We've all been through the airports, we've seen who the TSA agents are. These aren't people who went to college and studied hard to learn the law and court systems so that they can become police officers or FBI agents. I'm not really surprised that they're drug taking thugs. And these are the people responsible for our "safety".
*Cough* You know not ALL TSA agents are like that *Cough*
*COUGH*
But yeah...anyways...I can easily give you a reason why yes, many of those that work for the TSA aren’t exactly the beacons of our society.
1. Pay is one of it. In some places its likely not that bad of pay. In Northern VA you’re likely making $24k a year as a full time job. Honestly, up here, barely enough to live decently on your own if you plan on having anything under an hour commute. Especially if you’re having to pay off student loans while doing it
2. Work Conditions. This is my own experience having worked at a very large Airport, on the baggage side. Horrible, inflexible hours, with almost a guarantee that you’re getting at least one if not two weekend days unless you’re lucky or been there a very long time. 90-100+ degree basements and warehouses filled with enough fumes and dirt in the air that you can literally feel a layer of it on your skin when you’re done. Immediate management with little actual knowledge of “managing” at all.
3. Upward mobility. As far as screeners go there’s not much movement. You have to wait 2 years to get your first potential grade increase. After that there’s little movement in pay/position available unless you’re able to get into a Lead or Supervisory position. Those are few and far between, generally filled to the brim at this point and opened only if one of them actually leaves the position. I knew people that had been there for 5 years that had seen one increase in position/pay.
4. Customers. Many people seem to hate the TSA. Many treat each employee as if they personally went to Bush and said “You know what’d be a great idea? Lets have everyone take their shoes off and have their bags searched.”
5. No care about a college degree. A guy with a GED is going to come into a big airports TSA making the same thing as a guy that got hired with a college degree, which is a huge morale killer for someone with a degree. Doubly so when you discover that you don’t choose if you do baggage or screening, its random depending on what training class you are in. So if you went into TSA hoping for at least some kind of basic entry level security type experience working the scanning lanes you could end up being someone doing baggage which is essentially just physical labor with a technological twist.
6. Constant turnover. Add all this together and you get another big issue. People are constantly quicking, which leads to constantly having to get new people into it. So you have few long lasting people with experience, lots of people with little experience, and lax standards so as to be able to hire people quick enough.
Mind you, all this is about the big airports.
Because of those above your TSA agents are often times going to be high school degree people needing a job cause they’re not going to college/going to community college, lower class people trying to find a job with benefits, a lot of ex military guys who come back and don’t have many options open, people who needed a second job for their family, and fresh out of college people seeking a foot in the door to the federal government.
I wouldn’t say you have a “thuggish” contingent of TSA members. I didn’t know many “thug” types honestly. I would say though that yes, admittedly, on the whole you’re not getting the best and the brightest but I also wouldn’t say that you’re getting the dredges of society either. There are a number of intelligent people within the TSO ranks, without a doubt. More than some may believe. I would say its higher standards than your average McDonalds or mall store, but yes you’re not getting a law firm level of intellect. Unfortunantly though the state of how things are at the big airports likely causes your best TSO’s to be the ones most likely to try and get out of the airport ASAP.
And people want to start in on profiling. Can you imagine that one.
Now if we think at the base of profiling in general. Someone walks around observing people, their body language and patterns and then can match that with set conditions typical of certain behaviors. Angry people will do these three things, people looking to avoid authority will do these 4 things, blah blah blah. But to be a profiler, like an actual one, you have to have a good understanding of human behavior and psychology. You have to have a lot of knowledge about what visible signs mean what and to know the average characteristics of certain groups and behaviors. Then think how many you'd need per airport, how many airports there are in the US. You think we're going to hire the people capable of proper profiling and observation? Or are we just going to pull another group of thugs off the street, give them a 3 hour seminar a plastic badge and send them on their way?
I know for sure which one seems more damned likely.
They actually have the above thing. And I can assure you the hiring process for them is far more stringent, detailed, and of a higher standard than the hiring of a standard base tso