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dcnovice -> RE: FBI 'wiretapping' your (5/16/2013 5:58:57 PM)
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quote:
Being an Italian New Yorker I actually believe working with the mob would be easier than handling the twits at the TSA
My bleeding heart has a soft spot for underdogs, so I have to offer a different perspective on the TSA.
In the summer of 1982, after my first year in college, I worked (at minimum wage) as an airport security guy at JFK. I wore a polyester uniform and performed different tasks at the checkpoint. Most of the time, I stood at the entrance, checking boarding passes. Families of 15 would arrive, then gripe when only the one of them who was actually flying was allowed to head to the gate. Other times I loaded bags onto the conveyor. Each night as I awaited sleep, bag after bag would race through my mind. I suppose I could have counted them instead of sheep. Sometimes I would shepherd people through the metal detector, and on rare occasions I got a crack at the most coveted job (because it involved no contact with the public), looking at the x-rays on the monitor.
We weren't TSA back then, but people didn't like us any better. Folks could be blisteringly rude, and the airline employees considered us (we were subcontractors) little better than pond scum. Despite all that, we soldiered on, doing our impossible job with as much efficiency and grace as we could muster.
I confess that the latter was sorely tried the night a kid puked on my feet. Ditto for the time drunken passengers threw a trash can at the metal gate because we hadn't opened the checkpoint yet. And when a "lady" with a huge carryon demanded it be checked by hand because her precious film--three rolls at the very bottom--couldn't possibly go through the x-ray. Also can't forget the guy who showed up with a metal grille from inside his car engine, half wrapped in a sliced-up carton and dripping oil. As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.
Why "impossible"? Because we got maybe half a minute with each passenger. Probably less. In that sliver of time, you have to make a lightning-quick decision about whether a bag needs to be opened, a beeping passenger needs to be patted down, a dubious item allowed onto the plane, and so forth. It's pretty damn hard to promise total safety at that pace. Slow down, though, and passengers riot, whereupon the airline gets upset. I'd definitely ratify politesub's observation that we can have privacy/convenience or total security--but not both.
Back in Boy Scouts, we learned an "Indian" adage: Never criticize someone until you've walked a mile in his or her moccasins. That seems particularly fitting for folks working long hours, on sore feet for wages I'd never take now, to try and keep us safe.
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