Re: Re: Re: 182's


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Posted by Rick Denney on June 14, 2003 at 00:41:48:

In Reply to: Re: Re: 182's posted by Emily P. on June 13, 2003 at 20:02:08:

Yes it is. But courtesy goes beyond please and thank you for one sentence.

The problem is that each TSA station is making up its own rules, and the TSA workers don't travel. Consequently, they don't understand that the business traveler before them likely has far more experience in many more airports than they do. And they don't understand that the business traveler often travels on his or her own time, doing so in addition to work (unlike the airport workers who are there on the clock and the tourists who are on an adventure). Business travelers pride themselves on knowing the rules so that they can make as little ripple as possible in the smooth flow at airports. I'm no different. I specifically wear shoes with no metal in them just for that reason. I never set off the metal detector, shoes or no. But my feet are flat precluding slip-ons and I don't like having to sit and tie my shoes with everyone crowding around me, and Wichita didn't have a sitting area on the downstream side of the X-ray machine. Thus, I was unable to keep my eye on my laptop as it was sniffed for explosives, and getting someone else's Dell by mistake would have ruined my whole day. The care taken by business travelers to make things easy for the TSA and other airport workers ought to be rewarded with the courtesy that offers a friendly explanation for an unusual request, it seems to me. Blind obedience is not on willing offer by most adults.

What really drives me nuts is that some TSA stations expect you to know their specific regional interpretation, and will stand there looking at you, waiting for you to do what they want, without asking you to do it. Memphis is particularly bad about that.

It is beyond my conception why any airport in the U.S. would need tighter security than Washington Dulles, which probably carries more foreign diplomats and international governmental travelers than any other. But many do, especially the smaller airports in places where terrorists seem unlikely (like Memphis, Chattanooga, and Wichita, in all of which I've been treated rudely, while courtesy and respect are more likely in Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Washington--I travel a lot, heh, heh).

Rick "who doesn't like sitting down in the middle of moving crowds" Denney




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