'You ugly!!!': Airport guard fired for slipping mean note to random traveler

[Demovictory9]

It looks like the TSA is hiring the cast of “Mean Girls” now.

A traveler passing through security at Rochester International Airport got an unexpected sick burn from an employee — when she handed him a folded-up note that said, “You ugly!!!”


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Neal Strassner, 40, said he was handed the small, folded-up piece of brown paper by a female worker before collecting his things at the checkpoint in June.

He said he initially thought it was a piece of scrap cardboard or some trash.

“I didn’t open it because I didn’t care about it,” he told The Post. “She turned around a few times asking, ‘Are you going to open that?’”

When he finally did, he looked at it and saw the message. He said he just put it in his pocket and got on his plane to Kansas.

The guard can be seen doubling over with laughter as Strassner walks away, according to CCTV footage of the incident that Strassner got though a Freedom of Information Act request.

She then tears another piece of cardboard from a box of latex gloves above the bag scanner and begins writing — presumably a message for her next victim.https://nypost.com/2019/08/16/you-ugly-airport-guard-fired-for-slipping-mean-note-to-random-traveler/

[jberryhill]

1. That is some really weird behavior

She could at least have written "You're" properly.

[cwydro]

7. I doubt TSA folks are hired on their grammar skills.

Most probably have a GED, if that.

[jberryhill]

11. Do you think someone with a GED should leave a verb entirely out of a sentence?

Look, I don't want to be an education snob, but I would think that someone with the equivalent of a high school education should not go around thinking "You ugly!!!" is any sort of sentence.

I mean, come on, would most people with a GED think that was okay?

[cwydro]

22. Lol. I'm not going to comment further on how I think that woman probably talks on a daily basis.

Pretty sure she’s never heard of a verb, a contraction, a subject, an adjective...ah...never mind.

[pangaia]

31. to say nothing pf the future perfect tense

[cwydro]

33. Bwah!

Be easy to diagram that sentence though.

Wish I knew how to make drawings on line - but, “You” and then “Ugly” would make a simple diagram lol! My eighth grade teacher must be rolling in her grave.

[jberryhill]

36. You want a diagram of "You ugly"?

Here you go:

[cwydro]

37. Ah! Well done!

[DonaldsRump]

58. I guess you never heard the awful cheer at my high school football games!

U-G-L-Y
You ain't got no alibi
You ugly....hey, hey, you ugly.

(sometimes it's "you're", but not at my old school)


A rather unfortunate remembrance from my "good old days".

[DonaldsRump]

64. and b/t/w putting aside misuse of grammar, intentional or otherwise

I find what she did reprehensible. I think the traveler was completely right.

This is unacceptable behavior from a public servant (or a contractor to it), and it worries me that she's not doing her job, which, as the agency name strongly suggests, is transportation security, when she is more concerned about this immature stuff.

[jberryhill]

71. She's been promoted to guard at the Metropolitan Correctional Center

People cannot fathom how the guards at a federal jail could have been so bad at their jobs...

[tblue37]

89. It's a common dialect feature. For example, "You mad, bro?" nt

[Hekate]

93. Which makes me wonder at the extended back-&-forth over her grammar, rather than her cruelty...

...and unprofessionalism. I keep looking for signs that posters are being all ironic and stuff, but they are just too deadpan to read that.

Grammar? Really? She's acting like a Mean Girl in junior high school, while being paid to do a serious adult job. That hysterical laugh she's got? Take it to the unemployment office, lady.

[jberryhill]

95. Bad punctuation kills

I guess “Let’s eat Grandma” is just fine with some people, instead of “Let’s eat, Grandma.”

But I think liberals should have more concern about the elderly than just letting them go that way.

[Demonaut]

57. lovely...it's a shitty job, just remember that

[Blue_true]

9. Yes, it is strange. And totally unacceptable.

Going through TSA screening is difficult enough, people don't need jerks doing the screening.

[jberryhill]

13. Failure to use a verb in a sentence doesn't make someone a jerk

[UniteFightBack]

18. True but writing dickbag notes to pass the time and entertain yourself does. nt

[jberryhill]

34. Well shucks

Maybe someone can get her an account here.

[UniteFightBack]

35. You get a tee hee for that and ya know what I'm gonna throw in a tally ho too.

[ChubbyStar]

44. Ahh so sweet

The love and support given to a fellow DUer. Looks like you guys are BBFs. So heartwarming. I need to add this

[virgogal]

2. Shame on her.

[Sherman A1]

3. I guess that was funny to her

up to the point when it wasn't and she was unemployed.

She works for the TSA and somehow doesn't come to the conclusion that there are cameras everywhere in an airport?

