Federal DHS Employee Instigating Race War!!!

Zyphlin said:

That's a rather ignorant method of thinking if you're chalking up "incompetence" as the default answer thinking there can't be other factors.

TSO's have a RIDICULOUSLY high turnover rate, especially at your bigger Cat X airports. The pay is in the mid 20 range if you're full time, the public isn't always the easiest to work with and when it comes to the baggage side of things the conditions aren't always exactly great, and its kind of a thankless job. Some of those things factor into 1) the quality of individual you get applying for those jobs 2) the amount of time people actually stay in the job.

The amount of individuals who have actually been TSO's for the "12 years after 9/11" that we are is ridiculously low. There's a greater chance that the TSO's scanning those individuals are on their first 6 months on the job then there is that they're on their 6th year...let alone 12 years. With a workforce that size and with significant turnover and that pay level you're going to be having new people on all the time...and to expect perfection or "12 years" worth of expertise from each and every one is ludicrous. Chalking up the fact that they don't perform at that level to "incompetence" is even more ridiculous.

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sangha said:

Yes, TSO's have a high turnover rate, and yes, it's because of the low pay scale and the poor working conditions

Don't you think it's at all incompetent for mgmt to hire people for such an important job but not pay them well and work to improve the conditions they work under?

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Zyphlin said:

No, I don't think that's "incompetence". Again, you seem to have a very broad meaning for incompetence or you're just willfully being ignorant of the realities of how federal agencies work.

They're given a particular budget. Part of that budget is payroll. "Management" can't just wave a magic want and hire people at higher prices or spend money to improve airport infastructure, unless by "management" you mean "Congress".

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Zyphlin said:

I don't particularly feel any way about it, because I use some general common sense.

"TSA agents catches practice bomb at airport" is hardly a headline story you're going to be seeing.

As with all quality assurance testing, the reality is that they probably have caught a LOT more than they've missed...but those aren't going to be reported.

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In a general sense would I feel better if TSO's caught every tester bag? Absolutely. I'd then begin to question if I'm still alive because I'd have suddenly entered into a world where there are perfect humans present.

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Oh, absolutely! By no means is TSA or its practices perfect. Far from it. But there's a gigatnic difference between suggesting that a group can still improve and get better and suggesting that it's just rife with incompetence.

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Incompetence to me would be not bothering to test these things at all and having some actual live ones getting through and causing problems. That would be an indication that they're not testing examples based on intel to see how they may be caught or missed, that they're not looking for potential holes, that they're not keeping the workforce on their toes or identifying potential weak employees, etc.

This isn't incompetence to me. It's an example of parts of the outfit that needs to continue to improve as well as an example of parts of the outfit that is doing a refreshingly useful job.

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ChrisL said:

Okay, well I feel that this particular incident in original post is a sign of incompetence, or at least a little bit of incompetence. We have a Department of Homeland Security employee who is in charge of purchasing weapons owning and maintaining a website promoting racial violence, and he had to get special permission to even start this website. DHS employees are not allowed to own and maintain websites without special permission from someone in a supervisory position, so somebody gave him permission to start this website on the notion that it was harmless concert promotion but was really a racial hate website, and the department was completely in the dark about it.

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Zyphlin said:

Granted, my comments were aimed more at the post and link that came later, than the OP.

That said..haven't fully read the OPs story. Did it SAY that he got permission? Because while that may be what regulations say...doesn't mean he does it. Unless we're monitoring our federal employees home internet use 24/7, there's going to be things they can do after a background check that the agency may not know about until something causes it to come up on their radar screen.

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