The government’s own employee satisfaction surveys of most federal agencies show that Homeland Security employees are overall the least happy in their jobs -- 57 percent, well below the government-wide figure of 67.5 percent.  Some Department of Homeland Security sub-agencies such as the Coast Guard, Secret Service, and a few others report relative satisfaction with DHS and its leadership, training, and merit-based job security. However, the DHS’s Transportation Security Administration employees fear agency retaliation, don't have much faith in their leadership, and do not see any movement toward merit-based promotion. 

TSA is clearly concerned about this, because its media response says so, but apparently it needs a lengthy analysis of the data in order to understand some of the many reasons for the high rate of attrition:

- 24 percent in FY2005;
- 21 percent in FY2006; and
- admirably down to “only” 19.6 percent so far this year.

One in every five TSA employees still quits.  Certainly screeners, whose jobs are admittedly stressful, account for the larger portion of those numbers.  There is no available breakdown of the number from the administrative and bureaucratic side of the agency, although my own experience and contacts suggests that may be abnormally high as well.  There’s a message somewhere in the data that DHS and TSA still haven’t figured out in five years.

Travelers, however, may get happier ... or not.  TSA is floating an idea that would allow passengers to make advance reservations to go through screening well ahead of their flight time, perhaps off-peak, to avoid time waiting in line to be screened.  Yes, really – no kidding.

Let’s explore that thought for a moment.  Would you pay extra to show up early in order to wait the same amount of time (or longer) at the gate?  Isn’t this a sideways view of the Registered Traveler concept, which also costs extra, and its shorter-lines theory doesn’t seem to be expanding as well as had been hoped. One industry analyst sums it up by saying, "I don't understand the value of offering somebody the opportunity to pay to arrive off-peak, which they can already do for free."

And if you think that’s silly, credit Jay Leno for noting a story on the front page of USA Today that relates how 2,000 airport screeners around the country are being trained to study passengers' facial expressions to detect suspicious behavior. The downside -- thanks to Botox, this technique is completely useless in Los Angeles.