HSVTSO Dean

So it turns out I was freakin' exhausted last night. Passed out sometime during the second episode, and my wife put me to bed.

It's dark at 5:30 on a Sunday morning. Still rubbing the crusty remnants of sleep out of my eyes, I step out of the Hyatt Place and into its parking lot in Atlanta. It's cold, but that's okay - it's not nearly as cold as it was the previous morning in Huntsville, and I'm still wearing a duster made out of fifty pounds of black leather, and have my Dead Nazi Scarf around my neck. Unsure of where I'm going to be putting anything when I get to the airport, I elect to stow my duster and the Dead Nazi Scarf in the van when we get there, and walk in with only what I can fit in my pockets: My cigarettes.

For those who know Atlanta, I'm pretty certain I was in the South Terminal. That's the red one, right? I know they're color-coded, one red and one blue, and I was in the red one. They divided the Huntsvillians up amongst the screening lanes there at the main checkpoint.

The Redhead and The Other Guy settle on 22/23 (coming into the checkpoint as a passenger, the far left). The Librarian and The Boy Scout somewhere in the middle, but I didn't catch the number. The Vampire was sent to one of the first lanes of the main checkpoint, 1/2 (coming into the checkpoint as a passenger, the far right). I was to his immediate right - 3/4, somewhere in that neighborhood.

I wanna say 4.

Let me just say that I totally get what a lot of people on FT talk about when they refer to how TSOs act. Compared to how we, collectively, like to do things in HSV and how I, personally, do them as well, the ATL people were, by and large, downright cold toward the passengers. "Barking orders" didn't quite even seem to describe it... though there was a lot of that, too. There were a few that treated passengers well, friendly, and warmly, but most of them were doing the stone-faced G-man thing. More on that later, likely in my next installment.

The frosted-glass room where the AIT operators used to sit -- I believe it's mostly called the peep-show booth or something here -- was still there, and it still had that sign posted to the door about not allowing cell phones or anything inside. I popped the door open and looked inside out of curiosity since I was posted right there. For the record, it's empty now. No longer in use.

As several people have pointed out in regard to the images that Blogger Bob posted of the ATR screen -- yes. There is a separate screening button for males and females. That is because males and females are biologically built differently, and it makes a difference when it comes to the unique algorithms put into the scan. But what happens in the case of a male-to-female transgendered person, someone asked? Or someone who self-identifies as a male even though they're born biologically female? Do we put them through the humiliation of pushing the blue male button even though they're working a pair of four-inch pumps...?

...No. We do the same thing that's always happened: They're screened as the gender that they present themselves to be. It will probably cause some anomalies that have to be resolved, but we'll be professional and courteous enough to acknowledge them for what they purport themselves to be.

I spent the first four hours or so of my OJT shift as the one pushing the buttons on the screening monitor attached to the machine itself. Duties included demonstrating the position that the passengers needed to assume (it turns out that it actually does matter if the elbows are bent or not, and the specific location of the hands), and the occasional targeted pat-down to resolve anomalies. This specific position is called the SO, which if I recollect, means "Screening Officer." A pair works in tandem, male and female, hopping in and out as required (if I'm pushing the button and a male has anomalies, I step back and the female steps forward to push the button for the next person while I'm doing the targeted pat-down). After about ten minutes, it became a really smooth process.

I say 'occasionally' because most people only got the green OK screen. If I had to put a number to it, I'd say of the... oh... hundred-fifty, two hundred or so people that came through in my four hours as the SO, I only performed about eight-to-ten targeted pat-downs, with comparable numbers performed by my female counterpart.

As Bob said once upon a time and I'm confirming now - the targeted pat-down is performed only in the area(s) of the anomaly, and only if it's even necessary. Short-sleeved shirt and an anomaly on the wrist, and they're wearing a watch? Visual inspection, and call it a day.

For the record also, the gloves do not need to be changed for a targeted pat-down. Only the standard pat-down and a modified standard pat-down. The only time we'd change gloves on a targeted pat-down is if the passenger requests it.

After the passenger assumes the correct pose and the button is pushed, the entirety of the scan takes about two seconds, then the passenger steps out. Some of them just looked straight ahead, but most turned around at that point to look at the screen with me - it's not SSI - and waited for the results. That, too, took about two seconds. All told, it's nowhere near the 12-20 seconds for the scan that I've heard people talk about here on FT. It's possible that the AIT itself took that long because the operator in the back room had to personally review the images to look for anomalies, but the computer algorithms do it considerably faster. Most people were out and back to the x-ray belt before their stuff even got out of the x-ray tunnel, which was good for at least one fellow who decided to put about $200 in loose bills in the bin instead of carrying it through in his hand (which, even if it caused an anomaly, could have been cleared with a quick visual inspection anyway).

After a break - and an epic journey on my part to find the smoking area in T-concourse, I might add - I returned to that screening lane and took up the position of Divestiture Officer. The DO is the one standing up in front of the machines out in the public area, talking to the passengers.

I'll talk about that in my next post.

To be continued... sometime later today.