Originally Posted by
chollie
I have worked a lot of odd shifts in my time.
IME, the hardest schedule is the split shift. There are very very few people who find a split shift acceptable, and I have never known anyone who wanted to work a split shift on a permanent basis, even if it was very close to home.
TSA has made too many of its 'officers' non-working LTSOs, STSOs and BDOs. Part of the staffing issue is no doubt caused by lousy managers promoting their pets as a way of giving them pay raises. Unfortunately, it also effectively takes them out of the work force, because they no longer have assigned duties, as anyone observing a checkpoint for very long will quickly see.
We would be fine with 42K working screeners, but that is not what we have.
I fully agree that there are to many "visible" non-productive TSA employees seen at checkpoints. But, I also wonder if this carries over to checked baggage screeners, administrative, and any other TSA employees? I suspect strongly that being non-productive is an issue all through TSA.
I believe that all TSA managers, including the FSD, should spend half or each workday at the screening checkpoints. Observing, talking to travelers, and doing whatever it takes to get this mess fixed.
The recent checkpoint backups are no accident. I suspect that it is a directed work slowdown and will continue until Congress caves on some funding issues. That means that travelers have to be active in communicating with our elected's, with the DHS OIG if necessary, with airport authorities, and most importantly with the airlines.
When the airlines start losing money because of TSA things will change overnight.