Private Security Bashing

[feralmerril]

Got to tell this one on myself. I was a new guard and worked with this "charactor". He not only worked with me but he had a side guard job as a bank guard. He was going through a bad divorice and needed all the money he could scrape together. He came to me and said "You got a set of grays dont you from your last job? I did. He said, look I absolutly got to be in court tomorrow. Will you take my shift at the bank? I didnt want to but he pressed and I was dumb. He led me to belive it would somehow be sanctioned by his boss. He had me meet him at the bank a few hours in his shift, came out and gave me his badge. Then he put on a sweater over his shirt so you couldnt see he wasnt wearing a badge. He took me in and introduced me to the bank president and told him his company needed him somewhere else and had sent me to finish his shift! I caught what he was really doing but kept my mouth shut. I was packing my gun and now had the keys to the bank. That was the longest 6 hours or so of my life! I was scared his captain or whoever might come to check him at the bank, see me and bad things would happen, maybe even a shootout!
To make matters worse I had to shake my $10s out of him that we had agreed on. A year or so after that he was sleeping on the job and was fired. He slept on the good paying job so he could be alert on the low paying other guard job durring the day!
Bad ending. He got murdered a few years later on the nothing job!
I still feel bad for him now that I am remembering it.

 

[kamloops67]

it was me!

when i was a punk, i would berate "mall cops" maybe even get into a mix-up with them if i could. same went for the military guys that would come to our town on leave. now these many years later i realize what a jerk i was... IM SORRY, OK?
my buddies and i thought we were really something, cause most those army boys didnt want to fight. turns out they had standing orders to not fight the locals. yep that was me, the idiot.
looking back on it all ,i should have gotten a job in security. would have knocked most of the p&v out of me a lot quicker. did apply to armed forces was eventually accepted then i turned them down, i already said i was an idiot right?
well i got married we had a kid and i started to see life as it really was . i became a journeyman carpenter/job foreman, took that about as far as i cared to .turned out i didnt care much for it anymore .ive been doing renos for last couple years. not really enjoying it.
ive lately been thinking about retraining to go into loss prevention and security. not the mall security though , id have a tough time being civil to a modern version of teenage me.kind of funny how things change.
couple years ago i arrived on site a little early so i finished my coffee in my truck , i couldnt help but watch this security guard strutting up and down the sidewalk spinning his flashlight like it was a baton in some 50s prison movie .he dropped it and quickly picked it up , i rolled down my window and gave him a "haha i saw that"
that guy, among other living stereo types are who is giving your profession a bad name.
there was a young man that worked where my wife works he was calm unassuming guy did his job well, a little too over zealous head office thought. he had been run over in pursuit of shoplifters, punched and kicked on numerous occasions, took down a lot of shoplifters the staff and store management thought he was a hero,then he made an arrest on a shoplifter ,he failed to follow procedure and the person couldnt be charged. the person made a complaint against the store so head office cut him free, to the dismay of store empoyees. he was a good one.

the point of this ramble was supposed to be: yes many people have a low opinion of security guards ,but theyre wrong .you know it and the people that matter know it, that is all that matters. dont sweat what the idiots say, theyre idiots,but dont give em any ammo either.

 

[rwsmith]

I think private security.....

Private security are often put in a position where they will receive no respect and if anything goes wrong, they get blamed. One place I would not like to be is a guard at a wildly popular music concert.

 

[amazingflapjack]

kanewpaddle-now look out for an avalanche of butt crackers that feel bashed!!

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

Private security,"rent-a-cops",LEO wish they weres/pretend they ares, etc have the same problem real LEOS have-they have to deal with the public. I worked as a security guard at a large office building of a major corporation where about the only people who did not have college degrees were the receptionists and some of the older secrataries. Some of those people were among the nicest most considerate people you would ever want to meet, the "Hi,how are you?" types, "How's school going.", etc.Others-you could tell they regarded you as so much dirt beneath their feet, they were insulted when you asked for their IDs, if they were people who did not have 24 hour access they were insulted when you asked for their ID after hours or they saw you entering their names in the log. And Heaven forbid you had to deal with them in the parking lot, enforcing parking restrictions, etc. Or when they used an unauthorized exit.

