So.

There I was, moving away from the bag check position and heading over to the Supervisor podium. It was the bottom of the hour, and rotations were going on. I knew that my next position was going to be sent to my first break, but I had something to tell the STSO about first.

Namely, it had to do with the TSO that was at the WTMD. That position is one of the most important for the face of customer service, given that they're the ones who spend most of the initial talking-time with the passengers. Coming through the checkpoint was a bunch of space-campers heading back home - most every week during the year (though it slacks off a bunch during school time, without ever really going away completely) Huntsville plays host to a horde of lil' people eager to fill their minds with stars and gaseous anomalies, learn to fly space shuttles on simulators, and do all kinds of really awesome stuff that my parents couldn't afford for me to do when I was their age.

The difference between these space-campers and just about any other group of space-campers, is that this group of space-campers was a group that consisted entirely of young people with disabilities. Namely, they were all blind. The TSO at the WTMD performed his job acceptably in terms of informing them of the need for shoe removal and the like, but dropped the ball tremendously when they were actually ready to come through the WTMD. No verbal guidance, no offering of a hand or an arm to help guide them through, nothing. If it weren't for the help of one of their chaperons, we'd have had star-struck tykes walking head-long into the WTMD's uprights.

Tsk.

This didn't change even after I walked up to the front and told him that he needs to be a little bit more sensitive to the fact that they can't see, and should be trying to help guide them in more than just telling them to "come on through."

So, there I was at the supervisor's podium after the rotation and all the chillin's were through, telling the STSO that it might be prudent to remind people at out-brief about the obligations that the TSOs have for assisting passengers with disabilities. The rest of the conversation with something like this (the name of the TSO has been changed):

Me: Blahblahblah, training with visual disabilities, blahblahblah... I just think it'd be a good idea.
STSO: Yeah, good point. I'll bring that up. And who was it, again? Bill?
Me: Yeah, up there playing moat dragon.
STSO: ...Moat dragon?

At that point, I flashed the biggest, dorkiest grin I had in my stockpile, then spun around and fled the checkpoint to go on break.

Darn you, FT.

Darn you all to heck.