Tweet
I’ve worked a lot of posts with a lot of guards. Maybe you know some of them. You may not recognize their names but you would have heard them say things like the following:
________________________________________
“I’ve been up to the elevator room every day for the last 2 years. Same with the HVAC room. They always look the same. Everything always works. There’s never any smell of smoke or hot electrical insulation. There’s no reason to walk all around the rooms and check things because nothing has ever been wrong and there’s no reason to expect there ever will be. I’ll peek in there every other day or so.’
“Walking all those floors to check every single office door is ridiculous. They’re always locked. Why would one not be locked and what difference would it make anyway since the building will be locked till the office employees get here in the morning. I mean, what the heck…. Do they think a door would be unlocked cause some employee might have been working late had a heart attack in there or something? What are the chances of that happening? That’s dumb.”
“I’m not walking all the way out there to check the dumpsters every night? Its not like some flunky office manager is in cahoots with one of the cleanup people…. You know....... some little scam where the manager instructs the janitor to throw away a piece of equipment then fishes it out of the dumpster that night to take home. I mean, how farfetched is that?”
“What is it with all these silly detailed patrols and duties. This stuff never happens.”
“I’m working this 300-acre community…. Brand new….. almost all of it still under construction. Why in the world should I have to stop, question and log the owners of construction companies that come into the community at night everytime I see one? I mean, come on…. They own the companies that are building the place. What are they gonna do? Oh, yeah, right…. I know…. They’re gonna take out some of their own material to use somewhere else and claim it was stolen during the night? Surrrrre they are. Come on, get serious…. this is just more silly make-work.”
“I’m not walking this whole stupid marina 3 times a night. It’s too far. I’ll give it a check once just before I leave just so I’ll be able to put it in my report if anything is out of place. Nobody’s gonna steal anything cause this is a nice place and we don’t have that kind of people around here. Besides, I don’t get paid enough to walk my butt off every night.”
“I pity these poor newbies doing all those rounds. Any guard with experience knows you can buy Detex keys at the flea market. That’s the difference between a real professional and a dumb no-nothing guard.”
“Ok, I know, big deal…. I’m supposed to check to see if a sticker has been cancelled before I open the gate to the community when a car fails to key the gate open. But, here’s the deal. This guy has lived here for as long as I’ve worked here. I talk to him everyday….. probably just dirt on the sticker or something. I’m not gonna bother checking him…that’s dumb. Ok, here’s a harebrained idea….. maybe in some alternate universe (where something actually happens once in a while) he beat up and almost killed his wife last night and he just got out of jail and has come back to finish the job only to find that his sticker has been cancelled and there’s a restraining order against him preventing him from entering the community. Yeah, yeah, yeah, bull….. I’ve known the guy for 5 years and this ain’t no Fort Knox anyway….. it’s just a stupid gate and I’m just here so they can advertise security anyway.”
“Look, dummy…… this is how it works. You pull in the parking lot…. up to the front door and stop. I get out and go in. I sign for the bags then bring the money out and throw it in the back, lock it up, then we go to the next stop… that simple and I don’t wanna spend all day doing it. So, this pulling in the parking lot, stopping to scan all over the place for suspicious looking cars or people before pulling up to the stop is horsecrap. There ain’t no armored car robbers waiting around for us to open the door. This ain’t no movie so just quit horsing around let’s get it over with and go home. Jeez, how paranoid can ya get?”
____________________________________
If you were allowed to shoot one of these guys for demonstrating to the public/client/provider how dumb all us security guards are, which one would it be?
John the Gateboy
P.S.
But………. My all time favorite guy….. is the new property manager, owner, etc, of the new building, community, or whatever, who says to his secretary, “Now that we’ve hired security, I want you to write up a bunch of rules and procedures for them to follow to keep us safe and secure…. And, oh….. make absolutely sure you do not consult with these guards, who are security professionals, about the efficiency or feasibility of the procedures you make up and with which we have no experience.”
________________________________________
“I’ve been up to the elevator room every day for the last 2 years. Same with the HVAC room. They always look the same. Everything always works. There’s never any smell of smoke or hot electrical insulation. There’s no reason to walk all around the rooms and check things because nothing has ever been wrong and there’s no reason to expect there ever will be. I’ll peek in there every other day or so.’
“Walking all those floors to check every single office door is ridiculous. They’re always locked. Why would one not be locked and what difference would it make anyway since the building will be locked till the office employees get here in the morning. I mean, what the heck…. Do they think a door would be unlocked cause some employee might have been working late had a heart attack in there or something? What are the chances of that happening? That’s dumb.”
“I’m not walking all the way out there to check the dumpsters every night? Its not like some flunky office manager is in cahoots with one of the cleanup people…. You know....... some little scam where the manager instructs the janitor to throw away a piece of equipment then fishes it out of the dumpster that night to take home. I mean, how farfetched is that?”
“What is it with all these silly detailed patrols and duties. This stuff never happens.”
“I’m working this 300-acre community…. Brand new….. almost all of it still under construction. Why in the world should I have to stop, question and log the owners of construction companies that come into the community at night everytime I see one? I mean, come on…. They own the companies that are building the place. What are they gonna do? Oh, yeah, right…. I know…. They’re gonna take out some of their own material to use somewhere else and claim it was stolen during the night? Surrrrre they are. Come on, get serious…. this is just more silly make-work.”
“I’m not walking this whole stupid marina 3 times a night. It’s too far. I’ll give it a check once just before I leave just so I’ll be able to put it in my report if anything is out of place. Nobody’s gonna steal anything cause this is a nice place and we don’t have that kind of people around here. Besides, I don’t get paid enough to walk my butt off every night.”
“I pity these poor newbies doing all those rounds. Any guard with experience knows you can buy Detex keys at the flea market. That’s the difference between a real professional and a dumb no-nothing guard.”
“Ok, I know, big deal…. I’m supposed to check to see if a sticker has been cancelled before I open the gate to the community when a car fails to key the gate open. But, here’s the deal. This guy has lived here for as long as I’ve worked here. I talk to him everyday….. probably just dirt on the sticker or something. I’m not gonna bother checking him…that’s dumb. Ok, here’s a harebrained idea….. maybe in some alternate universe (where something actually happens once in a while) he beat up and almost killed his wife last night and he just got out of jail and has come back to finish the job only to find that his sticker has been cancelled and there’s a restraining order against him preventing him from entering the community. Yeah, yeah, yeah, bull….. I’ve known the guy for 5 years and this ain’t no Fort Knox anyway….. it’s just a stupid gate and I’m just here so they can advertise security anyway.”
“Look, dummy…… this is how it works. You pull in the parking lot…. up to the front door and stop. I get out and go in. I sign for the bags then bring the money out and throw it in the back, lock it up, then we go to the next stop… that simple and I don’t wanna spend all day doing it. So, this pulling in the parking lot, stopping to scan all over the place for suspicious looking cars or people before pulling up to the stop is horsecrap. There ain’t no armored car robbers waiting around for us to open the door. This ain’t no movie so just quit horsing around let’s get it over with and go home. Jeez, how paranoid can ya get?”
____________________________________
If you were allowed to shoot one of these guys for demonstrating to the public/client/provider how dumb all us security guards are, which one would it be?
John the Gateboy
P.S.
But………. My all time favorite guy….. is the new property manager, owner, etc, of the new building, community, or whatever, who says to his secretary, “Now that we’ve hired security, I want you to write up a bunch of rules and procedures for them to follow to keep us safe and secure…. And, oh….. make absolutely sure you do not consult with these guards, who are security professionals, about the efficiency or feasibility of the procedures you make up and with which we have no experience.”
Comment