The Security Officer and it's stereotypes

[gonzo1510]

I agree that pay is a big determiner in the quality of guards you will get. There are people that no matter how small the pay rate is will always do a good job, because that is the type of person they are and believe in giving their best. You of course will get guards who say to themselves that they are "only" making X amount of dollars so they do not care about their job.

I worked an account for Guardsmark which was very challenging. This account was for the Coca-Cola bottling company at their distribution warehouse. At this job we had to count and verify every single outgoing & incoming load. This warehouse was responsible for delivering beverages to a HUGE section of Los Angeles. It was the guards responsibility to count all the beverages, give corrections to rude union workers, verify the corrections were made, seal trucks, make cuts to the drivers outgoing loads, print up the outgoing loads. Drivers would come in for what they called re-loads or just to call it a day. The guards had to go into the back of a messy truck and verify the drivers printed incoming load with the beverages scattered around in no order. While doing this there is a line of other trucks coming into the yard. We were always short handed at this job. During the summer I would work 12 hours a day 5 days a week. This job only paid $10/hour and when we would get a new trainee they would almost quit on the spot since they could make the same pay just sitting at a desk and doing nothing.

Sorry for going off on a rant there, but it's very discouraging when you see certain "kick-back" posts that make the same pay as a more challenging post. Is it fair that an easy desk job or warehouse job where you only check in trucks at the gate makes the same as a guard in hospital where his life can be in danger?

I'm sorry but that doesn't sound llike security work as much as it does internal Coca-Cola operations. Verifying incoming and out-going loads should handled by in-house personnel,not security. Isn't that what the warehouse men are for ? Verifying that the trucks on the lot are empty is one thing but not checking loads. If a route driver takes additional product than they are supposed to, or leave a portion of it behind due to carelesness, they can blame it on the security personnel.

Someone touched on interaction with L/E. I think that there will always be the individual LEO that doesn't like us and will look down upon the industry......until he/she retires and then gets a cush gig working corporate security or starts their own PPO with their "revolutionary" ideas for security. Other than that individual officer, I've seen that the local street copper has started to interact with us on a more frequent basis. Part of the reason (and this is pure speculation)may be because alot of sworn positions are being cut and figure we can be extra eyes and ears in their patrol area. I personally have been aproached by the local patrol officers and been advised of crime trends they have been seeing. While it's not assisting them with a vehicle pursuit (I kid of course), to me, it shows that they are begining to see the value of private security.

[Anderson1976]

Great post Gonzo..i was thinking that myself about the Coca-Cola job. It just doesn't really seem much like security to me at all either. You know, i think it would be cheaper for Coca-Cola or certain factories to just hire in-house people for those kinds of things as opposed to paying a private security company. If you pay a security company $20 an hour then the officer will get anywhere from minimum wage to $10 or more typically. But the only difference is security today is utilized as a "jack of all trades" so you get more use out of them than a regular warehouse employee.

My dealings with police officers have been more positive than negative. I live in a town of 70,000 people and the police here are very aggressive and caught up in alot of corruption (investigated by internal affairs for dealings with a local topless bar owner on different levels) and some other things including a huge lawsuit on a murder of a guy some time back. It's hit and miss. The cops in my town really like to be the only ones around in uniform with a badge or gun..if they see anything else they don't tend to be very friendly, they don't even get along with the local Sheriff's Dept here. There are some good police officers in my town however and i do my best to network and get to know them on a professional level. I actually work in Indianapolis and there is a huge difference between the smaller city like mine and a metropolis such as Indy. The big city cops are used to seeing security everywhere they go because it's very necessary to have security in your big cities. In a smaller city such as mine, its kinda rare to see security here. We have security for Chrysler factory, UPS security, a couple of other factories, one at the Employment office (Securitas, which is mandated by the government that all Indiana offices have an armed security "guard"), and that about wraps it up. So when the cops here see someone like me in uniform and gun when i get pulled over or run into a store they are thinking "who in the world is that??".

To end my rant, i enjoyed reading "Security behaving badly" in one of the other forums on here (sorry if i butchered the name of the thread) and one of them mentioned that a security officer said to a cop that pulled him over "hey look, we wear the same uniform" LOL. I definately don't want to be one of those types, i know LEO hate that stuff.

[gonzo1510]

Thanks Anderson,

In regards to the Coca Cola thing, those are all union gigs. I think they found a way to get the work done without having to bring in another union worker. They simply categorize the work as security so the union can't say anything about it.... or guardsmark took on the additional responsibility on their own so as to sweeten the pot and give Coca Cola a reason to keep them around... as an "Added Value"



The whole thing between Sheriff's and police will always be around.... a rivalry in the brotherhood as it were.

I live in 20 Miles east of Los Angeles City and I have also noticed the same in regards to the amount of companies in and out of major metro regions with oversaturation in the city as opposed to a few out in my area.

As far as "going to the store in uniform and armed", in this state we are not allowed to do that. to and from work while armed. We are allowed to makes a stop or two within reason (refueling, etc..).

[SecureTN]

As far as LEO interations are concerned, I've had pretty positive dealing with them. Our 1st and 2nd shifts will call the PD 10 times a day for petty stuff, that could be handled in house.

On 3rd shift my partner and I make it a point to only call them if we HAVE to. I have been thanked numerous times by Officers for not calling them constantly.

I make it a point to thank everyone that responds to a situation. They know if we call, it's serious. When my partner was attacked by a mental patient, 6 patrol officers and a Sgt responded within 2 minutes. (shortly before I started).

I apologize for the length, I'm off the podium now

[Fu_Man_Joe]

Well for the Coca-Cola thing I have a few things to say. You could look at it as security because you are attempting to make sure no extra product is taken. I believe in the past that Coca-Cola did have its own internal checkers, but that they wanted an outside company to do it to try and cut down on co-workers working together to steal product. Yes, I know that is silly because as security obviously you are going to have interactions with the workers and could build some sort of relationship with someone and agree to help steal. Pepsi has their own internal group of checkers to verify products and I believe their pay was around $15/hr. I will say the one good thing about the Coca-Cola job is that helps spice things up on my resume when I describe my past duties.

[gonzo1510]

Well for the Coca-Cola thing I have a few things to say. You could look at it as security because you are attempting to make sure no extra product is taken. I believe in the past that Coca-Cola did have its own internal checkers, but that they wanted an outside company to do it to try and cut down on co-workers working together to steal product. Yes, I know that is silly because as security obviously you are going to have interactions with the workers and could build some sort of relationship with someone and agree to help steal. Pepsi has their own internal group of checkers to verify products and I believe their pay was around $15/hr. I will say the one good thing about the Coca-Cola job is that helps spice things up on my resume when I describe my past duties.

I think this where we'll just agree to disagree... Again, what your describing sounds like warehouse dock work to me. I worked in a manufacturing and distribution plant for Mission Foods (Tortillas,corn chips, etc..) and there were dock workers that handled those duties. Perhaps it's different at Coca Cola, but the route drivers were responsible for their dail loads.