This is a fair point. When I was screening passengers, about 10-20 out of every hundred would compliment me for providing a thorough, quick, professional screening. About 1 out of every hundred would complain that it was the most invasive, unprofessional, obscene screening they had ever received.

Actually, I would argue that field employees very much need to know the laws the pertain to our jobs. I know HQ doesn't necessarily agree with me.

If HQ teaches you the law pertaining to your job they can't claim a "whoopsie" when you over step your bounds. If you overstep far enough they will toss you under the bus like they did that TSO that got sued for making the man change his shirt.

For HQ the less you know the better.

I'd forgotten about that shirt.

Ron, the disconnect here is that I'm not your customer. At least not in the traditional sense. I don't come to you voluntarily looking for "service." You are at best, an impediment to my business or pleasure, as the case may be. The sooner I get past you and your colleagues, the happier I am. I don't try to be rude to you, and I don't need some happy-face "customer service" line fed to me as part of the "Evolution of Security." If you did your job quickly and efficiently, we'd all get along just fine. Instead, what we are subjected to on a routine basis is inefficiency and attitude from the average TSO employee. The fact that we're paying to have our travel disrupted by arrogant public servants who don't provide anything more effective than the private security firms that existed before TSA is why we don't really care for TSA.

Unbelievable. Ignorance is bliss, in other words? No wonder we're subjected to such unprofessional conduct on the part of TSA employees.

I consider pawing every area of my body to be invasive and obscene. SAme goes for the virtual strip search machines.

Courtesy & Rudeness "non-quantifiable"?
 

Not to be pedantic, but what does "quantifiability" have to do with the subject? Obviously, TSOs cannot measure their courtesy "level" with a machine, not can they measure the subjective dispositions of those transiting the checkpoint scientifically. Civilized human beings (TSO or pax) regulate their interactions with others partly by intuition of the others' dispositions, and partly by a desire to err too much on the side of courtesy. Whether there is any true charity in this desire is beside the point -- it helps to grease the wheels of social interaction. For those who try to keep even a minimally higher standard, the age-old and almost universal adage commonly known as "the golden rule" applies. None of this is quantifiable; all of this is partly subjective but partly based on the quasi-universal expectations of civilized people.

One hallmark of civilized human behavior is frequent self-examination. This is not compatible with dismissing the importance of courtesy due to the "unquantifiable, subjective" nature of that "fine line."

I have argued before in this forum that the keys to "fixing" the TSA (if that be possible) are common sense and courtesy. As another poster has said in this thread, legal hair-splitting (though it may have a certain place) is beside the point. The human element is precisely what is being overlooked by the authorities. Anyone who can glibly answer that such subjective factors do not translate well into the minutiae of SOP may be doomed to a lifetime of perplexity at the (understandably) negative attitudes of the traveling public toward the TSA.

Chicago O'hare inspectors = rude while getting the job done.
Schiphol inspectors = pleasant while getting the job done.
Helsinki inspectors = pleasant while getting the job done.

One of the things that really surprised me about both Schiphol and Helsinki airports was how quiet they were and to a lesser degree the fact that the luggage carts were free in Europe but cost here in the US.

^^ Well said.

So few of the passengers I run across each day feel the same way that you do. Most see us for what we see ourselves, there to provide them with the best possibility of a safe flight to where they wish to go. We get far more compliments at my airport than complaints. On the order of more than 100 to 1. But those complaints get a great deal of attention. Never mind the “atta-boys” or the “I appreciate it” we get on a minute by minute basis, it’s the complaints that get the attention.

I agree, you don’t need a happy face or a customer service line, but isn’t that better than the opposite? Isn’t it nice to have a pleasant experience at the checkpoint?

Attitude and inefficiency. Having traveled in the recent past I would have to agree with you in part. My fellow TSO’s at other airports are a bit sour. So much so that I don’t even identify myself as a member of the club, simply because I just don’t get their attitude. I ENJOY my time on the checkpoint. The people are good to work with, the job is a challenge, and if I can make a passengers day start out better than he could have done by on his own then it also makes my day.

No. Its called “Trust”. I trust the upper echelons of the TSA to provide me with the information I need to do my job the very best I can. Do I need to know the chapter and verse of the laws that support my job? No, not at all. The information is available if I choose to go find it, but to date I have not as my background in security tells me that the deficiencies in TSA policy and procedure are not a loss but add to the flexibility that the TSA needs to do its job in the environment it finds itself in. The security requirements of my airport are not the same as those of, lets say SFO, or LAS, or even JFK. That flexibility allows us to modify process to meet the needs of the traveling public and the TSA population both at the same time.

Congratulations. But you know that’s a possibility every time you go to the airport, right?

You make my point for me. Thanks.

One cannot be sure of the attitude of the individual they face. A guess is the best one can expect, and a hope that one has not made an error.

And another is politeness. Both given and received. About the same thing you have said, but I take it a bit further than you. Rudeness is the strongest sign of a collapsing society, and rudeness is all to common in this day. The folks at the TSA are just as guilty of this as anyone in our society, and this is why they are trying to address it using the Evolution of Security training that we have all received.

I disagree. The TSA needs uncommon sense. We face an uncommon enemy, and common thought has proven only marginally effective against them. We need to look beyond the usual and work on seeing the unusual. That is what EOS training is supposed to be teaching us. Now all we need is the other parts, the Customer Service parts of the program that are still deployed only to a few airports.

I'm just sitting here munching on my popcorn and don't have much to substantively add to this conversation except in response to the above. As I read it, what he meant is that if TSOs follow policy laid out by upper management it's not necessary for them to know every legal precedent, court ruling, etc.

For instance, as a LEO I need to know I can't shoot a fleeing felon in the back. I don't need to know that came about due to Tennessee v. Garner. :)

I now return you to your regularly scheduled bash fest.

It'd be nice to have a nice experience. Some airports are better than others. It's really hard to have a "nice" experience with the shoe carnival, etc.

Now you start to see what we're saying. A lot of screeners that post on here don't travel much. They tend to get the "tunnel vision" where how it's done at their airport is how it's done elsewhere. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Some places are certainly better than others, and have reps on here accordingly. TSA as a whole (procedures) are complained about at some airports. At others, it's that AND the screeners.

I'd be careful with that blind trust. While it's nice that you trust your employer, do you trust them enough that they wouldn't throw you under the bus and leave you on your own if TSA was sued or if something bad were to happen?

TSA, as part of the government, has sovereign immunity meaning they can only be sued if they consent to it. It's easy for them to blame the screener as a rogue screener overstepping his bounds or as an incompetent screener. Thus as others have said, by keeping you in the dark, it makes it much easier for TSA as an organization to distance itself from its screeners and throwing the screener under the bus. Ignorance of the law won't be a valid defense and TSA will probably disavow any knowledge of "asking" the employee to do something. Plausible deniability.

But would you trust your employer blindly not to give an illegal order?

You may not have to know it came from Tennesee v. Garner, but knowing that there is a court case or law showing that something bad can happen to an LEO can be helpful if a superior gives an order to shoot that felon anyway. By not knowing about that precedent, the LEO would shoot and put himself in a whole mess of trouble.

It needs something to effectively deal with unknown situations like our autistic boy Kenyon represents. Rigid training produces predictable results.

So far, however, you have not even discovered a genuine terrorist. For most people, good customer relations are common sense.