I ran across this ad a few months ago on the back of a magazine. I thought it was pretty amusing, but after flying this past weekend it’s not as funny as it was.
I can’t think of a job that would be much less fun than TSA agent. Regardless of this, it is amazing to see the difference in attitudes of the people working for the TSA and how their demeanor transfers to the traveling public. Agent #1 is all business and that doesn’t bother me. I’m there for a purpose, they’re there for a purpose… between the two of us we’ll just go through the necessary motions and go on with our lives. Then there is the agent #2 – friendly illicites friendly. Smiles garner smiles. When she mentions that she knows someone from Culver/Plymouth/South Bend, she creates a connection and relieves some of the stress from the situation. That’s so much different from agent #3 that treated those of us in line as cattle. When he tells us there are three lines and to separate into them, he audibly sighs in disgust and looks at us with disdain. How can we be so stupid? He’s told us this 30 times already today… But he hasn’t. He’s said it thirty times, but to thirty different groups of people. But that is the problem. We’re not people to him. We’re the mass of bodies that continues to clog his space and acknowledging that we’re a new group ruins the easy construct he relates to his wife every night about “the idiots that can’t take direction” that he has to deal with daily. He’s fine with us being faceless masses and in return, he being a faceless uniform that none of us could pick out of a line-up if paid to.
I’ve yet to hear mention on the news today that today is 
