How dangerous is ur job and do u think u get paid enough for it

[privatecop625]

I work at a hospital making $10 an hour and we deal with combative patients / Guest, Psych patients, we restrain patients. In the year that i have been here i have been Hit, Slaped, Kicked, Punched, spit at, punched in the balls, thrown in to a wall, bruised ribs, called every name in the book, plus a few new ones. The only think that we carry are handcuffs, gloves, and a flash light. For everything we put up with i don't think that we make enough, expecally when there have been guys with the company before the hospital went contracted that are making $12-13 an hour.

-privatecop625-

[NRM_Oz]

I watched the security staff for our local hospital shine the seats with their uniforms - if I ever needed a holiday I would like to do their jobs. Yet other bigger inner city hospitals are constantly dealing with vagrants, trouble makers, intoxicated idiots and the friends of those who are the victims. At another hospital I have seen fights between victims in ER, religious zealots demand treatment, people have their cars towed because AMBULANCE means something important and not a public parking spot, and above all watched as angry people have punched glass screening areas demanding priority service for minor ailments.

Government hospitals pay pathetic wages - so there is no way I would ever consider the public hospital system.

[privatecop625]

Wages

Well contracted security pays real crappy vs in house security but now a days there are not many places that have in house security, everything is contracted out because a lot of business find it cheaper and they don't have to deal with as much headachs with contracted than in house.

[HotelSecurity]

I too work with just handcuffs & can carry a baton. (But rarely do). The dangerous part about my work that I find more troubling the older (wiser?) I become is that we work solo & Police response is slow, yet we are not O&R. An Officer is paid just over $14.00/hour.

[Deputy Dawg]

I'm only paid $10.00 an hour, and thats supervisor pay. I've almost been run over multiple times, been in situations where I had to break up fights, etc. Ihave yet to have my balls punched (thank god) but I definately think some of us deserve better pay for the effort we put into our jobs.

[Guest]

Enough Pay??

We discussed this in another thread, if you don't feel you are getting paid enough, go elsewhere. I make a little over $9/hr right now and all I do is sit in a patrol car and watch stuff happen. I am to call PD and not intervene...ever. I made about this same wage as an armed guard and had to intervene regularly. I don't mind it. I also made less working as a bouncer. I guess you either like this job or you don't. More money won't change that...

[Jedi]

No matter where you go, you will never meet a person who made a good living as a line security officer. It is just a fact that has plagued the industry since its inception. Your hospital pays pretty close to the PAR for contract security in this area... where the cost of living is much higher. My department pays more because we are in-house.

In the other thread, you stated that your goal is to get hired on as a Police Officer or Corrections Officer. If that is the case, then I would concentrate on steps you can take to speed up that process. You may also want to think outside the box and look at non-security jobs. One of the biggest mistakes many Law Enforcement candidates make is that their only work experience is in security work. This gives them little of the well rounded life experience that makes for a good Police Officer.

If you decide that being a Police Officer isn't the correct path for you, and you like the security world, then there are many things you can do to improve your knowledge and understanding that will, in the long run, translate to a very well paying career. So long as you are sold on it being a temporary job, you will be paid like it is a temporary job.

[Curtis Baillie]

No matter where you go, you will never meet a person who made a good living as a line security officer. It is just a fact that has plagued the industry since its inception. Your hospital pays pretty close to the PAR for contract security in this area... where the cost of living is much higher. My department pays more because we are in-house.

In the other thread, you stated that your goal is to get hired on as a Police Officer or Corrections Officer. If that is the case, then I would concentrate on steps you can take to speed up that process. You may also want to think outside the box and look at non-security jobs. One of the biggest mistakes many Law Enforcement candidates make is that their only work experience is in security work. This gives them little of the well rounded life experience that makes for a good Police Officer.

If you decide that being a Police Officer isn't the correct path for you, and you like the security world, then there are many things you can do to improve your knowledge and understanding that will, in the long run, translate to a very well paying career. So long as you are sold on it being a temporary job, you will be paid like it is a temporary job.

Excellent advice!

[Taktiq]

Honestly, in my state, we get paid decent. The hospital I work pays me almost...almost, $12/hr, plus $1.50/hr 2nd shift differential and $1.75/hr weekend differential on top of that on the Saturdays and Sundays I work. I really can't complain too much.....well, until I find out how much the nurses make. Really, I believe we should get paid as they do. We may not have the degrees they do, but we have our own stringent certifications (for the hospital) and have to deal with more.

