Working at U.S. Customs and Border Protection

13 to 26 days of annual leave accrued per year

Hard to manage work/life balance until you get a lot of years in. Job is mostly weird hours and shifts. Working holidays and weekends. Unexpected forced overtime.

enefits cover “need-to-haves”.

Serving the public, serving my country enforcing federal laws and protecting

All ok

Retirement Plan

Teamwork

Getting orderered to work more hours when I am drained.

Life insurance, pay, Medical, Retirement

Pay is fantastic.

Education is not used to make promotion decisions.

Pay and benefits.

Creepiest might be some of the sex offenders/criminals/weird guys coming back from some questionable countries that are known for sex trafficking. You can tell me you frequently go to the Phillipines, Vietnam, eastern Europe for business, but I'm going to assume it's sex based due to your looks and personality. Some of the sad stories you hear from the guys who worked the Mexican border regarding smuggling will piss you off too.

Most of our recent hires were prior security guards, TSA, LEO's, airline workers, military, bachelor's degree.

I will read this later, but I can predict the jist of it. Again, keep in mind that I don't work for Border Patrol, but the premise is the same. We have our own wall of shame online that we can see when we are at work (private intranet). The majority of guys who show up on this list work on the southern border. I wouldn't say it's a big problem at the airports in the U.S., but it's definitely something that has happened. Take a bribe just once, and someone owns you. Not worth it to lose your great paying job and pension.

Best $100 you'll ever spend as a traveler. It makes my job easier as those who have it, generally, are people who speak english, know their way around an airport, don't break rules, are easy to work with. That said, some of those "trusted travelers" can't be a pain to work with. I can inspect their bags, I can ask them questions, but some people are under the assumption that they are immune from your powers and will let you know it.

This question took a while, but it's a fairly simple answer. My first thought was that whatever I chose, it would have been committed by a U.S. Citizen, and not a visitor who are generally on their best behavior. It's busy day at my port and a few flights have come in at the same time. There are hundreds of people waiting to get into the U.S. Like most ports in the world, there is a line for citizens/residents, and visitors. I am working the citizen/resident line. It's a typical immigration line. People walk up by themselves, or with family, and I do my thing. Swipe the passport, ask a couple questions, stamp what I need to, and move on to the next. Up walks this lady, maybe late 30s, and just keeps walking past me. I call her back, and she gives the argument that she is a U.S. citizen and thought she could just walk by. Now keep in mind, she had to have been waiting in line with fellow citizens for 20-30 minutes who have all successfully walked up to my booth and stopped. She didn't yell or try to start a fight, she honestly just believed she didn't have to stop when everyone else did. The weird part is that I've seen this a couple times since. Always with the "but I'm a U.S. citizen, why do I need to stop?" I'm never prepared for that, when doing the same thing over and over again, this will just stop me in my tracks with a dumbfounded look on my face. Only once have I had a person tell me she wasn't going to answer any questions of mine. Again a middle aged U.S. citizen lady who just didn't want to play ball. I'm not grillings US citizens on questions, just a couple while the passport scans, but she refused. I told her she didn't have to answer, but failing to do so would end up with her in our immigration office meant for the visitors of the world, likened to sitting in the DMV. She answered the one or two questions I had and went on her way. As for a visitor, who due to language barriers you really have to work with, one woman from Turkey tried to argue how her hundreds counterfeit movies on DVD were real when I call them fake. She had 20 copies of 15-20 different blockbuster movies in her bag. Like I mentioned in another post on here, if it's for personal use, we'll let you keep it. I'm not going to do the paperwork for seizing your 1 counterfeit dvd of Toy Story. What she had, was in my opinion, were commercial goods she was bringing to give to someone here so that they could sell them on the street. Having a personal vendetta on counterfeit goods, I started the process of seizing them. At some point I called them "fake" as I don't think the word "counterfeit" was getting through to her. She grabbed them and started yelling at me how they were real, as she could hold and touch them. Trying to argue copyright laws to someone who honestly didn't see anything wrong with them was pointless. I believe I brought in a translator and had him explain. She yelled and yelled some more, saying they were for her nephews and family. My supervisor came over and said to let it go, because it wasn't worth it as we have bigger fish to catch. edit: there was this time when a mother and her 3 kids walked up to my booth and during the inspection I heard this distinct sound of someone peeing. On the other side of the counter was one of her boys (5 or 6 yrs old?) peeing against my booth. The mother had clearly looked down and had seen him and hadn't said a thing. I'd rather not say where they were from, but you can guess.

