist on a passport, rather than a US state driving license as ID. There's no TSA policy that requires retaliatory bag checks in which clerks slowly remove and turn over every item in a passenger's bag in order to waste time. There's no TSA policy that clerks are required to deliberately slow down the lines. There's no TSA policy that requires clerks to retaliate against passengers for insisting on bringing breast milk or medical liquids, or otherwise insisting that clerks follow the rules.

The main problem with screening is that clerks don't know or follow the rules and that they deliberately abuse passengers and behave as if their job is to enforce deference to their toy plastic badges. Screening would be a much better experience overall if the clerks followed the rules, and it's dishonest for this clerk to pretend that none of the "disrespect" he gets is his own fault.

Oh, looking further into his Clerk Glenn's piece, here's a piece he points to as an example of how Headlines regularly denigrate our agency:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/05/opinio...-tsa-security/

First two paragraphs of Schneier's piece:

Here's one piece of evidence that his job is hard:

Yes.

Sock monkeys

Gun designs on purses

Light sabers

Cupcakes

Most of the specific complaints he characterizes as "picking on the TSA" are legitimate complaints about the slovenly way individual clerks do their jobs.

CMK10

Gee I can't imagine why some of them treat passengers badly or why they hate their jobs

Boggie Dog

I expect certain standards of conduct from any service provider. TSA screeners are not exempt from that expectation.

CMK10

So do you try to force waitresses and delivery people and hotel front desk employees to quit when they don't meet your standards?

GUWonder

The comparison doesn't hold.

To begin with, the TSA has a monopoly on passengers that the employer of waitresses, couriers and hotel front desk employees don't have, and TSA screeners use that monopoly in a way waitresses simply don't manage to pull off.

The waitresses, couriers and front desk employees don't bark at travelers like the TSA staff do.

The waitresses, couriers and front desk employees don't touch the groins, bottoms and breasts of travelers like the TSA staff do.

The differences go even further than that.

Boggie Dog

Wait and delivery people are not being protected by the government which has a clear history of ignoring the publics concerns. Much like the TSA screener who tried to steal my wifes jewelery from her purse and was protected by that airports FSD. While I have no respect for TSA or its employees I always act politely until a screener steps over the line, then I respond.

Carl Johnson

How often does that come up? I have encountered an unsatisfactory wait staff member like twice in my life, and the unsatisfactory performance was due to incompetence (I think from being new). I have never encountered a malevolent wait staff member, delivery person, or hotel front desk employee. Slovenly performance from TSA clerks happens all the time, and on several occasions, I have had TSA clerks react aggressively to my attempts to get them to follow the rules. Other people have had much worse experiences, including false imprisonment, false police reports, and perjury committed by TSA clerks.

If other customer contact employees acted as badly as TSA clerks, and if their employers never fired them for failure to know and follow the rules of their jobs, I would do whatever I could to get rid of them.

But that doesn't happen.

saizai

FWIW, my personal opinion:

1. TSA is fundamentally flawed, from top to bottom. Their policies are, for the most part, morally indefensible and based on theatrics. I have no sympathy for someone annoyed at people saying that his job is BS when it is in fact BS.

2. Arguing with or cussing out grunts is pointless and crass. It accomplishes nothing and exacerbates situations unnecessarily. I try to be studiously polite but firm. I would rather gather evidence to use in court than merely vent. I view things in terms of the long game of actually having things change — and in particular, it is never useful to argue with someone who doesn't have the power to give you what you want.

However, I think that people are 100% within their legal rights to cuss out TSA or cops as much as they want, and any retaliation for that is illegal. I understand the desire to do so; I simply don't do anger the same way most people do.

3. The WaPoster is correct in one aspect: it's a horrible job that, *if* done properly, requires a lot of concentration. TSA morale is low, and TSA grunts get insulted. But that's a vicious cycle, and he is in total denial about his part in perpetuating it.

Abusing the public (whether by policy or lack of basic human decency) -> backlash and insults against screeners -> lower screener morale -> more abuse of the public.

My opinion is that the people with more power, in this case the government agents, are the ones with greater moral (and legal) obligation to take the high road in the face of flak.

IME, other countries' equivalents, e.g. CATSA, are far more polite while doing basically the same job — and that politeness is returned with more politeness from the public.


The WaPoster saying people should try to be first in line and proactively nice to screeners is … well, "lacking self-awareness" is probably the nicest way I can put it.

eyecue

No one will ever get to the bottom of this. It is a what came first issue like the chicken and the egg. There are egos involved and that clouds things. Some fares believe that the government is too intrusive and therefore they have an attitude before ever showing up at an airport. Some TSA officers have a superiority complex and view everything as a threat and they are out to save the world.