Night Watchman

[redlevel]

I love to read Feralmerril's experiences as a night watchman.
I can relate to some of them. I worked for Pinkerton's as a mobile home plant guard in the early 70s in a small Georgia town. It was a minimum wage job, but it was perfect for a single college student. I could work 40 hours a week, could often get 8-16 hours of overtime, and it didn't interfere with my studies. In fact, I did more studying than ever before.

I came in at midnight Sunday night. By 8 am Friday morning, I had made 40 hours. It wasn't unusual for one of the other guards to want a weekend shift off, so I would volunteer to come in at 4 pm on Sunday, or to work an extra shift on Saturday. My college schedule was for classes beginning as early as 6 pm Monday through Thursday nights, usually running until around 10 pm each night. If I made a 40 hour week, I was off from 8am Friday morning until midnight Sunday night. Perfect for a single guy.

I was required to be bonded, and to be licensed to carry firearms in Georgia. We had one old Colt .38 Special revolver, an Official Police I believe, that we handed over to the next guard coming on duty. We were required to load five rounds of lrn ammo, leaving an empty chamber under the hammer. We had a "punch-key" time clock. We had keys at certain points inside and outside the building. We were supposed to make our rounds once each hour. I don't believe anyone ever changed out the card in the clock during the eight or nine months I worked.

I did all of my studying in the guard shack between rounds. Not only did I study, but I did copious amounts of extra reading. I read all of The Federalist, most of Locke's Second Treatise on Government, Mill's On Liberty, and probably 50 good novels during that period. I read all of The New Testament and just about all of the Old Testament. I was a PoliSci major, and I kept up with current events. The year must have been 1972, because the Nixon visit to China was all over the news. One of the radio networks had a nightly program for the duration of Nixon's visit called "China Watch," and I listened to it each night.

One of the other guards was a little bit scared of the dark, I think. On several occasions, he was out of the guard shack and in his pickup when I came in at midnight. He said there was someone in the plant, and they were going in the office and fooling with the PA system. He said they only did it when he was in the plant. I believe he even called the City PD once to help him search the plant. They didn't find anyone. A few nights after one of these incidents, I was in the plant making the rounds, and the PA system started crackling, a static sound. I was a little alarmed, but I could see right in the office, and no one was there. A few minutes after I got back to the shack, my Mother called on the phone. She would wake up at odd hours of the early morning and call me. She mentioned that she had called earlier, and that I had not answered. This happened a few nights later, and I figured out that the PA crackled like that when there was an incoming call. The other guard would have none of that, and insisted there was some sinister person coming in the plant at night.

The "night man" with the City PD would often come spend time with me. He and I were good friends and hunting buddies. He was probably 10 years older than I was. I worked part time with the PD, and would often ride with him. If I ran short of coffee, he would run by the all-night Trailways Bus Station and bring me a cup. Some nights, friends from HS who were off at other colleges would visit with me.

All in all, it was a good time of my life. I had few responsibilities and enough income to keep a good ride. What more could a 23-24 year-old ask for?

 

[Old cop]

It sounds like you made good use of your time. I did the college thing whenever I was not working my shift or in court. It's a good thing I was young!

 

[feralmerril]

Thanks for that. Here is how I started. I had applied to lockheed to do any kind of work and forgot about it. Meanwhile to keep from starving I had taken a minimum wage guard job. I had taken a leave of absence from a job that I worked all over the states in and wasnt even getting unemployment. The guy who hired me told me nothing and the guy I relived told me nothing. The first morning I heard a commotion out at the gate, went out there and found a bunch of strikers! They all were throwing insults at me and I wasnt even told the place was on strike! Day one!
About a week later when I was buying a piece of uniform at a uniform store someone gave me a tip universal studios needed a guard. I hired in replaceing a black guard who had just shot someone! He was loading a bus of extras to go on location, got a "free feel" of a extras butt. She had a brother who was also a extra and took umberance at it and decked the guard. The guard pulled his gun and shot the brother in the guts! I heard he lived but likely never had to work again after setteling with the studio!
I wasnt there for only a few months and lockheed called me to come to work as a sheet metal trimmer. I actualy hired in, got a list of tools to buy, was walking out of the gate and engaged the guard in conversation. I asked him if he was a contract or "in house" guard. "In house" he said, its a good job here. With that I went back in to the woman who had just hired me as a sheet metal trimmer and said, hey, since I filled out that application I have been doing guard work and like it. She sent me to see the chief. Old chief johnson was a old rough retired I think captain off the LAPD and looked old as God. As we were talking he said "yer pretty young and single. I have only been hireing retired cops and military. Ya probley wouldnt stay. I pulled out a picture of the latest GF I had just broke up with and hadnt yet got rid of the picture. "Well, ya see chief, I just need to get a job and settle down. I have been working all over the states. I plan to send for my girl here and her son, she is back in west virginnia, shes a widow an, I need a good job to get married. It worked. (I never seen her again.)
Lockheed paid well, probley was the highest paying guard job in the country for a good many years. I got all the overtime I wanted with all the top benifits. Never was laid off and retired 35 years later with badge #1. I never wanted to advance and stayed a peon the entire time. That was because of quirks and tons of OT available to me all those years where I am sure I made more money than the captains and even the chief did. The only way I could do it though was collect my mail at lockheed and live at lockheed just like the hunchback of notre dame. Lockheed was my home. I was a overtime hore. I got OT after 8 hours and double time after 12 hours. I probley averaged 65 to 70 hours a week. I needed it too after a divorice. Holidays paid triple time and in 35 years I probley only had 3 or 4 of them off. I doubt if a lockheed guard at the many plants has matched my record yet. When I hired in we had about 250 guards at burbank, after 4 years I went to palmdale. I worked about 32 of my 35 years on graveyard. Thats got to be a world record of insanity!
Well, thats my lifes history. I never had a life! (Until I retired and then remarried.)

