'My Life as an Airport Screener'

[bavaria]

Just pulled the new Conde Nast Traveller from the mailbox and read this article

http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/detail?articleId=10624

For anyone who is unfamilar with the screening process, it has a handy diagram and information.

For those of us a little more familiar with the process, it has some interesting insight into the life of a TSA agent (I know that CarolA will love the part about the stamina test during the interview phase )

Enjoy!

 

[safetymom]

"Our checkpoints are designed to catch the sloppy and the stupid,"


that pretty much sums it up for me. Thanks for the great article.

 

[CarolA]

"Our checkpoints are designed to catch the sloppy and the stupid,"


that pretty much sums it up for me. Thanks for the great article.

Tell me you made that up.... (That should give flyertalk something t scream about for days!)

Off to read.

 

[bavaria]

oh, no, that's there - I laughed out loud at that comment!!!!!

 

[CarolA]

A few thoughts

1. It would be nice if this reporter could fact check. Accenture was founded well before the Arthur Anderson implosion, not out of the remains!
2. So as I long suspected, the main requirement to get the job... breathing.....that interview process is a joke. My interview for a fast food job in college was more detailed.
3. The physical.... my 70 year old mother can pass that LOL! She doesn't use drugs has good vision and hearing and can bend her arm!!!!
4. There is NEVER an excuse for throwing your shoes at a screener!

I wish this article had either made me feel better about the screening or the screeners. It did neither. We are NOT any safer due to this "fake security"

The DO's an DON'Ts on page 15 were good advice!

 

[bavaria]

.... I did feel a little guilty for being an impatient business traveller, but I'm actually not impatient with CATSA or TSA, more with other passengers and I really really try not to show it....It's just that my home airport combines the elite line with the crew line with the family line which means three groups with very different needs are trying to get through at the same time

I also liked the fact that 'I'm going to miss my flight!' does not endear one to TSA. Wonder how often they hear that??

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

I have a love-hate relationship with the TSA. Fortunately, I rarely have to actually go through a checkpoint when I am not flying. I respect the job they have to do, but as individuals I reserve my right to judge them individually. I spend 40-50 hours in airports every week and, to be honest, their personal habits (as a group) annoy me more than anything else (like driving to the airport half dressed and proceeding to complete the task two stalls from my car in the parking lot.)

Picture a TSA agent. Now picture a TSA agent nearly naked. The mind reels, doesn't it? Welcome to my hell!

 

[CarolA]

Picture a TSA agent. Now picture a TSA agent nearly naked. The mind reels, doesn't it? Welcome to my hell!

Hey after that "grueling" physical you mean they don't all look like male models?

 

[Starr W.]

.... I did feel a little guilty for being an impatient business traveller, but I'm actually not impatient with CATSA or TSA, more with other passengers and I really really try not to show it....It's just that my home airport combines the elite line with the crew line with the family line which means three groups with very different needs are trying to get through at the same time

In my former life, I travelled alot on business, so I know where you are coming from. I feel if we, as a family are travelling, I need to teach my kids how to go through screening properly, so they don't hold up the lines. It's just common courtesy. As is knowing the current rules with the baggies.

 

[canwegosoon]

Barvaria thanks for the link...I would never want to be a TSA agent They had me at the radiation leakage

 

[dudspizza]

After my freshman year of college, I decided I wanted to work at the airport. I love the airport and travel, so I applied with the TSA (pre-9/11). I don't remember any type of classes or anything that I had to take. A simple interview and I was in. On the job training is all I had. Back in those days (summer of 1989) I got paid something like $4.00/hour. The crap you dealt with from passengers was unreal! People in a hurry were the worst. Those that came unprepared or late expected special treatment and would yell at you if you wanted to do further screening. I loved this quote, "The occasional flare-ups from hostile passengers are a reminder that four years after the TSA formally took over the checkpoints, screeners get barely more respect than the poorly trained minimum-wage workers they replaced."

The scary part was when a supervisor from another concourse came through in plain clothes with a fake gun in his bag. It was a test of us new screeners. Guess who was on the xray maching! ME! Check out this procedure. I immediately had to notify my supervisore. The passenger was then allowed to leave the security check point and procede to their gate... I had to remove my bright red coat and follow him. While I followed him, airport security was called and they came and took the guy down. How is that for tight security!

I lasted a week. A few people were tough to deal with, but the pay didn't help things either. They told me I had to work 14 straight days before a day off and I had a party to go to on my first planned day off..... so I quit.... remember, I was in college and this was only a temp job...

Thus the end of the TSA type existence!

Duds

 

[pppiglet]

Great article..thanks for the link!

 

[bavaria]

... I had a party to go to on my first planned day off..... so I quit....

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

Sleep tight, America... your screeners are tapping a keg!

 

[keishashadow]

they wanded a dead guy in a wheelchair?

 

[CarolA]

The more I thought about this article the more amused I became..

Does anyone else think that they did NOT do a background review on this person? If they had they MIGHT have discovered she was a journalist which might have made someone think that "she is just doing this to write an "expose" on us" It appears that thought NEVER crossed anyone's mind and they hired her LOL! (Makes you wonder though, for all we know you could put down "terrorist" as your occupation, wonder if they would ask about that of if they would "stick to the scripted questions" )

 

[BillSears]

they wanded a dead guy in a wheelchair?

Well yea of course they did. You can't send a wheelchair through the metal detector...

 

[keishashadow]

Well yea of course they did. You can't send a wheelchair through the metal detector...