Mimsy Were the Borogoves

Editorials: Where I rant to the wall about politics. And sometimes the wall rants back.

How many businesses want fewer customers?

Jerry Stratton, December 22, 2010

Over on We Won’t Fly, they’ve discovered several troll comments posted from within Homeland Security. One of them really caught my eye:

Do any of you really think TSA is going to care if everyone requests a full body pat down instead of walking through the metal detector or body scanners?

They get to go home once their shift is over, no matter how long the lines are.

Less passengers flying means less work for them!

Less passengers flying means less work for them! For most of us, fewer customers doesn’t just mean less work, it means fewer jobs and more firings. This is one of the reasons government services usually end up sucking: having fewer customers is pure benefit. The DMV worker and the TSA agent both have one thing in common: if fewer people come in there won’t be any downsizing, but their job gets easier and they get paid the same amount.1

The further from the taxpayer a government organization is, the less responsive it has to be. And so few government agencies ever get disbanded that if a government agency alienates their “customers”, they still get to come to work the next morning, regardless.

One of the posters thinks the federal government pays local police salaries. It’ll be a good day for criminals when that happens.

  1. It’s even worse that, in this case, the TSA alienating fliers may not mean that TSA has to downsize, but it might mean that for airlines. I’m looking forward to a drive across the country this summer; a friend of mine is going to be driving to San Francisco over the holidays. It’s just become less of a hassle than flying.

  1. <- Exposing Social Security
  2. Institutional memory ->