So I am driving in today to work and I get a good chuckle.
The security screeners at airports are quitting (or being fired) at the rate of about 20 - 25% a year. They believe they are overworked and underappreciated.
Really? You think you're overworked?
Let me say that I have traveled a lot this year and summer. You are most certainly not overworked. You know how I know? Because there are 6 of you around every one working machine and only 1 of you works.
Story - Eddie and I left LA the other morning and the guy at the x-ray machines asks Suzzie "I got better things to do than listen to you" Screener for a bag check. Miss Suzzie ignores him. Again he says, "Bag Check!".
Meanwhile, the line is backing up. Suzzie is studiously looking everywhere but at the x-ray machine. She will not turn. Finally someone in line yells, and Suzzie whips her ass around to see who said something. Everyone shuts up, because Suzzie will kick you off the plane - don't screw with Suzzie. She mozies down the 4 feet to the x-ray machine in a cool 40 seconds.
"What?" she says.
Now Suzzie really only has one job here. A bag check. Why this requires an explanation is beyond me. But the x-ray guy explains it to her. Her cow-like gum chewing and exhausted sighing lets me know that Suzzie has been through this before. The large gentlemen in line says, "Those are drum sticks", Suzzie holds up her hand. She is in charge her. "Sir, will you step back please."
He steps back, also sighing and looking put-upon. Suzzie is in for a fight with this one. He is a big black gentlemen, but Suzzie matches his ass pound for pound - and she has better eye-rolling and a better weave. After all, she has all day to practice the eye-rolling (and I think she does her weave during bathroom breaks).
With Suzzie and the drummer moved 2 inches away, the rest of the line is allowed to do the shoeless, beltless shuffle through - at the rate of 1 person every 2 minutes. By the time Eddie and I are through, putting our shoes and belts back on, Suzzie has about 20 drumsticks out of the bag, and removing the remainder one at a time. How do I know it was about 20. Cuz Suzzie is counting, "Eight..tain," pick it out and put it in a stack, "Night..tain" pick it out and put it in the stack, "Twenty" move that stack down, reach into the bag and guess what is there? What could that be. It's another drumstick. Suzzie studies it from all angles, until she is sure that this one isn't a stick of dynamite, "Twenty.. *sigh* ..one."
Overworked! PU-leez. If Suzzie had to do a real job for twenty minutes he butt would be on the street so quickly it would make your head spin.
Tucson and Missoula are the same story, but they appear to hire only 60 year old ex-marines who huff and puff better than the Suzzies of this world.