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1 year 11 months of hell. (long, possibly epic longness)

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  • 1 year 11 months of hell. (long, possibly epic longness)

    Little background, From early 2006 until very early 2008 I worked security for a Distribution Warehouse, now this might not seem like retail, but we were the first line through the middlemen of grocery stores, ie, we were the place product went to, and where it came from to the stores.

    Now there were many weeks where there were pretty much no SC's aside from the three common SC's (as an aside a couple of Cow-irker stories come from this place too.) This was the only time I ever had a security job where Customer Service was actually a part of the job description.

    Now remember though they were kinda non-customers, they were however doing business where I worked, so, I guess they might count.

    Regular SC's were of three types

    Well (inster shift) supervisor/orderer/whoever they had talked to (supposedly) said...- we actually had scheduled times for the various types of goods coming in, and every day we had, we'd get at least one a day who said something like, well the Swing supervisor said (little note here, the swing supervisor would tell them the time they were to come in, even if it was pretty much an open dock).

    The I can't be bothered with your rules: self explanatory, often something as simple as, you need to check in, or holding lot is for inbound only.

    and the last one was....Well *blank* does it... yes Wallmart may, so too Fred Meyers, and even Safeway, however, we are not ANY of those.

    But i was told it was a drop yard

    We had a couple of companies that did drop shipment (i.e. load comes in, company can drop trailer, pick up empty and be on their way.) Now just about everyone on the swing and grave shifts hated this arrangement for one reason and one reason alone, the drivers would come in nearly out of hours and then go out to tie up our nearly full holding lot. However, one took the cake... and I shall call it BOW (just move them one to the right on a qwerty keyboard.) When I started in February of 2006, there were two people allowed to drop their trailers, basically they were doing a run to get more product (in this case Clorox products) and would drop their trailer so they could make their second appointment, this was all fine, until one day we noticed a BOW trailer in our holding lot, we asked around about it, and it turns out, that it had never even been loaded, much less in our facility. The driver's excuse when called on it, and after rules were made that BOW could not under any circumstances drop their trailer, I thought it was a drop yard.

    (A drop yard for those who don't know is a place where companies can drop empty trailers for pick-up later.)

    Stupid Drivers

    not so much a customer, but at our truck entrance there was a wide turn in because, well it was an entrance for trucks (Tractor-Trailer combinations.) We'd get at all times of the day people pulling into the shoulder area to do various things such as...

    -talk on their cell phone.
    -park to walk to the convenience store a block away.
    -check a map.
    -perform a driver switch/Chinese fire drill
    -eat.

    Now this may not seem like SD behavior, aside from the fact that there was a sign with 3 inch lettering saying "TRUCK ENTRANCE" in plain view (silly bunny morons don't read signs.) or the following.

    The driver had gotten behind one of our company's trucks returning from a drop off of product, then due to the truck slowing to make the turn, he decided... a) oh it's a multi-lane road, maybe I should pass him on the left in the other lane (yeah and if you believe that I have couple things you can buy, oceanfront property in Kansas anyone?) b) I don't have time for this s***, I'll pass him on the right and get around. Yeah this is CS the logical answer is never the right one...damn ricers, lucky to still be alive...then the moron has the nerve to come into our parking lot, to come bitch us out about it, and notices my supervisor at the time (imagine if you will, ex-airborne, has a great grasp of the 1000 yard stare, and is about 6' 190 lbs (about 1.83 m 86.18 kg for our loverly metric friends) with military hair, and a full beard, yeah guy got back in car and left.

    Wherein person uses the famous line...

    ...I don't speak english.

    While being a part-timer on Swing shift, we had a load of watermelons come in, in pulls a truck, guy gets out of truck and asks in a slight accent, "what time do I come in?" I look at his BOL, notice that the P.O. Number is one for our Produce dock, now to get the suckiness here, produce opened and was FCFS at 2 am and went until 10 am, when he came in was about 3 PM the afternoon before his appointment, I then told him to come back at 2 am and we would let him in then, guy just smiles and says, "I no understand." I repeat myself and he nods and gets back in his truck to turn around and I thought at the time go back to the holding lot, however, he completely ignored me saying 2 am, and decided he was going to go back. from here I called my supervisor (same as the one above) who goes to talk with him, turns out the guy had ignored me, and just gone in, handed his paperwork over to the person who did all the orders, was told again to go wait until 2 am, just about that time, my supervisor had come in and was asked to escort him back out. Guy comes through the outbound gate (I say gate, but it was more like a drive-way) at about 50 mph, never to be seen again, needless to say he got a ban for being so bloody stupid.