 

[feralmerril]

My job wasnt like that at all as far as the bashing go`s. In all those 35 years I can only remember a couple incidents of it. One guy told me a joke of some guy applying for a job. The interviewer asked him what skills he had. The guy just shrugged. The interviewer went down a list. Machinest? No. Run a fork lift? No. Finaly after a long list of jobs the guy didnt know anything about, the interviewer said I have just the job for you. Guard!
Workers would try us out though. Here`s a couple I recall. I and my captain were standing together at a gate talking as I was checking badges on the herd coming through. One guy showed me his badge, walked in maybe 30 yards, turned around, walked back and says , "Oficer, I orgot to show you my badge! Of course he was trying to get me in trouble with my captain, I just laughed and said BS, you showed it or you wouldnt have got through. Captain just laughed and took off.
Another time we had some doors I would have to open to let in about close to 700 workers in about 10 minuets or so and you really had your hands full checking a mass of people about 8 abreast pushing through the chute! Day one I "thought" one guy went through on the far side and didnt show me anything, but he "could" have in the mass of flesh. Okay I will watch him closer tomorrow morning. Same thing happened, I cut him out of the herd and he denys not showing me the badge. I knew the type and what he was doing instantly from tons of experiance. I tell him you arent going to work today. He demands to talk to my cheif. I say sure, called the chief and explain the situation. Meanwhile probley 300 people are getting by me that I aint hardly checking their badges. Cheif talks to guy on the phone and then me. Chief says let him in. I say BS George! You want to let him in you come down here and let him in because I aint going to let him in! My cheif came down and let him in, didnt give me a word of repermand either! The guy wouldnt talk to me for a long time, but later I had a assignment in a area of the factory that was a lot smaller and we had to be arund each other. Would you belive he became a good friend? The guy looked almost exactly like anthony quinn.
Overall I have to say I dealt with very, very little guard bashing in my 35 years on that job. No doubt because almost every one I dealt with had a job to lose.

 

[Smithsrevenge]

Some officers give us a terrible name.

I can recall one. I worked at a public library after ending a short term employment at a company which will not be named, but I will say that the manager and 90% of the staff were incompetent. Anywho I got the gig because while working at said company I worked the library as one of our contracts, I was regarded as "The only officer ever sent here that did the job right". Well after I left the programs director called me personally and said he was axing the old company, and offered me their commission to replace them myself.

Well one of our other officers worked there full time as well as "chief of security" I knew him somewhat well from working at the other company so I accepted the job.

However after a week or two I realized this guy was a carbon copy of Paul Blart. Guy acted as if he was given the key to the city, he knew everything, and took his unarmed gig WAY too seriously. He had ID's made online for himself, bought more useless stuff for his duty belt than I had ever seen, each piece of "equipment" more strange and pointless than the last. Even had his junk truck outfitted with about 5 different amber and white wheelen lights.

Every day we worked together I saw his professional demeanor shorten until he was nose to nose with patrons calling them "tough guy, punk" and other words that I will not repeat here. Guy had a serious power trip as "chief security of the library".

It all built up until one day I caught a sex offender exposing himself to a child in the bathroom. I hooked him up and dragged him to the security office to detain him there until the police showed up. My "boss" then questioned him for about 3 seconds, then unhooked him, said "dont do it again got it!?" and let him leave without even calling and reporting it to the PD. He then went to say something along the lines of "I've been doing this for two years, I can tell when someones lying. I think you mixed up what happend".

Dumbfounded after 11 years working Armed gigs that get quite hairy , plus a degree in Criminal Psychology and Human Behavior Analysis , and being talked down to by the equivalence of a jacked up mall ninja who believed he WAS a cop......but wasnt. haha. I walked out of the job.

Until that day I never really understood why people laughed when I said I worked in the industry. Until I watched this guy play sit and spin with the reputation of people who actually do their jobs correctly and well for about a month. Then I got it.

However when I run into people who laugh at me. I laugh to myself now. odds are

#1. I probably make a LOT more money as a Lieutenant FTO in this industry than they do at whatever brewery they work at.

#2. I have one HECK of a retirement package waiting for me.

#3. Women totally dig the uniform :-D

#4. Unlike them I dont HAVE to be nice to people at work, usually when they get in my face it results in a nice close examination of the floor on their end.

#5.........I love what I do so if they want to laugh at me for it. They can giggle their heart out because im not the one whining to my significant other how i just cant seem to climb that corporate ladder every night ......I'm already at the top of mine :-D . I just look forward to my Salaried pay going up every 6 months :-D

 

[wheelgun28]

I've had a few run in with security guards over they years. I am a contractor to companies so I visit different places all the time.

A lot of the time its over parking spots the visitors spots are full or I need to be closer to the work area. I dont mind being told you cant park there but you can park here kinda thing. I will however NEVER play the, you can park there, move the car then be told you cant park there, move the car then be told you cant park there over and over. If you want me to park some place tell me where, dont let me guess, it not a game to me.

Last time this happened I parked in the same spot I almost always do, for years now. I get the you cant park there spiel, I say ok but I park here almost always. He tells me "no you dont". Now if you wanna get me POed call me a liar, I suck it up and move to another spot that I use to unload tools. I get told again, I cannot park there. Now smoke is pouring from my ears, I see how this game is going to be played. I without thinking say" too bad" and go back to work.

