Notes & Queries response - Would airport security be less efficient if the people passing through were treated politely?
This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 11th December, 2022.
The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site, so it is appearing here instead.This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use.
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Would airport security be less efficient if the people passing through were treated politely?
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| image generated by Craiyon |
When you stand in the middle of the grate, everything around you falls silent. People are still talking, and dragging heavy wheeled suitcases, and scanning the signage for their airline check-in; announcements continue to spill from the public address system, but you can't hear any of it. The only exception was, this one time when I was standing on the grate, and a young man wearing a suit strode past, talking loudly about how cocaine is a very analogue high. He must have been on the phone because there was no-one with him. I don't know why I could hear him and evidently nobody else could. Maybe he was speaking on a different frequency. My friend, Pamela Knuckley, who used to work for the Met, told me that there are certain conversational frequencies that are used exclusively by law enforcement, so they can hear one another in crowded rooms. Maybe the guy was literally on cocaine and that's why I could hear him. I wouldn't know how to tell. They say that it turns you into an arsehole, but in my experience most people seem to be able to manage that without the assistance of class A drugs.
Even though I don't fly anymore, every so often I ride the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow and take up a position on the grate. It is a unique experience to stand at one of the busiest junctions in the world and be totally removed from everything that is going on around you. I have noticed that passers-by will go around the grate as if they are subconsciously avoiding it.
Sometimes when I visit the grate, there is a short queue to get on. On one occasion, when I was there, I met my neighbour, Mary Roch and her boyfriend, Terry. Terry looked a lot like an adult version of a dyslexic kid called Nathan Black, who attended the same junior school as I did. When I mentioned the resemblance to him, he got nervous and began to shuffle his feet, so I didn't press any further.
Mary told me that she visits the grate to get away from the noise of the air-planes that fly right over our street.
“Me too!” I remarked. “It's a small world.”
It's funny. You would think that an airport would be the last place anyone would go for peace and quiet.
Mary and Terry were ahead of me in the queue. When they reached the front of the line, they took turns on and off the grate. Mary and had one of those stopwatches that you wear around your neck, which she had set for thirty seconds. She would hold it up in front of Terry's face for the duration of his time on the grate, so he could see the seconds counting down. She told me that she was a P.E. Teacher, which is strange because I thought she worked for Barclays Bank. Maybe she changed professions.
Later she tried to convince me that, when you are standing on the grate nobody around you can hear anything you say.
“You can shout at the top of your voice – all kinds of crazy things that would get you arrested in an airport, and nobody will hear.,” she said.
She encouraged me to to try it the next time I visited Heathrow, but I never did. I don't entirely trust her. She seems like the kind of person who plays mind games for her own amusement.
The last time I visited the grate, I was confronted by an airport security guard. It took a few seconds of watching his lips silently move before I realised that he was talking to me. I stepped off the grate into the middle of one of his sentences:
“...needed in Channel F,” he said.
“Me?” I replied, incredulously.
“Head over in that direction,” he clarified, pointing to a sign overhead that read 'Channel F,' followed by an arrow.
Channel F turned out to be one of the airport security gates that passengers have to pass through to reach the terminal.
At the entrance, a pair of uniformed men were grouching about the loss of their coffee pipeline which had been rerouted to the Business Class Lounge.
I was directed to the metal detecting arch where I was instructed to assist passengers.
“If you have any questions, check the graphs of the wall first,” said one of the guards. He pointed to a nearby wall that was covered in bar charts.
The graphs were more helpful than I assumed they would be. I performed my duties well enough to be promoted to supervising the hand baggage scanner. Because of concerns regarding privacy, all X-rays of passenger luggage are passed through a Cubist filter that makes the images look like Picasso paintings. You have to interpret what you are seeing and pick out any bag that seems like it might contain something suspicious.
“It's so good to have someone who knows a bit about art working the scanner,” said my supervisor.
I was about to protest when it dawned on me that I had an MA in Fine Art and had specialised in Cubism.
My short time on the Cubist luggage scanner did more to deepen my appreciation of the style than several expensive years at art college. Maybe it was a result of having to interact with the medium in a meaningful way.
At lunchtime I went to the break room.
Mary and Terry were ahead of me in the queue. When they reached the front of the line, they took turns on and off the grate. Mary and had one of those stopwatches that you wear around your neck, which she had set for thirty seconds. She would hold it up in front of Terry's face for the duration of his time on the grate, so he could see the seconds counting down. She told me that she was a P.E. Teacher, which is strange because I thought she worked for Barclays Bank. Maybe she changed professions.
Later she tried to convince me that, when you are standing on the grate nobody around you can hear anything you say.
