HuffMAster?

[kingsman]

Just heard that Huffmaster stepped in it bigtime in Toledo. They were working in the local schools During a Teacher Strike, and nearly a THIRD the officer assigned to the schools had criminal records, including a number of felonies. Guards were seen leering at teenage girls in several cases.

this is the bane of all security companies. They don't have enough people so they drop their standards, fail to do security checks, but refuse to raise pay to attract a hire level of employee.

I have seen it in the previous companies I worked for, and I have seen it in my current company to some extent. (One of the guys I work with has no drivers license because he has 1200.00 in outstanding tickets, yet he drives to work every day, and drives the company car on duty) Two others have no license, but I don't know if they have any tickets. yes they drive the company vehicle on site, but not their private vehicles to work.

There is also a lack of enforcement of the non-fraternization policy. Many officers start to become friendly with the tenants, to the point where they hang out at the booth, buy things from them, talk with the pretty girls, and in one case begins to date her.

The problem is that the Supervisor is A.) Too young. he is only 21 B.) A friend of Management C.) one of the problem employee's is his friend, one is his brother. Nepotism run rampant.

And what can I do? Although hired as a Supervisor, my staff has been reduced from 5 to 1. The manager who hired me has moved on, and the Supervisor sees me not as the night supervisor, but as a shift lead guard.

I am not ready to leave yet since the pay is higher than anything else I have found in the area. I am afraid if I raise a stink I will find myself unemployed.
and while I could probably get myself a transfer to a different site, it would mean a pay cut and a site much farther from my home.

sigh...enough with the bitching.

[Mr. Security]

You may want to get some legal advice regarding your degree of accountability as a night supervisor/shift leader. A serious incident could put you at a lawyer’s office to give a deposition, especially since you have knowledge of these issues.

[Charger]

...The problem is that the Supervisor is A.) Too young. he is only 21 B.) A friend of Management C.) one of the problem employee's is his friend, one is his brother. Nepotism run rampant...

Sounds like your supervisor isn't experienced enough, or mature enough for the position... But keep in mind that doesn't necessarily have to do with age... When I was working at a mall, we had lost our head of security to a better job... The company didn't have anybody to fill the slot, and I was the most experienced SO on the site. They weren't happy about it, but they reluctantly gave me the position... When I left almost a year later for better work myself, the mall's management staff told me that they couldn't remember a time when the security department had ran smoother, or had had a better relationship with the local PD... I was only 23 when they promoted me, but I had been 'in the business' long enough to have seen my share of good and bad... So I knew what was needed to make things work right...

From what you're saying, it sounds like this guy either hasn't been in the security field long enough, or he just doesn't care... Either way, he shouldn't be in charge if he's allowing this kind of thing to happen...

Good luck, bud... Sounds like you've got your work cut out for you...

[Bill Warnock]

You may want to get some legal advice regarding your degree of accountability as a night supervisor/shift leader. A serious incident could put you at a lawyer’s office to give a deposition, especially since you have knowledge of these issues.

I agree with Mr. Security. Ohio Revised Code has a "facilitation statute" similar to misprison of a felony. Like it or not, you have a legal obligation to report what you have seen or heard to competent law enforcement. Otherwise you have joined in the course of action whereby you flood the moat and raise the drawbridge.
You just can't quit and walk away.
Thanks Mr. Security, you've hit the nail on the head.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

[Mall Director]

You are in a common but very difficult situation.. This is not something to snear at, as it is common in a lot of smaller Private Security Companies...

My best answer to you is this.. Decide what is most important to you.. Your standards, or pay..

If its pay.. then stay, but dont say a word, or you will be minus that..

If its Standards, but you need $$, stick with it for a short period, and get the hell out of there..

If you just want the money at a higher rate, is it worth the chance that someone around you will inadvertatly drag you into some liability suit becuase they are below standard, and it leaves everyone wide open?

Places or companies dont last long like that, and because of all the personal connections from with in, you say something, you will be outside in a hurry!

