Brandon and I went to see the Broncos play the 49ers last night and learned the hard way about the clear bag policy. We checked in our bags, with mine containing a laptop, and was annoyed when I just saw my bag thrown in a pile in the tents shown here:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/nfl-bag-policy-gets-off-hassle-filled-start-165410851.html
Brandon and I were like "during the game they will sort the bags... right?"
NO.
So after the game, we were in this awful mob of people. We decided it was the "Zombie bagcopalypse": an awful combination of sore winners and losers who have had plenty of drinks waiting to get home on a weeknight. There was nothing to entertain these people, no music (except for a saxophonist hoping for some money by playing Christmas music and Happy Birthday on repeat).
The awesome workers who didn't think to sort the bags by last name or ticket number were just yelling "ANYONE SEE THEIR BAG?!" This resulted in a mosh pit of people yelling "I see mine!!" It was utter chaos. Fights broke out, and one of the employees was threatening to commit violence on the people who were "on the table." Of course, those on the table had nowhere to go because of all of the others pushing forward.
Long story short, my bag lost it's tag, but I knew it was mine when she threw it on the table and heard my laptop thump. Brandon's bag had his tag, but the worker didn't see it and started to open the bag to pull out his belongings to verify it was actually his.
The best part, if you didn't get your bag within an hour of game finish, you lost your bag.
Way to go NFL. Please leave the paranoia of the TSA out of this. We know the only purpose of this crap is to instill fear. Here are some tips:
1. Play music. Good music. Make it so people enjoy themselves in the mob of zombies.
2. Throw out free stuff. Like keychains or shirts!
3. SORT THE BAGS. Just make 20 metal baskets, and sort them by the first two numbers on the ticket. Tape a big "17" to the basket, so my bag #174 is stowed in there. Then have people wait in organized lines. It wouldn't take too long to put my bag in the correct basket, and much faster to get it out.
4. Don't threaten the people with violence. Seriously employees, show more professionalism.
1. Clear bags are a disgusting violation of privacy.
ReplyDelete2. NFL is irresponsible for leaving the entire bag check effort to an unprofessional private security firm. Clearly this firm had no business running a bag check if they messed up this terribly.
Wow, that's pretty annoying. Bruce Schneier thinks it's really to prevent people from brining their own food/drink: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/security_at_spo.html
ReplyDelete- Daniel