“You can shout at the top of your voice – all kinds of crazy things that would get you arrested in an airport, and nobody will hear.,” she said.
She encouraged me to to try it the next time I visited Heathrow, but I never did. I don't entirely trust her. She seems like the kind of person who plays mind games for her own amusement.
The last time I visited the grate, I was confronted by an airport security guard. It took a few seconds of watching his lips silently move before I realised that he was talking to me. I stepped off the grate into the middle of one of his sentences:
“...needed in Channel F,” he said.
“Me?” I replied, incredulously.
“Head over in that direction,” he clarified, pointing to a sign overhead that read 'Channel F,' followed by an arrow.
Channel F turned out to be one of the airport security gates that passengers have to pass through to reach the terminal.
At the entrance, a pair of uniformed men were grouching about the loss of their coffee pipeline which had been rerouted to the Business Class Lounge.
I was directed to the metal detecting arch where I was instructed to assist passengers.
“If you have any questions, check the graphs of the wall first,” said one of the guards. He pointed to a nearby wall that was covered in bar charts.
The graphs were more helpful than I assumed they would be. I performed my duties well enough to be promoted to supervising the hand baggage scanner. Because of concerns regarding privacy, all X-rays of passenger luggage are passed through a Cubist filter that makes the images look like Picasso paintings. You have to interpret what you are seeing and pick out any bag that seems like it might contain something suspicious.
“It's so good to have someone who knows a bit about art working the scanner,” said my supervisor.
I was about to protest when it dawned on me that I had an MA in Fine Art and had specialised in Cubism.
My short time on the Cubist luggage scanner did more to deepen my appreciation of the style than several expensive years at art college. Maybe it was a result of having to interact with the medium in a meaningful way.
At lunchtime I went to the break room.
One of my co-workers pointed to the gigantic L-shaped settee, upholstered in purple velvet, that was pushed up against two of the walls.
“Can you believe someone tried to get that through as hand luggage?” he said.
My first day working airport security was a string of terse human interactions. I watched a woman whose bag was way to large to be taken on board, attempt to force it through the hole in the luggage template. She reminded me of one of the ugly sisters attempting to cram her pudgy foot into Cinderella's glass slipper. When I told her she would have to check to her bag, she said, pettily: “It's okay, you're just following orders, aren't you?”
Can you believe that? She indirectly compared me to a Nazi, because I wouldn't allow her to take her oversize bag onboard! Imagine if they let everyone do that.
A man whose keyring contained a small nail file, uncapped his expensive fountain and held it up against the nib to demonstrate that they were both the same length.
“Why am I allowed to bring one on board but not the other?” he enquired.
His argument backfired when my supervisor wandered over and told him that he would have to confiscate both items.
By the end of my shift a steady stream of passive aggression and mealy mouthed abuse, judged by the person delivering the insult to fall just inside the boundaries of acceptability, had brought me to the point where I had begun to develop a dim view of my fellow man.
I never returned to Heathrow Airport, or to my job on Channel F. The last time I encountered Mary Roch she seemed surprised to see me.
“I thought you had been arrested at the airport,” she said.
She had returned to work at Barclays Bank, so I suppose the P.E. teacher gig hadn't worked out. When I asked after Terry, she ignored the question.
I hope this is of help.
“Can you believe someone tried to get that through as hand luggage?” he said.
My first day working airport security was a string of terse human interactions. I watched a woman whose bag was way to large to be taken on board, attempt to force it through the hole in the luggage template. She reminded me of one of the ugly sisters attempting to cram her pudgy foot into Cinderella's glass slipper. When I told her she would have to check to her bag, she said, pettily: “It's okay, you're just following orders, aren't you?”
Can you believe that? She indirectly compared me to a Nazi, because I wouldn't allow her to take her oversize bag onboard! Imagine if they let everyone do that.
A man whose keyring contained a small nail file, uncapped his expensive fountain and held it up against the nib to demonstrate that they were both the same length.
“Why am I allowed to bring one on board but not the other?” he enquired.
His argument backfired when my supervisor wandered over and told him that he would have to confiscate both items.
By the end of my shift a steady stream of passive aggression and mealy mouthed abuse, judged by the person delivering the insult to fall just inside the boundaries of acceptability, had brought me to the point where I had begun to develop a dim view of my fellow man.
I never returned to Heathrow Airport, or to my job on Channel F. The last time I encountered Mary Roch she seemed surprised to see me.
“I thought you had been arrested at the airport,” she said.
She had returned to work at Barclays Bank, so I suppose the P.E. teacher gig hadn't worked out. When I asked after Terry, she ignored the question.
I hope this is of help.
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| image generated by Craiyon |
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