great thread. i jumpseat weekly for my commute, and have done so for about 3 years. before that it was a couple times per month, different commute. maybe i'm lucky, but i've only ever had one completely uncooperative gate agent. legacy airline, no reason to name them. they hadn't started boarding the plane yet, and i walked up to the gate agent (there were 3 working the flight). i had my id in my hand, i was in uniform, and i opened my mouth to speak. he shut me down immediately by putting his hand toward my face and saying, "i don't have time to deal with you right now." that was it. so i stood about 6 feet away from him, looking at him, patiently waiting. they boarded the flight. they closed the door. i still stood looking at him. finally, one of the other gate agents asked him about "the jumpseater" and he looked up at me and said, "oh, the flight's closed now". my blood was boiling. i almost exploded with rage. but i just walked away.

i have certainly had gate agents who were having a bad day (we all have them), or could have been friendlier. i have also had gate agents that were amazingly nice and accomodating, even though chaos reigned around them. i feel very fortunate to be able to commute to work, to live where i want, and i feel lucky to have a good experience the vast majority of the time.