Glenn Reynolds "crowdsourced security policy" (i.e., passengers beat up hijackers,) is obviously a glib joke. Somebody at the airport is still going to have to screen the passengers for bombs, weapons, etc., even if it isn't the hated TSA. Airliner security is serious; cut the jokes.

Absolutely, Zsuzsa. I don't actually consider this a joke:

How to Prevent this Type of Stupidity in the Future:
On September 11th, the terrorists took over the plane with box cutters. This is never going to work again. The next person who tries to take 200 hostages with anything less than a bazooka is going to end up stuffed in an airplane toilet with the American spirit’s boot buried in his ass. Airports are openly mocking us when they take away our combs, nail files or boomerangs. Here’s a good way to test the deadliness of an item: Imagine you’re holding it and a gorilla bursts into the room. Now decide whether to hold on to it or fight with your bare hands. If you have to think about it, it’s not deadly. Instead of taking away toiletries from innocent travelers, we ought to take every citizen in groups of 200 into gymnasiums. Then, while they’re trying to figure out what’s going on, we have a guy come in and try to take them all hostage with a fork. If they let him, those 200 people are no longer allowed to fly on planes.

One of the greatest unheralded tragedies in the federal government during the past few years was the success of the public sector unions and Democrats had in eliminating the use of pay-for-performance personnel systems across the federal government. NSPS, DCIPS, and plenty others were all junked because they were "discriminatory."

Ummm, yeah: they *discriminated* against lousy employees hanging around to collect their mandated step increases when they really should have been fired decades ago.

Exactly right. Even the folks trying to undo the electoral college can't cite a discrepancy like this. Isn't the RICOH statute still in effect?

Ahhh. My "Exactly right" was aimed at the election numbers.

PASS is “discriminatory and blatantly unfair,” particularly for senior employees, women and minorities, he said.

Why? How?

A lot of performance-management systems have this trait - they are designed to limit incentive and opportunity for the graybeards.

It's a way of threading the needle at companies that adhere to the common management doctrines of 1) preferring external candidates to promoting from within and 2) ensuring that no worker is paid more than a manager.

A company that promotes from within will generally have a good fit of experienced workers to open management positions, since over time most of his peers will have quit/moved/been fired etc. But, from the organization's point of view, it is possible for an internally promoted manager to be "too loyal" to the former co-workers he is supervising. So some agencies are more comfortable hiring really smart, fresh faces from the outside.

Experienced workers seem to be more likely to act subordinate to a young manager if they realize that the company highly values people who have supervisory authority.

Therefore, limiting or banning raises for experienced non-managerial workers is common among agencies with this type of culture.

I think this is also why scheduling is such a nightmare. Most of the day, way too many people standing around doing very little if anything and then at busy times, there are not enough screening lines open because of breaks and other scheduling issues.

I travel for a living and it is a messed up system.