[sgtnewby]

I work at a hospital making $10 an hour and we deal with combative patients / Guest, Psych patients, we restrain patients. In the year that i have been here i have been Hit, Slaped, Kicked, Punched, spit at, punched in the balls, thrown in to a wall, bruised ribs, called every name in the book, plus a few new ones. The only think that we carry are handcuffs, gloves, and a flash light. For everything we put up with i don't think that we make enough, expecally when there have been guys with the company before the hospital went contracted that are making $12-13 an hour.

-privatecop625-

If you like working the hospital environment, and want a livable wage, you may want to consider moving to the Twin Cities metro area. Hospitals here pay fairly well. These numbers may not be exact (except for HCMC) but here's a ballbark figure for you;

Top officer pay;
Hennepin County MC - $22.00 per hour plus differentials

Regions Hospital (Saint Paul) - $18.00 to $19.00 p/h +diffs.

Abbott Northwestern Hospital (Minneapolis) - $18.00 to $19.00 p/h + diffs.

North Memorial MC (Robinsdale / North MPLS) - $20.00 to $21.00 p/h + diffs.

Food for thought...

[sgtnewby]

No matter where you go, you will never meet a person who made a good living as a line security officer.

Nice to meet you, Jedi!

[darkenna]

My jobs are rather dangerous, and no, I don't get paid anywhere near enough to do two of them. I have been hit, cut, stabbed, bruised, thrown, squished, clobbered, and twisted. I've had knives, OC, chains, and blunt objects pulled on me. I've been threatened with pistol-whipping (although why anyone would threaten that if they had a gun and not something more... well, threatening, is beyond me... I suppose I'll find out tomorrow, when I see the guy in court!). I have had 266 stitches in my life (only about 50 of which were work related), innumerable sprains and strains, a black eye once, but no broken bones.

...

And I love what I do. I don't think I would do anything else. The money is (barely) enough to live on, that's fine by me.

[craig333]

What I see from most people is that they like their jobs. They don't want to get rich, just make enough to live on.

Someone did a study whether money can buy happiness. They concluded no, it can't. Then however they go to say, but thats only after a person makes $50k a year (I don't recall what region they were referencing for that figure, I"m sure it would change a lot from one part of the country to another). The point being you need to make enough to not be struggling for your daily needs. Be able to afford housing, food and transportation. Only after that does more money not equal more happiness.

[Black Caesar]

What I see from most people is that they like their jobs. They don't want to get rich, just make enough to live on.

Someone did a study whether money can buy happiness. They concluded no, it can't. Then however they go to say, but thats only after a person makes $50k a year (I don't recall what region they were referencing for that figure, I"m sure it would change a lot from one part of the country to another). The point being you need to make enough to not be struggling for your daily needs. Be able to afford housing, food and transportation. Only after that does more money not equal more happiness.

*Waves magic Wand*
BY THE POWERS OF THE INTERWEBZ!!!!

Money Magazine Article

"Once you get basic human needs met, a lot more money doesn't make a lot more happiness," notes Dan Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard University and the author of the new book Stumbling on Happiness. As the graphic at left shows, going from earning less than $20,000 a year to making more than $50,000 makes you twice as likely to be happy, yet the payoff for then surpassing $90,000 is slight.

[hammertym]

My job with in-house security at this city hospital pays decently, and with shift and weekend differential, I'm not about to complain. I could be doing a lot worse (and have, working security for other companies in the past).

As far as how dangerous it is? *grins* I get more excitement working for this hospital than my fiance does working at a bar on the same nights. I've had people threaten to run through the ER and shoot all of us Motherf*&^$%s. That was fun. We get ETOH abuse cases, overdoses (watch out for the charcoal if they puke, it's hard to come out of a white uniform shirt), bleeding and combative assault vics who come in with all their buddies, with everyone riled up and itching to take it out on someone because their ass just got kicked. And what is it these days with crowbars and machetes anyhow? What happened to the old days of switchblades and baseball bats? I've been spit at, had punches thrown at me, kicked at, fallen on (yes, really) you name it.

But what actually gets me, and is something I had to deal with today in court? I was there as a witness, for (in my humble opinion) what I felt was a rather serious offense, and had to watch the guy that threatened to shoot me plead guilty and get off with a basically a simple slap on the wrist. If that keeps up, it's going to become real annoying, real fast.