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

[jberryhill]

4. To be fair

Without a picture of Strassner, we really can't conclude whether he is or is not, in fact, ugly.

I would have fired her for not using "You're" properly, however.

So, I guess it doesn't matter whether or not Strassner is ugly.

[LisaL]

8. Even if someone is actually ugly, I doubt they want other people telling them that.

Certainly TSA employee has no business telling people what she thinks of their looks.

[jberryhill]

14. I get that

But on the other hand, honesty is usually valued among one's employees.

[SharonClark]

25. You seem to have forgotten the "sarcasm" note

[jberryhill]

27. Did Mark Twain use sarcasm tags?

Search on any post at DU with my name and "To be fair" as the subject line.

That IS my sarcasm tag.

[nolabear]

16. It's vernacular.

[jberryhill]

17. I don't care what her name is, she should still use a verb in a sentence

[nolabear]

21. ...

[cwydro]

23. Lol! Now stop!

[jberryhill]

40. In all seriousness....

How about this guy, eh?

If something like that happened to me, I don't know what I would do, but figuring out that one can FOIA the tape, waiting patiently to get it, and then taking it to the TSA office at the airport was really something.

I think most people would just chalk it up to "asshole TSA agent" and leave it at that.

[cwydro]

54. Yeah, that's a point, lol.

But really, that woman didn’t seem to be taking her job seriously. Ya know, protecting America and all that stuff.

[jberryhill]

72. If only all federal security workers were as scrupulously devoted to duty as say...

...the guards at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

This TSA agent, people can believe.

Prison guards napping? No fucking way.

[mr_lebowski]

80. Not one, but BOTH of them napping? And then Epstein somehow magically knowing 'this is the time'?

Yeah, that combination of 3 events has a hugely high probability of randomly occurring simultaneously.

In fact its SO likely that anyone questioning it's obvious inherent truth ... must have lost their senses.

After all ... this TSA chick!

[cwydro]

85. I completely believe the guards were sleeping.

It’s probably not even a fluke; they probably do it all the time.

[mr_lebowski]

76. You nice, JBH.

If I was to speculate as to this woman's motives, it would be that she was betting that eventually someone would assault her over it, she'd deny she passed the note and say that the passenger was trying to give it to her ... can be hard to detect details like that in grainy film.

And then she was going to sue ... somebody over it.

I have a hard time believing anyone is THIS trifling ... without at least some sort of self-beneficial plan being in play (however ill-advised).

Course I may just be trying to make sense of something that's inherently crazy ... which is a personal problem.

Anyways, this dude did the right thing. Not sure if you're saying he didn't, but ...

[lpbk2713]

79. Or, maybe another scenario ...

Wildass scenario admittedly ... maybe she received a pink slip recently and this is her way of saying take this job and shove it.

[treestar]

83. Yes, I thought he figured maybe he had a case

and could hit the personal injury lottery. Or maybe he just thought she should not be on that job with that attitude.

And were there any words between them before this would be an interesting question.

[Mariana]

87. Who knows how many people she's done this to

and how long she's been doing it? Apparently, most people did chalk it up to "asshole TSA agent" and leave it at that. This one person didn't.

[jberryhill]

88. I admire the calm and professional way this guy proceeded

[Igel]

46. In what's probably her home dialect,

it's grammatical.

"You ugly" says something true at the time. Google "zero copula" or "null copula."

I "get" some of the grammar, not all of it. Not my dialect or field. In AAVE it's part of an aspectual difference with standard English.

Russian is a language, for, example, with a zero copula. "ty urodliv" (you ugly) is grammatical in Russian.

[jberryhill]

48. Well, yes, I would imagine it is much harder to copulate if you ugly

[cwydro]

53. ...

[3catwoman3]

66. OK- now spraying juice out of my nose!

Is “null copula” Italian for “incel?”

[jberryhill]

68. Depends, a null copula could be an innuendo...

...but some people prefer it that way.

[3catwoman3]

69. You are channeling...

...pinboy3niner.

(Intended as a compliment of the highest order,)

[jberryhill]

70. I do miss him

[treestar]

84. Just find another ugly person

That was covered on SNL many years ago.

[UniteFightBack]

19. Ugliness is subjective...just ask your wife. Ba dum bum. JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!!!

[jberryhill]

24. .

[choie]

51. I can't tell if you're trying to be funny..

but have we gotten so blase about cruelty that we don't give a damn when somebody is hurt?

[tblue37]

90. Since she was writing another note, and since she was obviously doing it as a lark,

she probably wasn't really concerned with whether her targets were ugly or not.

[lpbk2713]

5. Give some people just a little bit of authority ...

then see what happens.

