Condé Nast Traveler aviation correspondent Barbara S. Peterson went undercover to see just what it’s like to be a Transportation Security Administration screener. Her experiences, related in this article (long but well worth the read), were eye-opening to me in some ways. Though I always try to be polite, if distant, with screeners, I’ll try to also understand some of what they’re going through now as they bark at us passengers like deranged seals.

While I now feel more sympathy for the individuals hired by TSA to do the screening, I’m even more appalled at the system itself. As Webinar guru Ken Molay, who brought this article to my attention, says, “All the concentration is on slavish adherence to rules rather than any attempt to make processes work better.”

He continues, “My favorite quote from the article? Part of the TSA training: ‘You must never apologize.’ Great.”