Originally Posted by
halls120
Ron, the disconnect here is that I'm not your customer. At least not in the traditional sense. I don't come to you voluntarily looking for "service." You are at best, an impediment to my business or pleasure, as the case may be. The sooner I get past you and your colleagues, the happier I am. I don't try to be rude to you, and I don't need some happy-face "customer service" line fed to me as part of the "Evolution of Security."
So few of the passengers I run across each day feel the same way that you do. Most see us for what we see ourselves, there to provide them with the best possibility of a safe flight to where they wish to go. We get far more compliments at my airport than complaints. On the order of more than 100 to 1. But those complaints get a great deal of attention. Never mind the “atta-boys” or the “I appreciate it” we get on a minute by minute basis, it’s the complaints that get the attention.
I agree, you don’t need a happy face or a customer service line, but isn’t that better than the opposite? Isn’t it nice to have a pleasant experience at the checkpoint?
If you did your job quickly and efficiently, we'd all get along just fine. Instead, what we are subjected to on a routine basis is inefficiency and attitude from the average TSO employee. The fact that we're paying to have our travel disrupted by arrogant public servants who don't provide anything more effective than the private security firms that existed before TSA is why we don't really care for TSA.
Attitude and inefficiency. Having traveled in the recent past I would have to agree with you in part. My fellow TSO’s at other airports are a bit sour. So much so that I don’t even identify myself as a member of the club, simply because I just don’t get their attitude. I ENJOY my time on the checkpoint. The people are good to work with, the job is a challenge, and if I can make a passengers day start out better than he could have done by on his own then it also makes my day.
Unbelievable. Ignorance is bliss, in other words? No wonder we're subjected to such unprofessional conduct on the part of TSA employees.
No. Its called “Trust”. I trust the upper echelons of the TSA to provide me with the information I need to do my job the very best I can. Do I need to know the chapter and verse of the laws that support my job? No, not at all. The information is available if I choose to go find it, but to date I have not as my background in security tells me that the deficiencies in TSA policy and procedure are not a loss but add to the flexibility that the TSA needs to do its job in the environment it finds itself in. The security requirements of my airport are not the same as those of, lets say SFO, or LAS, or even JFK. That flexibility allows us to modify process to meet the needs of the traveling public and the TSA population both at the same time.