[Bill Warnock]

You are in a common but very difficult situation.. This is not something to snear at, as it is common in a lot of smaller Private Security Companies...

My best answer to you is this.. Decide what is most important to you.. Your standards, or pay..

If its pay.. then stay, but dont say a word, or you will be minus that..

If its Standards, but you need $$, stick with it for a short period, and get the hell out of there..

If you just want the money at a higher rate, is it worth the chance that someone around you will inadvertatly drag you into some liability suit becuase they are below standard, and it leaves everyone wide open?

Places or companies dont last long like that, and because of all the personal connections from with in, you say something, you will be outside in a hurry!

Mall Director:
Don't you think he still has an obligation in Ohio to go to law enforcement with what he knows?
From what he has said thus far, if he were to contact his management or leadership, he would just be spitting in the wind. He, in my humble layman's view, has only one viable option the other could place him in legal hazard.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

[Mall Director]

I would encourage him to be the good citizen, but as we all have played many of games in life, where politics, no matter how much we may dislike it and wish it never had an effect on any of us, it still dominates our every day..

The better idea would be to play it smart.. An anonymous call to PD when certain people drive away that shouldnt would be as far as you could go for criminal issues.. The other issues he has stated arent criminal, as they are civil and tort law violations, at which local LE wont touch, but direct you to a BBB or other agency that handle these matters. Problem is, once he starts the rough waters, I am sure reasonable deduction by his collegues would point to him as the "narc" of the poor affairs of his agency, which could leave him unemployed at the end.

My best answers to this from experience, is to lay silent for a period until you can come out on top. Continue collecting the information of violations as they occur. Document them accuratly (time, date, who, when, where, how) as this will be the first thing any controlling agency will ask for. By this time, he has prepped to go somewhere with the most undisputable information. As much as he may want to jump up and scream "violation", he could end up with nothing to support his claim, be out of a job, and even leave socially battered. Play these issues smart, and take time on it, even though every bone in our body wants to air the dirty laundry right away.

This is actually the very best advice, even to handle those pesky poor leaders we want gone, so that we can improve the standards.

[T202]

Mall Director:
Don't you think he still has an obligation in Ohio to go to law enforcement with what he knows?
From what he has said thus far, if he were to contact his management or leadership, he would just be spitting in the wind. He, in my humble layman's view, has only one viable option the other could place him in legal hazard.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

I believe Kingsman works in Detroit. If I read his post correctly he just heard of what was going on in Ohio.
As far as his co-workers driving a company vehicle while their licenses are suspended, thats a violation of the Michigan Motor Vehicle Code. And if the company owner knows this and still allows them to drive, they can be charged also.
I would also heed Mr. Security's advice. If you know one of your officers is driving with a suspended license and ends up running someone over in the apartment complex, this would put you in a very bad situation. You knew he didn't have a license to drive a company vehicle and you did nothing about it.
I am sure that the company's insurance carrier wouldn't be too happy to hear that the vehicles he is covering are being driven by suspended drivers.
You are between a rock and a hard place. Good luck.

[ctbgpo]

If you know that he doesn't have/has but under suspension and operates a company motor vehicle, doesn't that create vicarious liability upon you and the company, as well as other supervisors?

[N. A. Corbier]

If you know that he doesn't have/has but under suspension and operates a company motor vehicle, doesn't that create vicarious liability upon you and the company, as well as other supervisors?

Yes, it does.

[Mall Director]

If you know that he doesn't have/has but under suspension and operates a company motor vehicle, doesn't that create vicarious liability upon you and the company, as well as other supervisors?

Yes my dear fellow.. As I pointed to in my first post.. Which is why I peak deeply into any agency before I work for them.. I learned a valuable lesson from such rimshot run agencies, and it will effect everyone. I wish we could put a ban on all companies that operate like this, and leave this business to the pro's like us here.. ones who are out to make improvements and advancements, not set ourselves up for failure!

