Tug4isfastest - I have to agree with you that recruitment selection may be a problem. The other weekend I watched two bored ?? ramp agents bouncing their vans up and down against the hand breaks next to our aircraft at Stansted. Just simply unbelievable that these two indivuals are employed and trusted with the resposibility in assisting the operation of commercial aircraft.
On the other hand though, a few years back, during a baggage handlers strike, the ground crew in the process of pushing our aircraft from its stand were assaulted and the keys stolen from the tug by angry baggage handlers. Kudos to the ground staff - they dusted themselves off, fetched the spare keys for the tug and got us off the gate. Shame more like them don't work at Stansted.