A few workers see whats going on and tell me the guard will call the company contact and report me. OK, fine do whats needed. However his contact is the same person that hires me, so I call him and tell him what went on. I ask him why the guard calls me a liar and why hes breaking my chops. He calls the guard up and asks him. The guard say that he just wanted me to park in a spot someplace but since he never said where I guess Kreskin must visit often. He told the guard to give the contractors a hard time. The guard complained that I told him "To bad"

The company did tell me that they are working on fixing the parking and creating more visitors spots. The guard was doing what he was supposed to do just two day to early as the didnt mark out the spots yet. Also the guard could have done a better job of communicating this.

I felt bad afterwards I am a big boy about things, If I am wrong, I am wrong. I can take advice and I can take a correction. How ever dont treat me like I am an idiot, call me a liar or jerk me around. I didnt ask for trouble, it came to me. A simple you cannot park there anymore please park over here would have made the whole thing smooth. I would have said ok, sure no problem....


Next time I'll tell the long winded story of a drunk guard, a real security force, firearms, and a 17 year old me in my own shop

I have also learned that there are levels of guards, theres the guy who was sleeping in the alley last night and they propped up in a chair to make it seem as if some is there to the other extreme of almost military like. The level of professionalism changes with them also.

The cops always know the good guards from the bad and are fast to tell you to.

 

[Len]

I was a teenage mall cop.

Smoke's thread about private security brought back some memories.

I was a teenage mall cop. [Actually a young 20's mall cop.]

Like Smoke, I was not a cop wannabe. I was however a recently discharged soldier, in need of any job to start building up a college fund, and mall security at a large Michigan mall was the first, best chance I had at getting work.

We walked miles a day. Had no arrest powers or authority above and beyond any private citizen. As a third party firm we answered to two bosses...the mall administrators and the company executives. "Customer service" was the primary duty, and the necessity of putting up with the most demanding, lowest common denominator of the public sector was a daily chore.

I'd been called every demeaning name in the book, all the while addressing the issues that would be common to a small town.

We were assaulted with knives, had guns drawn on us, were attacked by groups of "young urbanites" who waited until they could catch us alone. We dealt with domestic violence, auto thefts, arson, drug use, rapes and "doodle dashers" in the parking lot. During my short, two-year tenure, we had three suicides...one by a woman who drove her car full speed into the main doors and into the fountain...during Saturday afternoon business hours!!!!

One of our guards was put into the hospital for several months after being intentionally run over by a car. I had my tie sliced off my shirt by a box-cutter wielding thief...saved by the Second Chance vest a cop friend lent to me. We were made fun of by the very sales girls who asked for our protection in the parking lots after mall hours.

And this is typical...above and beyond shoplifting, lost kids, lost cars and all the mundane stuff. Then there were the breathless sales people who demanded that we "arrest that guy" who they suspected of shoplifting...which we could not legally do, and of which they had no evidence of crime. They wanted us to risk all the legalities on their say-so, without any personal or legal risk to themselves.

We were definitely not cocky, not cops and not really enamored of what we did for a paycheck.

I personally delivered one baby, performed CPR on six customers, found six lost kids [and we never lost a kid, ever!] I never solved a single crime. I was offered a job in the local PD, and an LE academy sponsorship. [No thanks...hats off to LE, but I couldn't do it!]

I was not expecting excitement. Or an LE job. Or respect. I just needed a paycheck.

It was a time of dues paying...it bought me part of a degree...

And if it meant that I was stopped by old high school classmates [major league preppies who could afford any school] who wondered what the hell happened to my life that I was reduced to walking the mall in a worn-out brown uniform...well you suck up the embarrassment and do the job. I didn't want to take the time to explain two years in VN, military discharge and now "this"..... And that the GI bill was a good deal, but I still needed to eat and fill up the car.

It was just a job. A stepping stone job at that.

And in the midst of all the stuff that went on, all the shifts in the middle of the night by myself, all the crazy busy holidays, all the threats and the assaults, all the disrespect, the facing down of large gangs and whacked out druggies....remember one thing.....

We were unarmed.

Len

 

[raymo2u]

the suboxone doctors are the doctors making all the money now but you need 8yrs of addiction/rehab schooling, just thoughts for the original poster. if you dont beleive me take a gander of ther annual pay vs a family dr or even a surgeon nowadays. its prettydsturbing but as long as theres addicts you would have clientel

 

[ditrina]

Since we all agree that we should ALL respect each other. and whatever one chooses in life.. Thank you all for keeping this thread reasonably civil..

All that can be said has been said..