The trip to DC....

[derien]

I'm just going to cut and paste all that I wrote about my trip for tootsiemuppet, because I don't want to write it all again.


I was one of eight people chosen for the training, and flew down in company of Jaylow and C. Swagger on Sunday morning.  Upon arriving Jaylow wanted to go to dinner in Chinatown.  Crockadile (who's a little tiny guy, bald as an egg and looking to be about a hundred and eight years old, with about seven yellow teeth in his head) was already there (Donatello, Firecracker, Reverend Ricco and NoWeigh were on the later flight) so we invited him with us to Chinatown, and Swagger declined to go with us because he had to work out and eat some bran and call his girlfriend, I guess. 

So we got to work out the mysteries of the DC Metro system.  I had used the Boston T system, and Jaylow was suffering badly from low blood sugar, so I emerged as the leader in this venture.  However, the Metro in DC is a little different from the T.  The first odd thing - you have to get a little paper card and put money on it with this huge machine, different amounts depending on your destination.  And you can't get OUT of the subway if you don't have enough money on your little paper card.  Scary.  With the T you just buy a token from a person and you can get out at any station, so it costs the same no matter where you go.  Also, the Metro runs two or even three different line trains on the same tracks, in places.  I didn't expect that, because in Boston if you're standing next to a Green line track you only have Green line trains that you can get on to.  So I shuffled us onto the first train that appeared, that afternoon, and it took us waaay far out of our way because it was the wrong color - Blues and Yellows both run on the track at Pentagon City station.  But I got us there eventually, and after that experience it all seemed easy. :) 

Class started at 8am the next day.  Our instructors seemed quite disorganized.  We were in a room far too small for us, and they kept changing their minds about where and when we were going to do our practical application exercises - first it was going to be Reagan National, but during the first day it developed that Reagan National didn't want us there because they'd found the last class 'disruptive' because they'd caught a drug runner or something while they were doing their practical.  However, the instructors were incredibly psyched on the training, and they transmitted that excitement to us.  We'd all taken the class because, well, to be honest, it got us out of work for a week, so what the hell.  As I told my friend, Tree, later... I had said to him that lots of people think screeners shouldn't be given this training because we're stupid shmucks, and he said that if I hadn't taken this boondoggle (I guess that's used as a general word for ridiculous amounts of government spending like putting 30 people up at a hotel that has kitchenettes in every room and then gives you breakfast and sometimes even dinner) - if I hadn't taken the free vacation, basically, I'd have proven I was a stupid shmuck. ;)

But we did get psyched about the training in the first day.  It's about observing people's demeanor and actions to detect if they are nervous, possibly because they're hiding something.  Of course it won't just catch people who are planning on doing some terrorism with the plane - they could be nervous about anything; drugs, attempting to escape assault charges, whatever. I know you've probably already seen this stuff at work because they do it elsewhere, but it's new to America, and considered a bit risky.  Especially if any of the spotters start acting on their own agenda, so the instructors went to some lengths to impress upon us that we need to protect the program and NOT EVER profile people by race.  (Tree asked me about that, because he's Black, so he has some concern on the matter.  Though, I think he knows I wouldn't have any truck with any system that would bring race into the equation, because of him and because of his dad who got me a full scholarship in a private school when I was a kid which probably saved my life, because I was quietly going insane in public school.)

The week went by so fast.  It seemed as though every night we went out and did something, although I'm not quite sure what it was on Monday.  Oh, maybe it was the movie.  We went to see 'Constantine' - and I know it's an abomination upon the earth according to people who are fans of the graphic novel, but it was a damn fun movie.  Swagger bitched all the damn way that we were going to miss the trailers - the trailers!  What kind of person has to see the trailers, I ask you?  And it was his fault we were late in the first place.  Donatello told him we were meeting in the lobby at 7:30, and come 7:30 Jaylow and I were in the lobby with three of the Boston trainees (or so we thought they were at the time, but I'll get to that odd little thing later).  Donatello showed up a little late and volunteered to run up to Swagger's room to get him, since his phone was busy, and when he got up there Swagger was in his pyjamas, talking to his girlfriend.  "I thought we weren't going!"  Dummy.  So then he bitches all the way, even though the Boston guy who used to work in a theatre assured him that the trailers usually last until fifteen minutes after the movie is scheduled to start.  "This is stupid, we're going to miss the beginning of the movie...."  At the point where we were waiting to switch trains to the red line I told him if he didn't shut up right NOW I'd push him onto the third rail. ;)  It didn't really help, though.

