Comment by benjiro
4 hours ago
> Airport security staff being so gruff
More of a issue that power goes to their heads.
Do not get me started on airport security staff in the Netherlands that cracked some insulting jokes about my nationality. I was not amused...
Or the idiotic "remove your shoes" so we can x-ray them... What next, go naked? O, that is what those new scanners are for that see past your clothing.
If i can avoid flying, i will ... Its not the flying, its the security. You feel like being a criminal every time you need to pass and they do extra checks. Shoes, bomb test, shoes, bomb test ... and you do get targeted.
The amount of times i got "random" checked in China as a white guy, really put me off going anymore.
Arriving, 50% chance of a check. Departing, 100% sure i am getting 1 check, 50% i am getting two.... Even won the lottery with 3 ... (one in entrance in Beijing: "Random" bomb check, one for drop-off luggage, and one for security) .... So god darn tiring ...
And nothing special about me, not like i am 2m tattoo biker or something lol. But yea, they see me, and "here we go again, sigh"...
> More of a issue that power goes to their heads.
I'm sure this exists too, but isn't the mundane rationale more likely? That gruffness is inevitable because the work sucks?
Overworked, understaffed, the days blur together because it is boring, mostly sedentary work. They are ground down from dealing with the juxtaposition of their role; internally TSA are told they are important because their vigilance is heroic and prevents catastrophe, yet the general public views them with annoyance if not disdain. _Everyone_ they interact with is impatient, and at the that scale of human interaction nobody is really a person anymore, just a complication to throughput.