If you came directly to the TSA from McD's because no one else would employ you and you're acting like an a**h***, you bet I'm saying that.

I believe it's been pretty well documented that the TSA is the employer of last resort for many individuals, some of whom could not even get a job at McD's.

I don't see how that can be true. I have seen many applicants that I feel do not meet the criteria get turned down as well as well-qualified applicants get turned down.

During my assessment, we began with over 300 applicants. When all was said and done, I signed up along with the 32 others that passed.

I'm not saying that the recruiting process is perfect. We do get our bad apples that slip through the cracks. In time, they will be dealt with.

I'm sure that there are many former McD's employees that have been excellent screeners. In your previous post, you made no mention of their behaviour, just a generalization of all former McD's employees.

No, I did not generalize all former McD's employees.

If you wanted to, you could have read into my post that all TSA employees formerly worked for McD's.

No need to read into it that deep. However, that may explain why one of our screeners talks to himself every time a plane drives up...

Lame joke, I know!

Did you see the 300 other applicants, or is that what you were told? The reason I ask is it has been stated here that there were 2000 applicants for every TSA position, so they hired only the best of the best. Mathmetically, this just isn't possible; unless the entire workforce in the country applied for TSA jobs...

Would you like fries with that?

Or even better -- TSA should install signs: "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" but then staff would be even more confused on what to do about the shoes.

As someone else said before, the TSA signs would say "Shoes, no service."

You know, I'm not a fan of the way the TSA do things and I don't believe that what they actually do makes things more secure than the less obvious security we have at European airports. I do believe, however, that name calling and baiting of those TSA employees who feel brave enough to venture here is both petty and childish. I always viewed FT as an enlightened discussion forum and for the most part it is, unfortunately that doesn't seem to extend to the "Travel Safety/Security" forum.

As the other poster said, I'd rather see them here posting than not so perhaps posters can agree a "no pointless antagonism" rule (I know people are going to argue that shoe carnivals etc. are pointless antagonism) and keep attacks on the TSA to known facts not just "You're all just mentally deficient people fired from Taco Bell for not knowing the difference between a taco and a coke".

It has got to be the worst job in the world. Like being a lawyer without the money. I wonder when the first TSA employee will go Postal? Will we have another word added to our society? Going TSA? Going megtronmeter?

I respect all the TSA folks who are still brave enough to post on this list.

the SOP is not published. Even the published hints that are on the TSA website are not revealing of the SOP.

If appearances are everything. Sometimes they are not.

I never worked at McD's.

Everyone is not being treated that way. IF you want to fly, there are rules that must be adhered to. Its all point of view.

???? I must have missed that one.

Care to back that statement up with fact?

Recently I flew out of LBF in North Platte, Nebraska, on a Beech 1900 twin turboprop to DIA. This plane seats at most 18 passengers. LBF has one security checkpoint, staffed by 5 TSA screeners (3 male, 2 female) at about 5:00 p.m. CDT. My boarding pass did not have the dreaded SSSS in the corner. I followed the instructions of the TSA screener before walking through the metal detector, even to the point of removing my penny loafers that do not alarm but have heel-sole combination just over 1" thick. After the WTMD did not alarm, she told me to follow the instructions of the TSA screener to her right. I was wanded and patted down, lower torso only. Bags were not searched.

I saw one other passenger wanded and patted down, another attorney who was in North Platte for the same deposition I attended. She is a strawberry blond, 15 weeks pregnant, and did not have SSSS on her boarding pass. When some other passengers who were attorneys at our deposition commented on our grumbling, I pointed out to them that much of the cargo carried on passenger airliners is not screened. Pat downs of American passengers is a useless gesture in light of the failure to examine all cargo loaded onto commercial airliners. We ought to hammer that point home, that if security is actually the goal, rather than the appearance of security (kabuki security), TSA must search cargo with the same zeal that it searches passengers.