Originally Posted by ND Sol
If a supervisor is discarding data, then that is destroying an official government document. The methodology should be uniform, e.g., x number of surveys at x time each day instead of doing it randomly. But then again, consistency has never been a TSA strong point.
Actually, there's never been a real official explanation of what those data cards are really for. I already explained how I use them, but to be quite honest, the only guidance we've ever received was to collect that data every 30 minutes (except for designated "non-peak periods" which is normally at the end of regular day between the hours of 5 pm and 10 pm). It was never really designed for gauging peak periods. If so, then we would collect the data when the lines are long and perhaps collect it several times within a 30 to 60 minute time frame in order to determine if there's any progress being made. Instead, we are obligated to collect that data only once every 30 minutes.
What's happened here is that the TSA headquarters is spouting some PR information based on data that I don't believe was intended for nothing more than a 30 minute random sampling of how long a typical passenger has to wait in line.
As for discarding data, you are correct. No supervisor should intentionally distort or manipulate data of any type. Do people "fudge" data? Of course. Name one bureaucracy that doesn't. A lot of that has to do with human nature as well as the nature of all bureaucracies. However, there's a difference between that and intentionally distorting data for a manipulated outcome...plus or minus.