Morale is a HUGE issue with us. We have meetings regarding the poor morale, we have emails from the top of the agency sent nationwide, nothing seems to change. google it, it's an issue. It's not just CBP, it's DHS as a whole. Staff shortages, mandatory OT, unusual schedules, and managers out for themselves that try to screw over officers. There's no encouragement to see your coworkers outside of work, there's very little comradery, etc.

Haha. Depends. For the most part, we want you to get out of our line as much as you want to get out. I'd rather you have a good personality than not saying anything. Some people are over eager to tell us they miss home, happy to be back, etc. I have a job to do so anything you're saying is mostly for you, so..... I actually prefer people who want to talk. Some people see us as intimidating and won't mutter anything due to fear. Small talk is good, shows that you are comfortable and normal, saying nothing or going over the top with your enthusiasm sets off my radar though.

This is one of the questions I was hoping for. I'm not ignoring that other question regarding the dumbest thing I've heard, that one is taking a while to decide. Regarding this, personally I've been told many many times by visitors that I am friendly, which I initially took as a compliment for the first couple years of my career. That said, it's the monotony of the job. Sitting in a booth doing the same thing over and over again starts to get to you. The hours, dependant on your port, can require mandatory overtime with no rotation. I start my day off pretty happy and cheerful, but 13 hours later I may not appear to give a damn. I'm still doing my job, still asking pertinent questions, but I'm clearly not making small talk with visitors as I take their fingerprints for the nine hundredth time that day. Some ports will rotate their officers to do something else, some do not. We are also not in the customer service field, we are law enforcement officers tasked with finding liars, smugglers, terrorists, fraudulent documents, imposters, etc. On the flip side, having traveled internationally quite a bit, I don't think this is a U.S. specific issue. Other countries I've been to do their job the same way. Make sure it's you on the passport, ask why you are there, stamp and move on. When arriving back into the U.S., even into my own port once when I was new and no one recognized me, I can see your point though. There are also people who want the red carpet laid out for them upon returning home. Can't please everyone. If you truly had a rude experience, ask for a comment card or get on our website and write us. We hear the same story a few hundred times a day. We've already heard that your mom died in your home country a dozen times on your flight alone. While I'm compassionate and usually offer my condolences, I can't spend my whole day asking what kind of person your mom was to every person with this story. As for visitors, we are under the presumption that you are lying in order to gain access to my country. It is our job to find liars, so you start seeing everyone that way. People will lie about anything, and often times it's stuff that doesn't matter. You start losing your charisma after the first hour of doing the same thing and hearing the same stories.

Absolutely do. There are people who don't, some of which are new-ish. I can't understand that. I'm not saying it's the best job in the world, but you get what you put into it, and if you come at it with a negative attitude, well then you're job is going to suck. I have great coworkers, good managment, a job that I feel contributes someway to this country, and I get paid handsomely. I don't see myself leaving, but if I do, it would be to something similar with I.C.E/H.S.I., or USCIS, FBI. Dealing with the traveling public and people from all around the world, there is something new every day. The public knows us as sitting in a booth, but most major ports have their hands in international cargo and mail (you don't have to deal with the public!), baggage exams, behind the scenes stuff, undercover stuff, teams specific to finding drugs, terrorists, immigration violators. There's always something else to do. And no, we don't get to skip any lines when returning to the U.S....unless you fly into your port and happen to be escorted to the front by a friendly face. ;)