    Bars, lots and airports

    Our site had one of the most wonderful things in the world, a great vantage point for some of our super-special-awesome events in Seattle every year...well unless you happened to be working security. And right across the street was a bar. During the day, it was an ordinary trucker/redneck type bar, but at night, well lets just say that it had a reputation for being a karaoke bar that catered to a hip-hop crowd. Nothing wrong with their choice of patrons, aside from one problem.

    their parking lot was tiny for their bar, and our holding lot was big, now common sense would say, oh hey big rigs, and the only open sport I can see clearly is a fire lane, maybe i should look for another place to go. But no, this is CS....you get teh picture.

    For a few weeks (pretty much when I was made supervisor of graveyard in May of '07 until the middle of May) we had a policy of calling the bar to tell them that the truck was on it's way. The reason the warning stopped was simple, they stopped answering, so we stopped calling, and just instituted a policy of Tow first. This was caused by two things, first teh Bar not answering, and second the first incident I had.

    It was a usual Saturday night, three guards on shift (including pete, the guard who got fired for not doing anything...literally) and the Towing company comes by, since they knew that if they did, they'd get at least 1 tow, if not more.

    Towing company asks how many there are, at first count I saw 8, but wanted 1 in particular as he was right in front of our unauthorized vehicles towed sign, AND in the fire lane. Guy doesn't get too sucky, however, two morons show up, and ask if their car will be towed, bot me and the tow guys inform them that unless it's moved when they get back, then yes it will be. Moron 1 decides to try and block me (unsuccessfully since i can still see his companion and both are drunk as skunks) as his friend lunges at one of the tow guys, pushing him into the bushes, both run off and into their car as I call the cops. Cops come, take statement yadda yadda, one is caught ( the driver, who tried to block me) but the other vanishes off into the night, never to be seen again.

    and because of SDs in the past, we actually had to do full parking lot patrols on one week out of the year.... All because of Seattle's Seafair.... which brought in the blue angels....which flew out of Boeing Field.... which was right across from our northern parking lot... get the picture.

    Wherein I deal with majorly pissed off Drivers.

    Shortly before quitting, we had a soft strike at one of our Docks, if it was perishable, but wasn't veggies, meats, or frozen, it was deli (for example, yogurt, or cheese). Now for those who don't know, a soft strike is basically, oh yeah we'll work... but only at the lowest possible speed we can. Needless to say, we had people who had 2 AM appointments who got them...the next day at 12:15 (first of the day). Now this wouldn't have been so bad, if we didn't have people trying to avoid being told go back by sneaking behind the line of trucks who were going to other docks which were unaffected by the soft strike. after 5 hours, all I can say is that we had no less than 10 people who almost got banned because of doing this.

    Wherein I have to explain why they get to...

    Park in the yard and leave their truck, and you don't.

    During my time at that site, I had only one instance of someone getting permission to park in our yard (not the holding lot, but the places where the docks actually are) and this was due to

    -Flood that went over I-5
    -Driver was from company who's own DW was in Chehalis
    -Chehalis itself had flooded
    -which equals out to, no way in hell was the driver going to be able to return to base. (as we heard, their loading Dock was right up to the bay with water)

    and because people knew about this, I had only one SC complain....yes one, but boy was it a doozy.

    Me- Your wonderful and infinitely patient bunnyboy
    SC- Driver who needed to call a WAA-mbulance

    Driver- Hey now that I'm done, do I just go back in, and rest there?
    Me- ** no sir, if you need too, we can tell you places that you can rest.
    Driver- Oh no, I can't go back out onto the road, out of hours you see.
    Me- *yes I had heard this a million times* Actually sir, it's only maybe a minute to get there, it's basically just up the block around the corner.
    Driver- but *cheese company* got to do that.
    Me- He had permission.
    Driver- Well so do...
    Me- We would know because we'd have been told.
    Driver- But I'm out of hours and he gets to do it, that's unfair.
    Me- *starting to lose my usually calm demeanor and gives him the 1000 yard stare* Sir, he was given permission due to not being able to actually take his company truck to his warehouse due to water...
    Driver- Just a little water, gah what a whimp.
    Me- Let me finish, due to water all the way from the ground to the loading dock, so yes he got it because of no other choice, you however can leave.
    Driver sulks off.

    Now before I get how sucky that was on my part, the guy was a) Coming up I-5 to get there, b) had to take an alternate route to get around the flooding that crossed I-5, and c) the guy knew our policies, yes he knew the policies on holding lot being inbound only, knew that leaving a truck there was only done in dire/emergency circumstances, and knew about the flood... BTW *cheese company* has the location on every package of cheese, PLUS on the big joke of an advertisement on the side of their trailer.

    Everything else...