We get there and Swagger gets in line for tickets first, and the ticket-seller asked if he were a student.  He turned his body away and looked off into the air and stated, "Yes.  I'm a student."  I thought that was hysterical, because it was so in line with all that we were learning in class - he can't lie for shit. :)  And then we weren't late - the trailers were still playing - so SWAGGER DECIDES TO GO TO THE BATHROOM.  *eye roll* 

I'll try to do the quick version re the rest of the week. 

Tuesday was more classroom time, and afterward we went with a few Boston people and walked around the Washington Monument (can't go inside right now because the grounds around are under construction to make it more safe from terrorist attack. :P  How dumb.) and down to the Vietnam Wall, which is right below the Lincoln Memorial.  There's also a statue commemorating military nurses, there, which is kind of cool.  We didn't get to see the Korean War Memorial, which is a cluster of statues, soldiers walking.  Most of us didn't know it was over on the other side of that park area.  But the Wall and Lincoln were what I really wanted to see.  Too awesome for words.  The Boston people abandoned us at Lincoln, and we were secretly glad of that.  They seemed embarrassed by our goofiness - we're dorks, and acted much like high school kids on an outing, so we of course thought they were rather boring. 

Wednesday we did half the day classroom and the latter half we went to Dulles to observe people.  (There had been some discussion of us going to a mall to observe, but that was given up because people don't act the same at a mall as they do at an airport.)  Getting to Dulles was a long, long bus ride.  Puts me to sleep.  And then Dulles is a total cluster f#$% as far as the way the have passengers approach the checkpoint - there's this sea of stantions that people have to weave their way up through, and the ticket checkers are running around up and down the lines checking tickets like mad, then opening stantions and herding forty people through, never standing still.  It made us nuts, because we couldn't find a fixed vantage point to observe people from. 

And then passengers were asking us questions and expecting us to help them, and we were all, "We aren't from here, sorry."  We weren't supposed to tell them what we were doing.  The people who worked there wanted us to come help them process passengers, too, and we couldn't tell THEM what we were doing, beyond 'training.' 

I think after work on Wednesday I just went with a few of my co-workers and walked around a mall and did some souvenir shopping.  Bought my postcards.  Tried out the massaging chair in the Discovery Channel store. 

Thursday we did more observation at Dulles, and THAT was when we found out what was weird about the Boston group.  They had 10 people there, and up until that point it had appeared that they were ostensibly in training with the rest of us, but we had noticed that some of them seemed to hold themselves a little aloof from us, seemed to think they were better, somehow, and that they were all Leads and Supervisors, whereas us from Portland are all screeners, and the people from Providence were mostly screeners.  On our second day of observation they became our mentors, one of them paired off with two of us from Portland or Providence, and they pulled someone in for additional screening, which you CAN'T do if you're not certified.  My co-worker, Firecracker (who's a short and rather cute mom) hypothesized that they were moles, planted so they could scope out what kind of people we were.  Because, as I said before, the instructors really want to protect the program and can't have people with their own agendas doing dumb things like pulling people for screening based on race or not doing paperwork to back up why they pulled them. 

And Thursday night we all went out to a bar to celebrate being done with training! :)

And Friday morning I went to the zoo with Crock and Jaylow, then met up with my friend Tree and his wife and kids.  Tree and I haven't seen each other for twenty years, which is really weird to say.  Neither of us can believe we're that old.  He seemed just exactly like himself, though also quite a bit like his dad, which is also a bit weird.  He loves being a father and seems excellent with his kids, who are adorable.  His wife seems like a sweetheart, and I think she also does something with law, but I'm not that good at asking questions... (something I've got to change if I want to make casual conversation with the passengers who act nervous and try to determine why they're nervous.)  She mentioned having heard stories about me, and I wanted to ask what she had heard, but I didn't dare. 

I wonder what things he remembers, and how he remembers them.  I wonder if he tells the story about us putting the dead squirrel in the freezer... his mom was not happy when she found it.  (We knew the squirrel was freshly dead and we thought we would dissect it, but we forgot.)

Aaaand... I think that's about it.  I journied back to the hotel by myself on the Metro, picked up my luggage and Jaylow, and we repaired to the airport, and when we landed in Maine I was so happy to see Eor that I hugged him three times and kissed him on the cheek.  That's a pretty extreme public demonstration of affection for me. ;)  Oh, and Portland 'International' Jetport looks really skanky after Washington Reagon International.  All that stained carpeting. :P  But, they did surprise and confuse us - some major renovations had happened while we'd been gone, in the baggage claim area. 

And that, pretty much, is that. 

Now I must get some dishes done and have breakfast. :)

Comments

[mollyrazor.livejournal.com]

Swagger bitched all the damn way that we were going to miss the trailers - the trailers! What kind of person has to see the trailers, I ask you?

Um, me. It's vitally important that I see the trailers. I went to some really, really shitty movie once just to see a Star Wars trailer.

Yup.