Passengers pay my wages. I work for them and I'm just one small person in a large team that aims to make the whole experience as safe, secure, pleasant and hopefully as painless as possible. Once a passenger's first hurdle, the check-in has been overcome, the second is security. By ensuring there is always a queue even that has now become a money making process by charging for 'queue jumping'. Then the shouting starts. Security staff are there every day and they want just a simple life. This means that they want people to quickly conform. Quite want they want though is difficult to determine because they are always shouting and difficult to understand. Rarely are useful signs placed to help passengers prepare for the process. So then the low level abuse starts when they infer passengers are stupid for not knowing what they should be doing, trying to justify their requests by referring to alleged 'standard' laws. This becomes hostile very quickly because quite reasonably, people ask questions which appears to upset far too many security staff. There should be no surprise that this detrimentally affects other passengers. This is no way to start what should and certainly used to be an enjoyable method of transport.
And while I'm here, how many airports have properly designed security screening areas? There is too little space, the run-on and run off areas are too small and the through-put is too little because insufficient staff are on duty. Also next time you pass through, look at how many personal discussions are taking place amongst the staff. It's a normal human thing to do but it means they are not concentrating on the job in hand which is allegedly looking after our security.
When I pass through security I'm always pleasant but will say little or nothing and always comply. The less time they spend with me, the more they can spend looking after us. But mentally I won't accept that what they are doing is little more than window dressing. And as the OP commented, the windows are dressed differently at each airport. Worse, the huge holes and gaps that exist in the current UK system means that most of the work of security is pointless. Once these things have been plugged (and I'm not talking about rocket science here) then I'll be a happier person.
ps. Marmite is lovely stuff. I wish it was sold in 99ml containers.