Why are you guys always understaffed? Does the pay suck?
What kinds of background checks did you have to pass before you could be hired?
The pay is actually pretty decent for the skill level the job requires. I started at $14.00/hour with just a high school education and no real job skills. The reason they are so understaffed is because most people use it as a stepping stone job until they either complete school or get the job they really want. The older ones are also usually retirees who don't really need the job, so once it gets tough they quit. Couple these things with the general stressfulness of the job and that's why there is such a high attrition rate.
As for the background check, it was just for any felony convictions. As long as you're not a felon you can work for TSA.
you say you are a former TSA Screener.... why did you quit?
I just got tired of the crap I had to put up with from management and the travelling public and I wanted to join the Army.
So I had metal plates installed in my left ankle for its corrective surgery when it was broken. Would a simple explanation suffice or would they require further scanning or documentation?
You need additional screening because you can't go through a metal detector because it would alarm and you would get a pat down anyway, so they just skip the metal detector and go right to the pat down. You also need to prove you actually have the metal plates because people have tried to smuggle guns or knives through and tried to explain the alarm on the metal detector by saying they had metal plates.
I read an onion article once joking about TSA folks being equally disgusted over pat downs if not more so than the people they were patting down. Is there any truth to this?
There is a lot of truth to this. Sometimes we get people who just don't shower or have been travelling for a while so they smell horrible. Not to mention you get the occasional pervert who tries to pull crap at the checkpoint like pulling their pants down and showing their junk.
How come? Do they not pay them enough? There are tons of people looking for work..
A lot of the unemployed probably do work for TSA for a short time, but like I said the job is very stressful so it has a high attrition rate. Sometimes it seems like everytime they hire a new screener two more quit.
Racial profiling: acceptable, fun, or both?
We really didn't do racial profiling, but I can tell you that the "random screening" isn't really all that random. TSA doespick people at random to screen, but most of the time one of their behavior detection officers saw you do something they viewed as suspicious and told the screeners to give you extra attention. They also gave us a list of countries whose citizens received extra screening no matter what. I don't remeber the full list, but it was mostly anti-American nation like Cuba, North Korea, Iran, etc.
