Originally Posted by
chollie
There are people who are frustrated, beaten down people trying to tough out a thankless job (cold-calling, complaint service, enforcing asinine policies).
Then there are people who are nasty or bullying, people who take out their frustrations on others when and where they can get away with it (parent beating kids, husband beating wife, cop assaulting unresisting suspect) or who frankly enjoy bullying and demeaning others.
There is never an excuse for nastiness or bullying - I don't care how upset you are, how thankless and unrewarding your job is. No excuse. None. People who engage in these types of behaviors have no excuse and deserve nothing but contempt.
Some TSOs (and other people) fall in the former categories; too many TSOs fit the latter description. One rotten TSO, supported by 2-3 fellow TSOs who support his/her behavior by not calling him out on it or complaining, can poison the experience of dozens and dozens of travelers in a single day. I feel both pity and contempt for such people.
This is a good point, as "elites" maybe we should do something about that. I mean, I can't do much about a document checker who thinks it's funny to compare me as a passenger to a known terrorist because of a vague name similarity. I mean, if we complain, our voices are much louder than that of the average passenger. Right now, there's not really an app for that, except for that civil rights violation one the Sikh's put together. This really isn't a civil rights matter, just a civility matter.