Arrived early to Phoenix (17 minutes). Rolled through the walkways as fast as we could - and the line at Immigration the line was massive. So we waited. And waited. Got to the front FINALLY. Told the attendant that we wanted to do Global. His last name was Hoffman.
He got crabby and told us "the machine isn't working well". Not our problem. He said to back up and look into the camera. I did so. Then to put my right four fingers on the screen and press down, bending at the wrist. The lights did not come on stating it was working. I tried this at least 20x. He kept saying I wasn't doing it correctly. He got mad, slammed his keyboard down and said "I hate this freaking place". Again, not our problem. I think (not sure as it took forever) if he rebooted or what. I tried again, same issue. Then he said "do you have hand lotion?" I wasn't sure if he meant ON my hands and was blaming me - and so I said "No I do not" because I did not! Then he slammed a bottle of hand sanitizer on the desk and said to put that on my right 4 fingers. I must have tried 30x. No go - not reading it
By now - since there is only one other guy getting US citizens through the line - there are at least 300 people in line if not more. They are yelling at Mr Crabby Hoffman to hurry up. He's getting madder by the minute.
We asked him multiple times if we could go and try another desk (meaning a different scanner). And he would not respond. One time he got up and walked away - asked the other TSA agent if he was having trouble. No response from other guy. And yet - we heard multiple people tell him they wanted Global and they got through the line with paperwork/prints completed and moved along. Finally, Hoffman said "you know if there is an issue with this paperwork, you'll need to come back to Phoenix to fix it". I assume he was trying to get us to give up since we live on the East Coast. Nope. People in line are still yelling at Hoffman.
We moved to another desk I asked if I should bring along the hand sanitizer and I said "just in case I need it" and he said to me "WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?!" in a vicious tone. I looked at him as if to say WTF is your problem and said "I wanted to bring it over here IN CASE WE NEED IT". His response was "oh".
We kept looking at each other as if "what can we do?" I mean you're stuck - if we had argued with him who knows what he might have done.
Please note - that by now - EVERY person had gone thru the line with the one guy helping all of them.
Our baggage was going round and round. Only items on the carousel.
FINALLY, my finger prints (and by prints - it's four fingers on right hand, four fingers on left hand, right thumb, left thumb, repeatedly scanned IN THAT ORDER!) scanned okay and now my hubby was up to bat.
So, same crap, crabby, ordering us around as if we are stupid, etc. I said to hubby "let me grab the bags" and Hoffman says "MA'AM YOU CANNOT LEAVE THIS AREA". Please note - it was maybe 15' away from the desk and clearly obvious that all I would do would be to grab our bags. NO ONE ELSE was there as all other travelers had moved on long since past. I mean NO ONE!
Finally, prints are scanned and Hoffman said something like 'in 2 weeks you will hear something' We grabbed our bags, had to recheck them, then exit, then go thru security again, then hike it to Terminal 4. By the time we got to our gate, it was 13 minutes to board. No time to get anything to eat and flight 4+ hours.
We dealt with that P*I*K for over an hour.
Please note - the other guy - NEVER offered to help us/nothing.
What a terrible experience. read more