 

[GaryS]

Feralmerril,

One of the EMS supervisors where I worked did 50 years on the night shift. He was hired as an ambulance driver and told he'd be "temporarily" assigned to the night shift.

He was a night shift supervisor for the 30 years I worked there before he retired.

That's a record that no one will ever match at our outfit.

 

[4011]

Midnite shift was the worst shift I ever worked. Could not sleep in the day time.

 

[rog8732]

Midnite shift was the worst shift I ever worked. Could not sleep in the day time.

I had an old uncle who worked that shift,..and farmed all day. Sawmill work on the farm, plowing, getting up hay, milking 15 cows twice a day. I was 5 or six at the time.
After my Army time, , I got a mill job on 1st shift for training, then was moved to 3rd shift, 11pm to 7am .
I was probably 100 pounds heavier and 5 or 6 inches taller than my uncle, but I took 2 weeks of 3rd shift and put in my notice. I realized I wasn't the "hoss" my uncle was,... and, I was not doing any farm work after my shift...Ever since, I have had a fair share of respect for those "grave yard" fellas.

 

[rog8732]

Red, where did you get the experience to know what "sweating like a sharecropper signing a fertilizer note" is all about.?? Heh Heh,.....It's just something you said a few posts ago that I liked. ( and understand)

 

[Frank46]

We used to have Burn's guards where I worked and they were a pretty good bunch. Since I worked rotating shifts outside of the power plant I got to know a bunch of them. When they lost the contract this other company had some real winners. One guy managed some how to crash into one of the guard shacks. Don't know how he managed that as the road was at least 30' wide. Another drove the patrol car on a loading dock and instead of going back the way he came drove off the loading dock. Rear end of the car was on the ground and front stuck in the air.
Then another guy some how managed to drive into a huge cable reel. Steel cable reel won that one. There were more incidents as the years went on, but the ones mentioned come to mind right now. Frank

 

[Straightshooter2]

My grandfather was the 4 to midnight watchman at Robert E. Lee High School in Thomaston back in the 1950's. He had one of those old round punch clocks like you are talking about and had to go to each building on campus (5 of them) and the two story buildings would have a key on each floor. I always loved going to work with him when I was staying with them. I was around 6 or 7 years old and in between rounds, we would sit in his office and he would tell me ghost stories. The only problem with him telling ghost stories is the first leg of his rounds went from the Annex building to the Gym. There was a sidewalk between the two buildings and about one foot away from the sidewalk was a fence around a huge cemetery. So fresh from those ghost stories, I'm on that sidewalk trying to keep my grandfather between me and the cemetery while he made sure I was walking next to that fence. Thanks for conjuring up those old memories. It reminds me that I still have his old Night Watchman pin he wore while working.

CW

 

[feralmerril]

The way it worked for me: About 3 days a week after my shift midnight to 8 am, i would do another 4 hours- till noon. I found no matter when I got off 8 am or noon, I would go to bed for 3 to 4 hours as soon as I got home. Then I would lay down again for about another 2 1/2 hours before reporting again. A lot of guys would try staying up when they got home and bed down maybe 5 pm hopeing to catch 6 hours before checking in. It didnt work well for them, seemed somthing would happen, people come over or whatever and they would come in with no sleep. The main topic every night amoung the graveyard guards after we checked in was ALWAYS how little sleep they got that day and what screwed them out of their planned sleep.
I also worked for burns awhile on that studio job. They were the contractors. For whatever reason it paid more a hour than all the other burns guards got at other contracts. My boss in late 1964 early 65 there was the radio personality "Philip keen", finder of missing persons. I guess he wanted to hang around the movie studios after his first career. I remember a guard was patroling in that movie set mansion of "the munsters", someone had somehow got in off the street, hid and brained him as he was checking it out. Screwed him up!
Another time at lockheed burbank I was working with another guard, changing off posts, one standing guard a hour at a gate while the other would check that area and trade each hour. My partner walked into the old credit union, saw a door ajar with a light on. At first he thought one of the office workers just must had left the door ajar and forgot to turn the light off. He reached in to turn the light off and someone hit his forearm with a iron bar. He later told me he thought he got a shock from the light switch and he stuck his head in and got brained! The robber or robbers had got in through the roof. It screwed him up and he couldnt work anymore. Maybe more another time. Its my bedtime.

