B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 250; Flight Crew Type 19000
Training / Qualification
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors
Preflighted aircraft and was ready to go. [Approaching departure time] there was still no load sheet. Went up to the Agent and asked what the issue was. He told me that the Ramp Agents had not counted the bags. I told him they need to be counted. After 20 minutes the bags were counted and the load sheet was given to us. I hope we had the right bag count. Pre-start was completed and I called the Tug Driver and said 'Aircraft XXX; A's are off; brakes are set; cabin door lights are out'. Tug Driver then said 'yep' and I repeated my initial spiel. I then heard mass confusion from the Tug Driver and it became readily apparent he had no clue what to do. A Supervisor stepped in and the Tug Driver had to read from a card (messed that up too). We finally were able to push but it gave me very little comfort. It was obvious the Ground Crew did not have adequate training.
B737 Captain reported the push back crew was apparently not trained properly according to SOPs.