The borders of the USSA are guarded by the brave men and women of the Department of Heimat Sicherheit, more commonly known as Homeland Security. These men and women are the first frontier between the citizens of the shining light of democracy and the evil insidious Forces of Terror ™. Vigilant and alert, they make sure no harm will be done by the said Forces of Terror ™… And whenever you travel through or to the USSA, there’s no way you’re going to miss them.
Homeland Security deploys its employees along the border to question travelers about their intentions and possible affiliations with the Forces of Terror ™. This interrogation process is handled as part of the administration known as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA for its friends). To ensure a “certain” level of quality in the interrogation process, the TSA has stated a number of pledges to travelers unlucky enough to have dealt with its cronies.
TSA PLEDGE TO TRAVELERS
1. We pledge to do everything we can to ensure that your flight is secure.
2. We pledge to treat you with courtesy, dignity, and respect during the
screening process.
3. We pledge that if additional screening is required, we will communicate and
explain each step of the additional screening process.
4. We pledge to honor your request for a private screening at any time during
the screening process.
5. We pledge that if additional screening of your person is required, it will be
provided by a screener of the same gender.
6. We pledge to accept all feedback and to consider your input as a vital part of
our effort to continually enhance the screening experience.
7. We pledge to respond to your comments in a timely manner.
While reasonable on paper, The Pledge seems to depends on whoever is in charge of execution. As such, this list of good intentions runs headfirst into that immovable wall erected by human frustration and general incompetence.
Imagine an absolute nobody (no, not me this time). Blessed with a low to mediocre intelligence, this supposedly sentient being somehow understands – probably on a subconscious level – that his life is basically going nowhere. In his middle age, this individual finds himself stuck in a tiny booth verifying crusty documents and random items of traveling people.
Now somehow, somewhere, someone made the mistake to give this person the illusion that he deserves to wield a certain amount of power. Conjuring this illusion is not a hard thing to do; give someone a uniform to identify him as part of group, endow him with some limited decision making while placing his accountability within the very group he’s part of … and away you go.
The direct result is that said individual will experience a conflict between “wielding power” and “stamping things”: a sure recipe for endless, yet subtle frustration. As a final touch, mix in some slightly worrisome personality traits smelling of bullishness, conformism and some random compensation-issues-ism.
The end result is not pretty… a pot-bellied, balding man pushing – or hanging on to his forties. Dressed up in tasteless gold necklaces and suspenders to hold up his sagging pants, he grows the mandatory moustache to express his misplaced desire to identify himself as someone in command (or with his secret manlover in the next booth). To maximize this effect, he will do whatever the rules allow him to manipulate his environment in whatever way he sees fit… and yes, my dearest fellow traveler: that includes us.
In effect, you’ll find those fancy pledges pretty much reversed. For clarity reasons, here’s what it amounts to:
- We pledge to briefly look into important issues but pay huge attention to irrelevant trivialities that will result in maximal discomfort. We’ll take so much time you won’t be boarding your flight in time. We consider this “one-passenger-less-is-one-threat-less-based-security".
- You will treat us respectfully. We will huff and puff, you will respect our hand gestures as if you were our female dawg. Failure to comply will give us further reason to “secure” your flight.
- We will not explain any of our steps, pro-actively or in a reactive fashion. Try asking us a question, go ahead, make our day.
- You may request a private screening. Did you notice you need to request a private screening ? That requires you asking something… make our day, no really…
- If you make it to this step, you must be guilty of something, we’ll see to securing your flight.
- Our trash bin will more gratefully receive your feedback. If we don’t like your tone, we’ll feed you to our lawyer. Be assured that your next flight will be very safe and secure.
- Unless we didn’t receive your feedback in the first place, we’ll respond in a timely matter.
You will encounter the pledge poster prior to entering customs, but after it’s too late to turn back. The poster is accompanied by a pretty face of a stern and proud female in front of the American flag declaring “we are the face of America”… I’m pretty sure this slogan started out as a joke that somehow made it into the real world, after all “farce” can easily be mistaken for “face”.
2 comments:
So now you know how to diaper and put on a mustache.... wow this post has been quite educational.
not sure about either of them; but I'm glad you learned something =)
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