screenerx: you're right, I really get upset with the minority of screeners who seem to get their jollies lording it over people.

I understand it is the bosses who make up these inane rules.

At OGG there is a shoe machine -- it registers if your shoes have metal in them and will beep at the screening machine -- and you don't have to take your shoes off if you don't want to, and not taking off your shoes is not treated like a capital offense.

Here in LEX, if you don't take off your shoes, EVEN WHEN YOU DON'T BEEP, you are sent to secondary. They say it's a rule. Well, it's not a rule in SAN or OGG or even DCA. When I asked the supervisor in September I was told to shut up and that he checked the website every morning so I couldn't possibly know what I was talking about. So they get to make up their own rules?

And you see, even though you guys are hired for these jobs, most of it is pointless hocus-pocus. I do try to be polite; but at Seattle my wife's politeness -- yes, she was clearly exhibiting a clear, unliked constraint with it, but it was VERY polite -- was interpreted as "attitude". We were straightforwardly told that we could not fly that day if she couldn't pretend to be nice to the boarding pass checker!!!! Supervisors were called, and we were turned over to a very nice lady whose job seemed to be mollifying passengers whose only crime was a bad breakfast.

"If you're not nice to me you're not flying today." It was that crude. I still burn at the memory. AND IT DOESN'T HELP AT ALL KEEP THE BAD GUYS OFF THE PLANES. PROBABLY, it makes it EASIER for the BAD GUYS to get on the planes.

You didn't build the system. But you are the point people we interact with, and some of your fellow screeners are sadistic little gestapo types who like nothing better than to prove their power to those rich people who can afford airplane tickets.