Originally Posted by
zerolife
I disagree. The bottleneck is at the security check point, not TDC.
The reason airlines hire the BP checker is to enforce elite lines. TSA doesn't care about your status. And TSA doesn't own the line, so they aren't going to send someone patrolling it. I personally know a few TSOs and they are not paid well at all for the hours they work. Retention is low and that's the problem. You get a bunch of clueless people with no motivation. The airline/airport hired guys are even worse. You get what you pay for.
The problem with TSA starts at the top - incompetent, uncaring, entrenched bureaucratic management who know nothing about the traveling public and care even less - and continues through apathetic middle-managers who fail upwards for 20 years toward a fat federal pension, and ends with apathetic, hostile, incompetent, or dishonest rank-and-file screeners.
The few TSOs you personally know have probably given you a picture of their lives as victims of torture. Management expects miracles, the traveling public is both full of morons and openly hostile, the pay is low and everyone is constantly in fear of being fired.
Some of that is certainly true. It's obvious that TSA management expects more from the rank and file than the rank and file are capable of delivering. Partly that's because management is full of idiots, but partly it's also because the quality of person hired to be a TSO is shockingly, laughingly inadequate to the actual tasks they are entrusted to perform. How much training does it take for a TDC to recognize Nexus and GE cards? Apparently, a LOT. Like, multiple rounds.
The public is certainly full of morons - no one who has ever worked any job which deals with the general public would dispute that point for a nanosecond. And they certainly can be openly hostile, especially to TSOs who don't know their jobs, treat the public like criminals and/or lepers, and brazenly steal stuff right in the middle of a c/p.
The pay is on the low side for any kind of service job. However, if you factor in uniform allowances and benefits, not to mention union representation that makes termination for cause extremely rare unless you molest collies in the terminal, it's not a bad gig. You won't get rich by working as a TSO, but then again, you'll make a heck of a lot more than the guy at the McDonalds in the food court who has the same education, background, and security background check that you have. Only difference is, you had a pizza delivered one night while the other guy was working a double.
As for fear of being fired, that one is simply laughable. TSOs are only fired if they a) commit a major crime, b) get caught, and c) the public gets wind of it. Notice, I said "and", not "or"; if the public doesn't know about it, TSA won't take much action against you, as we found out last year when the pair in Denver were caught sexually abusing passengers but weren't disciplined until the story broke into the public eye three months later.