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Comment by neko_ranger | Hacker News Reader

Am I crazy or are the general workers at most US airports of dubious quality at best?

Airport jobs are some of the worst possible jobs - poor pay, bad hours, very long effective commutes (when you consider that they don't clock in until after get to the terminal, get through security), and angry customers screaming at you for something that's not your fault.

Lazy/incompetent/annoyed employees is the inevitable outcome of such an environment

Angry customers yelling at them also helps explains why they yell at customers (hurt people hurt people etc)

You get what you pay for. And they're being paid barely above minimum wage.

about a half of a developed country's minimum wage.

That doesn’t change the fact that it’s minimum wage for the location. Doesn’t matter if they earn more than a highly skilled professional in a different country, it doesn’t change the skill set.

FWIW though, I rarely had bad experiences with airport staff. They are just trying to do their jobs in a hectic place and don’t intentionally make our lives difficult.

That it's a near minimum wage job is not actually the fact though. Even the minimum starting salary for an entry level TSA position is higher than the highest minimum wage of any city/county/state in the US. The median TSA salary is also a hair above the median of full time salary in the US.

For the most part I agree most are at least neutral though. I.e. they are there because it's a job, not because they hate people or love people and this job was the way to do that. It's just the ones that do tend to really stand out for people.

TSA are not general workers, they're not the subject of this thread. We mean baggage loaders, ticket booth operators, the people managing the boarding, etc. They're making about as much as they could've made in Amazon warehouse. So their attitude is about the same as at Amazon warehouse. And for their employers, that's okay because it's not like they're going to lose any business due to bad customer service. Commercial flying is the worst it's ever been, and yet there are more passengers than ever before.

Probably the lowest paid job where you have to wear a full uniform and people’s lives depend on you (at least, that’s the expectation)

In addition to the minimum wage they get paid, it's also the minimum (negative) value they add. There's zero reason to do better at a job that already is a waste of almost everyone's time.

They do add some value, but not those inside the terminal, except the nice people behind the check in counter and the curb luggage assistants (captains?) that will take your luggage, give you the boarding pass, and off you go? Golden. It seems they do well on tips. It's worth every $10-20 bucks or whatever it is now.

It is when you get to the security is where you meet the UpsideDown. Condescending, most all of them, ime.

The TSA and some immigration ones are even malicious

I have gone through Schiphol and strip searched because the buttons on my winter coat were suspicious.

Everyone you interact with from the moment you enter the airport has that Brooklyn-diner-employee “whaddayawaaaant?” attitude. Like your very presence as a customer annoys them. Everyone is in dire need of customer service training. The DMV is more pleasant.

Having lived a decade in Brooklyn, and been to every diner imaginable, I have never experienced this attitude. Times must have changed for the worse.

I'm calling up the old stereotype for illustration purposes, one that as you say, is probably exaggerated / invalid these days.

> general workers at most airports

Yes, exactly. But actually, given what they must be paid they do an admirable job. I can’t truly blame someone for not giving a shit, it’s just frustrating for me when getting on my flight depends on them doing so.

Look, our culture does not reward excellence, so those people are doing the least possible to not get fired. That's kind of the whole American thing in general at this point. Nobody is doing great outside of technology workers, and even then, only some of them. You're not going to have a great experience in general from people here. There are always outliers, but those are individuals who have found some internal motivation to go above and beyond, and it's not a systemic thing.

This is not a US-only airport staff issue. I am on the road most of the last three decades and it is international. It is one, binding "quality" in every country. Most the airport staff's core competency rests elsewhere in almost all airports.

I am hedging because i have had nuggets of exceptional service and support here and there, even in nightmarish hellscapes like Heathrow. Flight attendants are a whole different area of joy and fears...

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