[ctbgpo]

I appologize for my naitivity (sp) I really have only every worked in house or contract for the NRC so it wasn't really an observe and report, wbs, type company. Now I have reread the post, and I understand we ALL need to put food on our table, but why subject yourself to criminal charges/civil liability on top of the company going belly up cuz some idiot is not playing nice. I would drop a dime on this guy via anonymous call to the supervisors supervisor, and if that didn't prompt a reaction a well placed call to a friend on the police department would be my next step. I hope all works out well for you.

[kingsman]

This was the gist of my post before I began to bitch.

"Just heard that Huffmaster stepped in it bigtime in Toledo. They were working in the local schools During a Teacher Strike, and nearly a THIRD the officer assigned to the schools had criminal records, including a number of felonies. Guards were seen leering at teenage girls in several cases.

this is the bane of all security companies. They don't have enough people so they drop their standards, fail to do security checks, but refuse to raise pay to attract a hire level of employee."

as for my problem...

When politics and nepotism get involved, What can you do? I am looking for other employment, but jobs here in Michigan are hard to find. I have isolated myself from the problem, and BOTH of my immediate supervisors are aware of the situation.

[Mall Director]

It is rough man.. just get through it, and look very hard for new employment... Then poop in their backyard! LOL!

[Black Caesar]

Sounds like your supervisor isn't experienced enough, or mature enough for the position... But keep in mind that doesn't necessarily have to do with age... ...

That's so very true.

I worked for a company very very much like what Kingsman describes. The butt kicker of it all was, it was on a federal contract[. HUD to be exact, the Feds would take over an apartment property from someone who was defrauding the government, then send us in to clean the place up.

Where I was assigned (an Apartment complex in the pleasant Grove section of Dallas called Woodland City), we had 8 officers per shift, + another 6 at another complex down the street (oak Hollow, DPD called it "Dope Hollow" for a reason). The post was bad enough, but the security company management was worse, WAY worse, the worst I've yet seen. how these guys pulled a federal contract I'll never know.

The "Captain" was on something (I'm not kidding) and very "up or down" all the time. He had all the nice looking female S/Os on day shift with him. He would verbally attack people for the smallest things in front of people, and his brother in-law owned the company. They came up with the birght idea of S/Os working part of the time on a fed contract, and part of the time on a regular contract, effectivly cutting our wages in half (they hired lots of people for the fed contracts, but HUD didn't take over as many complexes as planned, so guys who expected $15.40 an hour on a fed contract where getting $8.00 on a regualr post, the "rotation" was a plan to keep them from quitting).

On my shift, we had a 21 year old guy who was our Sgt. Nice guy, and level headed. A week into the contract the Captain tells us he's putting somone else on our shift with us. It was a 30 year old female who had worked 8 years for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (the prison system). Two Days after she got hired on, the Captain made her a Sgt and "co-supervisor" of our shift. We had to friggin Sgts.

We all had a "partner" and the Supervisor guy was mine. When the lady Sgt came we also got a patrol vehicle. The plan was 1 superviors in the car patrolling, the other 8 of us on foot, the superviors on patrol would also check on the other property as well. For a week, the Sgts switched duty between foot patrol and the car. I HATED it, because every other day I had to walk with this complaining out of shape B&^$% instead of the male supervisor.

One day (about a week after the rotating supervisor thing started), she has a talk with the other Sgt in front of me, saying "I'd rather just drive all the time". The younger dude liked to walk, so he said ok. I was so happy.....

....Until the next day, the Captain shows up and says "the Supervisor who drives will be the overall supervisor, the walking supervisor will run the day to day at the main complex". This effectivley made her boss over EVERYONE on both properties, including my partner, who was the original Sgt and had been with the company for a year already.

In the space of about 3 weeks, my partner when from shift supervisor, to "co-supervisor", to Foot patrol Superviors to (effectivley) Assistant Supervisor. i worked part time at the College PD while i worked this job, and I left them without giving notice (1st time i ever did that) as soon as the college put me on full time....