[jberryhill]

26. Okay, I hereby appoint you reply monitor for this thread

Here is your badge. Impress me.

[lpbk2713]

59. Somebody stop me before I get carried away!1!

...

[jberryhill]

62. You haven't called anyone ugly yet

[cwydro]

6. She's really no beauty queen either.

Wtf is wrong with people?

Do people really walk around in the world judging others on their looks?

[jberryhill]

29. She did win second prize once....

[cwydro]

39. Ok, now I have to get yet ANOTHER glass of wine.

Lmao.

[jberryhill]

41. Uh oh, it's looking like one of those Friday nights

[cwydro]

43. Yes, I'm watching my Panthers lose a preseason game.

But this thread has me cracking up.

[Hekate]

94. It's middle school behavior meant to hurt and annoy, not be accurate

[riversedge]

10. Weird. Glad she is off the payroll. Seems she needs to seek professional mental health also.

[marble falls]

12. Fly the unfriendly skies!

[defacto7]

15. I'd expect such a prank to be funny to an undisciplined 6 year old.

One just barely able to write.

[hatrack]

20. ICE is hiring . . .

Maybe she could become a counselor at the Kiddie Konzentration Kamps.

[LuckyCharms]

28. He should have written back "You unemployed!!!".

[ProudLib72]

45. That's what I was going to post!

Didn't get here soon enough.

[cwydro]

55. Boom!

Too funny!

[pangaia]

30. That's "MY" airport...

LOL


That's the most exciting that ever happened there...except when the Dunkin' Donuts left....

[Skittles]

32. surely she knows she is on camera

I suspect a mental health evaluation is in order

[jberryhill]

38. Why? You think she should have called him crazy too?

[cwydro]

42. One can only imagine her victims when she was in high school.

Middle school or wherever her education came to an end.

That is a bully. Pure and simple.

[ProudLib72]

47. I hear the WH is hiring

Maybe a speech writer for Rump rallies?

Let's face it, all he does is bully, and it's repetitive. She could just hand him a single note and let him riff on it for an hour.

[JDC]

49. The 'ol Rochester Fortune Cookie variation.

Someone should write her a note and let her know the joke is on here. She lives in Rochester.

[Ace Rothstein]

50. Look who's talking.

[Newest Reality]

52. I don't think this was mentioned yet...

Despite her use of poor English, I get the sense that this woman is rather immature for her age and intellectual and emotional maturity can be two separate factors where one does not indicate the other.

It seems to me that a rather childish or adolescent person would do something like that on the job and not realize it was unprofessional. She seems to be having fun and playing.

[cwydro]

56. Spot on. And that's not the kind of person who belongs in that job.

TSA has very low standards. Waste of taxpayer money.

These people do not keep us safe.

[Newest Reality]

60. Yes! That is an important point.

[jberryhill]

61. Is this an opportunity to help her mature...

...with a severe reprimand or punishment short of firing of some kind, or is does this type of thing simply render her irredeemable?

[Newest Reality]

65. We all make mistakes.

I would hate for somebody to lose their job without an opportunity to improve after inappropriate behavior.

I would also question who is doing the hiring and training in this case. Are we talking about contractors and their bottom-line again? I imagine that their policies and criteria might also be a factor, and I have been in situations where that was the case.

[Steelrolled]

81. I wouldn't think it would take training to know you don't do that.

But I'm several generations older than her.

On a positive note, I didn't see her holding her phone up, videotaping it.

She doesn't sound like a people person, so it was probably for the best that she got fired.

[femmedem]

63. She's having fun but it's definitely at someone else's expense. And as Strassner says in the article

if someone were depressed or vulnerable, it could have really been hurtful and hard to shake off.

I'm not sure if she's immature or sadistic.

[iluvtennis]

67. She has no manners. She should consider living by one of the golden rules of life

and that is "treat others the way you want to be treated". What if he'd reacted and said "You're a fat ass".

I'm happy she was fired -- she deserved it.

[yuiyoshida]

73. What a totally bizarre story ...

何も思いつきません..

[herding cats]

74. This is for the best I'd say.

I know it's a shitty job and they hire people willing to do it, rather than suited for the position, but damn.

[orleans]

75. what an asshole! n/t

[RockRaven]

77. That sort of behavior is totally inappropriate for a TSA employee. OTOH for a GOP POTUS,

it is apparently a feature, not a bug.

[dalton99a]

78. WTF. Unfit to work at McDonald's.

[rictofen]

82. You fired!

[oasis]

86. She's definitely been palming drugs out of traveler's luggage. nt

[Demovictory9]

92. from the way she is giggling in the video she seems very immature

[demmiblue]

91. She lost her job. n/t