Originally Posted by
bluesmoon
Incident 1: At ID check for an early morning flight, wearing a tech company T-Shirt that looks a lot like Minecraft, agent checks my ID, looks at me and says, "how many XP?", and I'm a little startled because while I get the lingo, I don't quite remember which T-shirt I put on. He says, "Minecraft, yeah?" and waves me off to the shortest line.
Incident 2: Was flying out of Logan (BOS) wearing my favourite Big Bang Theory T-Shirt. Went through the TSA-Pre line for security with my regular carry-on. It's a low traffic period, and the agent at the X-Ray looks at me straight faced and says, you can't take this bag through.
I look at her stunned and say that I've never had a problem before, but she insists, "I can't allow it!", then her expression completely changes and she goes "Bazinga!"
Incident 3: At the international terminal agent walking up and down the line rattling out instructions regarding laptops, liquids, shoes, etc., except he's also trying to determine the nationality of everyone in the line and repeating the instructions in their language. English, Spanish, French, German... we ask him how many languages he can cover, and he goes on to list a variety including Hindi, Italian and Portuguese.
Incident 4: At SFO ID check flying back to BOS, agent looks at my newly issued MA license and says, "Hey, I just moved here from Boston, how's the winter treating you?"
Impressive job skill for someone who works in an international terminal. Would be nice if TSA had such people in every airport. It would certainly ease the process for a lot of international visitors.
Originally Posted by
Hite
I always get a hard time during football season wearing my Chicago Bears shirts from packer fans or some commiseration from fellow Bear fans.
One gave me the heart stopping moment like you with "I'm sorry sir but I can't let you through like that..."
Originally Posted by
DaveBlaine
I think this is a great post to show that they are people too. They're just like you and me. They have feelings and families and they are just there to make air travel safer.
Certainly, they are human beings. Only human beings can be so cluelessly cruel when in a position of authority over others.
As frequent fliers, many FTers tend to forget that flying is a terrifying experience for some people. Those with an irrational fear of flying will be outright traumatized by such a poor-taste joke as the old, "You can't go through - just kidding!" crap.
It may seem like a trivial thing, but to those who are already on the edge of a panic attack before boarding a plane, it's not.