eandiver:
Lots of opinions (mostly BS) about TSA. Does anyone here actually work for them? Seems to me that I'm the only one who does (or at least who'll admit it) on this board. From what I've seen at TIA and what I've read here most people are FOS about their "experences" with TSA.
My biggest problem is the inconsistency that I see about the whole screening
process, and the lack of care on the part of some of the screeners about
how someone's belongings are treated.
My wife and I travel a fair amount (>50K miles a year), and so have a fair amout
of interaction with the TSA in various airports.
An example of inconsistency is whether or not I need to remove my slippers
(flip-flops for those of you on the mainland) and have them x-rayed. Some
weeks it's yes, some weeks it's no, and I almost never guess right.
Guessing wrong (wearing them when they want them x-rayed) produces a
pat-down. Guessing wrong (putting them in for x-ray) gets me reprimanded
for doing so when they don't want to see them.
Bear in mind that these are little plastic slippers.
As for a lack of care about personal belongings, a screener at KOA broke
the latch on my wife's laptop computer because he failed to understand
how to use it to open the laptop (despite us trying to tell him not to pry the lid
open and how the latch works). No recourse is available to us.
Scuba gear. You'd think that in Hawaii they'd have seen scuba gear once in
a while. "Is that one of those Pssst Pssst things?" (holding up my regulator).
SIgh.
Maybe this would be better with better training for screeners. Good luck
with that; the TSA is a huge goverment agency and because of the sheer
size of the agency makes that a slow proposition at best.
We've not had anything go missing from our checked luggage, but it has
been tossed more times than I can count. A small suggestion: if you unpack
it to check the contents, at least have the courtesy to pack it back like you
found it.