    W had only 3 companies we absolutely hated at the site, and I'll call them descriptive names SW, Orange, and Amen (last one is pretty damn close, only one vowel off.) Now SW was only hated because they caused the most truck-to-dock accidents, Orange was because of their driving style (fast, furious and dangerous, yes this Orange was traffic safety orange). Amen however took the cake, with three things....

    -Screw the rules, I have produce! Yes the would do whatever to be first, including stopping, in the road, on a busy state highway and wait for 2 AM, at about 1:30 AM... Remember the Bar...yeah...or the opposite, Truck entrance on other side of divider, I'll drive down the wrong way...
    -I speak no english. How I hated this phrase, oh how I hated it, especially when you were perfectly speaking it (with only a slight accent) not 10 seconds ago, but the fact I told you that you would have to wait until 2 AM at 12:45 means you suddenly have a language barrier, nope still 2 AM. *hands back BOL*

    Yes Amen, drivers from the Indian Sub-Continent, from Canada, and delivering to an American warehouse, nope I don't need to obey laws here in America...

    And Finally...

    The only time I ever lost my cool...

    When I was supervisor, I had three different stress going on at the same time, we were trying to get enough on Pete to get him out the door, one of the better guards had been removed due to one company being buddy buddy with one of the execs and being female talking to a macho man from south of the border, and truckers who wouldn't take a hint.

    Guy had come in on swing shift at about shift change (I lived close so I would show up early in most cases), so both me and the swing supervisor go out as soon as the guy parks the wrong way to tell him to park the right way, guy says ok, we shrug as he starts his truck back up again, and head back to do our shift change. About an hour in, we had to check reefer trailers (refrigerated trailers), so I also did a lot check, and noticed something odd, one of the trucks was parked the wrong way...anyone wanna bet on who it was...anyone...oh come on, it's not that bad of a sucker bet....ok....yeah it was the same guy, I go over knock on his door, he comes up sees me and goes back in, I knock again, same thing, then I did a nice POUND POUND POUND with the side of my hand, that got him to come to the driver's seat and turn around, like he was asked a little over an hour before.

    I went about my usual duties, thinking i had heard the last of it.... not so... he's a basic rundown.

    Me- by this time I was kill. me. now.
    D- Driver

    D- You know Fred Meyers lets me park how I want and doesn't pound on my doors.
    Me- Sorry but that's our rules, for the safety of drivers in the lot and the road, plus you weren't responding when I knocked.
    D- I don't care, you shouldn't knock on my door, I've been driving a long time (unclear whether hours, or years.)
    Me- well you needed to be parked the right way, since about midnight we get a lot more people, so how would you get out then.
    D- next time just ask.
    Me- We did ask, in fact two supervisors asked you to turn around, and then when I came out again, you saw me and would just disappear into the back.
    D- well next time ask.
    Me- *gonna cut it short went on for about 3 repetitions* Sir, I did ask you to turn around, you ignored me and another supervisor, you ignored me when I knocked, and only responded when I pounded on your door, here's your visitor's badge, here's you paperwork, park out of the way and walk into door ID10t* for receiving.

    That last part was in my low growl....imagine if you will a mix of the clenched teeth you get when you have to be fake nice, and a lowering of tone to a monotone that was at just the right pitch that those paying attention could swear they heard a dog growling driver took it as me saying ok, but noticed how everyone was shocked by the fact that I went from, usual tone of voice ( a low tenor, with nasally hints) to my angry voice (only 2 people in the guardhouse at the time had heard it, and it scared them), he quickly went and did what he was there for, I then went and had a smokey treat.

    Next day I talked with the swing supervisor who had heard about it, to which he smirked, and realized one thing, I may be skinny, with a bad back, and a nice personality, but damn if I wasn't scary enough when angered. I like to call it the day that my ranks in diplomacy failed against a natural 20 in intimidate.**

    *not the actual number, but damn if it wouldn't have been great to have that as a number.
    ** Huge joke as Swing Sup, Me and our boss all played D&D, I had a high Diplomacy, Swing Sup had a high Intimidate, and our boss had High Diplomacy and Bluff with leadership.

  • #2
    Possilby epic longness indeed. Now sit back and rest those sore fingers

    Boy, who would've though security was so complicated. Oy, my head hurts.
    A lion however, will only devour your corpse, whereas an SC is not sated until they have destroyed your soul. (Quote per infinitemonkies)

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    • #3
      For the most part it wasn't....except for the fact that we were front line for the company, who was the distributor of pretty much every non-safeway-kroger-wally store (read stores local to here, plus a few specialty stores and non-store customers).

      oh yeah almost forgot, at some point I'll have to go through the day we had multiple incidents come up (4 reports plus one without need) in one day (3 within minutes of eachother)

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