"I know several people who were fired for repeatedly waiving
and breaking rules."

Yes you do here this kind of statement periodically when waivers come up.

My question I guess would be then why do some agents continue to waive fees and break rules for their customers? All I can think of is that this business of firing people for it is so rare that, whiles yes obviousl it can happen in theory, its so rare and outside the scope of practical things that these agents don't worry about it.

For instance in theory an 18 year old freshman in college could be charged or prosecuted with a crime for drinking a beer in their apartment. Undoubtedly this has happened, probably more than once. However, undoubtedly a significantly hhigher number of 18 year old freshman have drank beers in their houses and not been charged or prosecuted. So the beer drinker takes a calculated risk that they won't get caught, or if they do get caught nothing will be done or they will get a slap on the wrist. Is it something like that with airline agents?

I say this also because I work in a field totally unrelated to travel, airlines, airports, etc. I have met two co workers, who each have friends or families that work at 2 different airlines. One is a US airline, and one is a large international carrier. Essentially the co workers friends work at the = of United's airport customer service function...I don't know exactly what they do ticketing, gates, but you get the idea. Anyway both of these people, with no prompting by me, told me next time I fly on such and such airline to let them know, and they will have their friend upgrade me for free. Now my question is if this fear of getting fired is real and practical, why would some friend of a friend offer me a free upgrade, and jeopardize their job? I suspect that this kind of "friend upgrade" is much more common than people on the board think who have not worked in the airlines or talked to airline employees outside the job. I've heard many many anecdotes just like mine over my years of flying. But also, from another subgroup of agents, I hear this line of "people get fired."

So I'm genuinely curious why the two wildly opposing schools of thought among agents?

As for the "I'm broke" a couple of years ago my mother brought a teenage relative to the airport who had excess bags. They were going to charge her like $300 or something...it was international. She genuinely told them she didn't have $300 to throw around and they waived the fee on the spot. It was true she didn't have $300 to throw around, though if her life depended on it she could have come up with $300.

Another time a co worker needed to travel due to death or illness in the family on short notice. He was getting quoted very high fares, and even birievment fares were no bargain. He was at a loss of what to do. I told him to just go to the CTO (this was a few years ago ). I essentially told him to tell the CTO agents his story, and that he couldn't afford these exorbitant prices. He told his story, and apparently got shot down untill arriving at CO. CO agreed to offer him the lowest published fare in the market waiving the advance purchase and who knows maybe the booking class (I didn't see the PNR). The lowest published fare in the market is obviously less than even berievment in most cases.

So thats just two examples of how "I'm broke" has worked. Does it work all the time, no. Can it work, yes.