 

[jimmyj]

I worked security / watchman part time for various mines in my area when I was single. The mines ran 24X7 Monday thru Friday. Shut down Saturday at 8am until Monday at 7am. Most of the duties were at very remote areas. Trespassers and keep the pumps running was the main duties. Negative radios and one working telephone at the supervisor's office was the only communication. Weapons were a S&W 2" M&P .38 and a Winchester Model 97 12ga short barrel. I most times worked the entire weekend. I had a personal Remington Model 541 .22 Rifle with a 4X weaver scope that I took small game with for fresh meat.
Quail was my favorite. Pay was $1.35 an hour !

 

[brucev]

Did unarmed security for 3 1/2 years while a student in seminary in New Orleans. Started in a shipyard. First month got shot at. Didn't take it seriously as they didn't know what they were doing. Then some fellow gassed up on liquor wanted to give me a beating. He was a lot bigger. I got a piece of re-bar. He calmed down. Made Sgt. and stayed with them till I graduated. Was posted down on Canal. That was a lot of fun. In the shipyard most of us had a shotgun or rifle near to hand. On Canal, I had a heavy aluminum flashlight and a Buck knife. Never thought anything would happen to me. Happily nothing ever did. One night someone jumped one of the guards... stuck him w/ a butcher knife. Only time any of us ever got seriously injured.

 

[feralmerril]

For the size department that we had/have, I think we had very little action or big incidences. I am sure the reason for that is the simple fact was most people we dealt with had a good high paying job and career to lose. The biggest incident I recall, and I had no part of the action, I was elsewhere, there was a black muslem type that worked there. How he even got the job was beyond me but lockheed "overjumped" itself trying to please goverment hiring dictates being a goverment contractor. This guy even wore that round cap and dressed in bright robes! He was a big loser and was fired many times. Always the liberal powerful IAM machinists union got him rehired. The last time even the union could no longer protect him. He took umberance at that, went to the union hall andshot and killed one plus one witness got a heart attack and died. Then he hopped the factory fence, came in an killed his boss and another. One of my buddy guards seen him and chased him with a burbank pd officer. They cornered him on a city street, he threw down his gun laid down and begged them for his life. I belive this was around 1970.
Another guy that worked in the paint shop at palmdale got the hots for a female co worker that didnt share his affection. He stalked her and shot her down at the gate. He got away but later shot another girl elsewhere and was caught.
Seems we might have had a couple similar shootings, ex spouse laying for the ex at a gate etc, but seems I always was assigned elsewhere.
Another regular customer of mine decided to knock off the credit union but again I was off shift. He was a crazy one that seemed to like me. I didnt like him much. Once he bragged to me that some years prior he was deer hunting in northern california and a guy shot at him thinking he was a deer. He bragged to me that he shot back and dropped him. Said he later read the body was found. On deals like that you dont know if they are lieing to impress you or not. Obvisely if you press you either get lies or nothing.
Those old clocks were heavy. They had a paper dial in them that the key would leave a impression on showing the time you hit the key. Later they came out with just a small reader like a super market use`s. Those things are to fullfill insurance company requirements. In some cases of course in very high security areas to prove you were there. A lot of all that depended on how gung ho your captains and chief were. It all went out the window when are buisiness or on low manpower. I have known a incident or two where guys somehow would "get" a duplicate set of keys and dials and get "creative". Nothing out there made by man that another dedicated man cant beat or get around.
I never have met a kid other than myself that wanted to be a "night watchman" when they grew up, have you? I will tell you their are bad and good places to work. The job is close to the same and you can do it for minimum or high wages but if you kep your record clean there are also top good paying jobs out there. Most of those will be goverment contract aircraft plants. You must have a spotless "no" record for those.
A company pays a fortune to check you out.

 

[bgrafsr]

After leaving the Air Force, I worked Plant Protection at the Allison Div. of GM tank plant, which was adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins Airport. Worked there for 4 years before getting laid off. I then went to work for Bendix Air Brake Div. in Elyria, Oh., but got laid off after 3 months. Worked at a gas station and also worked for a contractor who rebuilt basement walls, and finally got hired by the Elyria Police Dept.