B737 captain reported unsafe deviations from SOP during pushback.

Attributes
ACN	1599130
Time
Date	201811
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Taxi
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 250 Flight Crew Total 7453 Flight Crew Type 3768
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown

Narrative:

I'm filing this [report] because of what I consider to be unsafe practices at ZZZ. Two items in particular concern me. Pushback communications: when our ground crew plugged in; the phraseology he used was 'ready whenever you are'. I asked if this meant that they were ready to push; at which point he said they were. He then asked for brake release so I told him we had to get a pushback clearance first.ground crew salute: the girl who was marshalling us had absolutely no idea of the proper way to salute indicating that we were clear. She never had her arms up forming an 'X'. Her arms hung vertically down at her sides while I waited for a salute. Her salute consisted of a half-hearted raising of one arm and placing the wand across her forehead. This ground crew is an accident waiting to happen.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737 Captain reported unsafe deviations from SOP during pushback.

Narrative: I'm filing this [report] because of what I consider to be unsafe practices at ZZZ. Two items in particular concern me. PUSHBACK COMMUNICATIONS: When our ground crew plugged in; the phraseology he used was 'Ready whenever you are'. I asked if this meant that they were ready to push; at which point he said they were. He then asked for brake release so I told him we had to get a pushback clearance first.GROUND CREW SALUTE: The girl who was marshalling us had absolutely no idea of the proper way to salute indicating that we were clear. She never had her arms up forming an 'X'. Her arms hung vertically down at her sides while I waited for a salute. Her salute consisted of a half-hearted raising of one arm and placing the wand across her forehead. This ground crew is an accident waiting to happen.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.