Replies

The agitators whine that TSA workers are not "respected" enough as a profession.

Well, yeah.

I hold them in contempt.

That's on a good day, when I'm not holding them beneath contempt.

Exactly. On their best day they merely merit contempt. From what I've seen they are ineffective and inefficient. The last several times I flew there were at least as many TSA clowns standing around screwing off as there were actually screening passengers - and yes there was a line.

I'm also old enough to have seen first hand how unions destroyed the steel and auto industries, how they are wrecking education... And yes I realize there are multiple factors contributing to these industries' problems, but unions play a huge roll in it. If it were up to me, I'd ban all unions and union activities today, right now.

Back to TSA though... Given airlines' ever deteriorating service, security concerns, and the TSA idiocy I have basically stopped flying. Last time I managed a few days off - to celebrate an anniversary with my wife - I drove 13 hrs each way rather than fly. I've got another trip coming up, actually related to work, and I'm again driving 12 to 13 hours each way rather than fly. Work doesn't care, they allocate a day each way for travel, regardless. Oh, and just like my previous personal trip, I'll have my Glock with me and my safety and security will be in my hands, not someone else's.

OUCH! Hard to “respect” some of the TSA people. I find that, from airport to airport, there is a culture which seems to be developed by individual managers at that specific airport or the makeup of the travelers. For example, Orlando has millions of passengers, mostly tourists and many young children not used to air travel and security procedures. The TSA people at MCO are short tempered and nasty. At most other airports the TSA workers seem cheerful in comparison.

As a side note, I know of a young man who was turned down by TSA when he applied for a job. It is scary to see those who have been hired and to think that he was not!

Question: Was he underweight for the job. I have seen the heaviest loads, of both sexes, on the job with TSA.

Finally, TSA is a union job and that's what you get.
Decertify the union and you will see an improvement in service.

Staring at a monitor, picking through toothpaste and sexually assaulting Lutheran grandmothers is not a ‘profession.’

One of the biggest mistakes the TSA and its progenitors made was dressing them in police style uniforms with those ludicrous fake badges. It was the usual lazy attempt to capitalize on the public’s conditioned reaction to seeing a police officer. It also convinced anyone with a sufficiently flawed character to work for the TSA that they were actually important, empowered, effective, etc.

Talk to any cop and their opinion of the TSA and their fakery is lower than ours.

Ironically, the original white TSA shirts were scrapped in part because there were so many of the fat XXXXL bastards that it looked like a snowbank....and they regularly sweated through the uniforms.