It also varies from airport to airport. I get frustrated when I travel because I always get yelled at by TSA agents for following the directions of the previous airport.
Some places want all devices out.
Some only want laptops.
Some want the bag of travel liquids out in their gallon bag.
Some allow you to leave them in.
But they all act like I’m supposed to know what their particular rules are.
This is based on the TYPE of scanner each checkpoint has and that frequently differs from airport to airport.
The problem is, most of THEM don’t even know that, so yeah, you appear mind-bogglingly stupid to them and they look needlessly arcane and possibly deliberately cruel and rude to you.
It’s the US, they don’t really know about the rest of the world, and apparently a fair number of them aren’t sure what New Mexico or DC actually are and whether people from there ought to be arrested or not.
They’re not thinking of it from your point of view, where you’ve come from any one of thousands of different airports with different rules.
They’re thinking of it from their own point of view. Where they’ve been doing the same thing every day for years, with rules that don’t change much if at all, and somehow every single motherfucker that comes through their line gets it wrong.
To be fair, having to repeatedly explain the same fairly simple rules over and over and over again to people who are just not getting it would wear pretty thin fairly quickly. But it’s not really the fault of everyone else for not knowing that specific airport’s specific rules.
My last airport experience was being stuck in line while the TSA people extremely aggressively screamed at some very elderly Hispanic grandparents who didn’t have great English or great hearing for a very long time. They genuinely were trying to do their best.
I get that it’s frustrating or whatever but holy shit they do like power tripping stuff too I feel like. The elderly gentleman thought he was supposed to approach to show I.d. but they wanted him to go somewhere else and they treated him like he was going to be an active shooter or something.
You’re right, the literally 1000s of people going through there daily all tell the same lie. I get you need to follow the protocols of your airport regardless of what another one does. But it would be pretty bloody obvious other ones actually are doing things differently.
It also varies from airport to airport. I get frustrated when I travel because I always get yelled at by TSA agents for following the directions of the previous airport. Some places want all devices out. Some only want laptops. Some want the bag of travel liquids out in their gallon bag. Some allow you to leave them in. But they all act like I’m supposed to know what their particular rules are.
This is based on the TYPE of scanner each checkpoint has and that frequently differs from airport to airport.
The problem is, most of THEM don’t even know that, so yeah, you appear mind-bogglingly stupid to them and they look needlessly arcane and possibly deliberately cruel and rude to you.
But… Don’t they deal with people from all over the country and world constantly? Ignorance can’t be an excuse at that point.
It’s the US, they don’t really know about the rest of the world, and apparently a fair number of them aren’t sure what New Mexico or DC actually are and whether people from there ought to be arrested or not.
This is America. Ignorance is the goal.
They’re not thinking of it from your point of view, where you’ve come from any one of thousands of different airports with different rules.
They’re thinking of it from their own point of view. Where they’ve been doing the same thing every day for years, with rules that don’t change much if at all, and somehow every single motherfucker that comes through their line gets it wrong.
To be fair, having to repeatedly explain the same fairly simple rules over and over and over again to people who are just not getting it would wear pretty thin fairly quickly. But it’s not really the fault of everyone else for not knowing that specific airport’s specific rules.
My last airport experience was being stuck in line while the TSA people extremely aggressively screamed at some very elderly Hispanic grandparents who didn’t have great English or great hearing for a very long time. They genuinely were trying to do their best.
I get that it’s frustrating or whatever but holy shit they do like power tripping stuff too I feel like. The elderly gentleman thought he was supposed to approach to show I.d. but they wanted him to go somewhere else and they treated him like he was going to be an active shooter or something.
Everybody lies. Airport XYZ let me keep my fully assembled IED why is it an issue here.
You’re right, the literally 1000s of people going through there daily all tell the same lie. I get you need to follow the protocols of your airport regardless of what another one does. But it would be pretty bloody obvious other ones actually are doing things differently.