WillCAD

This is sort of an ancillary topic, but a relevant one to this thread, I think - the difficulty in dealing with the general public, and the frustration that difficulty causes.

While I have been extremely harsh on TSA over the years (justifiably so, IMHO), I have also had to admit a certain amount of sympathy for the individual rank and file TSO who works at a c/p. Anyone who has ever had a job dealing with the public will tell you that dealing with the public very quickly makes you hate the public. There are, put simply, a tremendous number of stupid people in the world, and an equal number of angry and abusive people. For every ten people who transit a c/p, I would guess that at least one of them fits either the stupid or angry/abusive category. It takes an unusual amount of patience and tolerance to deal with such people on a regular basis, and TSOs, being human, rarely possess such patience and tolerance, so of course they become impatient, frustrated, and angry after dealing with the public for a while. Since most people don't have the self-control to reign in their impatience, anger, and frustration, TSOs, like so many people in that situation, will lash out at those who caused their mood, namely the traveling public, in ways like punitive pat downs, deliberately slow bag searches, threats and intimidation, arbitrary confiscation of non-threat items, false police reports, and denial of flight.

I can certainly put some of the onus for this retribution and abuse on the people who do it - if they can't take the pressure of working with the public without lashing out, they shouldn't be working with the public - but I must also place a large part of the blame on the ridiculous rules and the institutionalized adversarial culture of the agency as a whole. The TSA-wide view of the traveling public as suspects rather than people whom they are sworn to protect, along with the arbitrary and secret nature of the rules they foist upon us, can't help but turn the agency's relationship with the people they are supposed to be protecting into a snarling confrontation at every turn. Which means that the average TSO is never more than a few words or a glance away from a bad mood, and those bad moods always turn into bad experiences for travelers.

Incidents like this one would be far fewer if TSAs rules made more sense, were published for the general public, and didn't penalize people for making honest mistakes. Stress levels on both sides of the c/p would be lower all around, and everyone would be in a better mood, leading to fewer mistakes and fewer angry reprisals.

Sadly, TSA just doesn't seem to understand any of this. Like, at all.

Boggie Dog

In principle I agree with you but TSA has even gone further. TSA tells its people that it's TSA against the Terrorists and everyone presenting at the checkpoint is a potential terrorist. That alone sets the stage for distrust and confrontation. The hammer on the gun is already cocked, on a gun with a trigger finger, which far too many screeners are ready to pull.