Tales of the Security Guard(language)

[Geek King]

Best fault report I've seen on a portable barcode scanner, from an armoured car crew:

Robber's head too hard.

Now there's a story I'd like to hear. Almost on the "If it wasn't for that horse, I'd never have spent that year in college" level.

[Brightglaive]

Just about anything can be a weapon. My car keys can make a hell of self defense weapon. An umbrella? Can function as a bat. Now if only I knew how to defend myself against fresh fruit.

Mr. Miyagi said it best, " Besta Block, no be dere!"

[marasbaras]

I'm with the guy about the 2:30am lumber delivery. That's bull. Just sucky lumber yard workers.

And, holy crap ... permitted to begin work BEFORE 6am on residential construction? That's just sucky, too.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Yeah...apparently over there if somebody's coming at you with so much as a PEN, you can take 'im down.

Well, that makes sense, you can really fuck someone up with a pen.


Um, I've heard.

[Rapscallion]

Fruit flies?

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Rapscallion

[TheRedHawk]

no offense but I would be pissed too if someone was unloading lumber at 2:30 on the morning. I already get up early enough.

Yes, I can understand his anger. I'd be pissed if that kind of thing happened to me. But why bitch to the security guard? I have no control whatsoever of delivery times. Go bitch to whoever is in charge of that kind of thing.


A few more stories. I'm having trouble remembering them.

Three Incident Reports in two weeks

For a short while I worked at a tiny run-down apartment complex. It was hell. I had no idea slums like this existed in Tucson. This was one of the residents. That link was actually one of the first links that came up if you punched the complex's name into Google(he has since moved, the address they have listed for him now is not the site I worked at). I met Don a few times, and he seemed like a nice enough guy, but the big SEX OFFENDER sticker on his door was enough to make me not want to talk to him.

Everyone there was crazy. They all drank heavily, several were on crack, several more were on meth, a bunch were off their medication, and two even had a fucking meth lab in their goddamned apartment. Two people were literally insane. One was hauled off to an asylum while I worked there(fortunately it happened during the day and I worked the night shift, so I wasn't there to see it happen).

These are the tales of the time I had to call the police twice and also had someone else call them, all in a two-week period. In my year and a half of working for this company at this point I had filed a grand total of three incident reports.

The first incident happened shortly after my shift started. There was a guy staying with a friend of his for a while. This was one of the people who was off his medication. He did not get along with anyone. I don't know what started the argument, but when I got there the guy(henceforth referred to as Idiot 1) was standing on the second floor balcony screaming at a group of five or six people below. They are yelling and cursing back at him. He kicks a large washer off the edge of the balcony and it lands several feet in front of one of the residents below(Henceforth referred to as Idiot 2).

Idiot 2 takes this as an attack and is now calling for blood. Idiot 1 runs down the stairs and is ready to attack the crowd. Fortunately I am there to stop him. With me holding him back he begins screaming again and pointing his finger at Idiot 2. Idiot 1's hand was in a bandage. Idiot 2 grabs Idiot 1's hand and shove it away. Idiot 1 screams like a little girl and begins screaming that Idiot 2 assaulted him. Idiot 1 then renews his attempt to get past me. I call the police and tell them to hurry, as I do not know how long I can keep them apart. The whole time I am on the phone I am standing in front of Idiot 1, trying to keep him from moving towards the crowd.

The police arrived in two fucking minutes. They pull everyone aside and begin taking statements. I tell them what I saw, and apparently everyone else gave wildly different stories. Guess who they decided to believe? That's right: me. So what do they do? They take Idiot 1 back up to his friend's apartment, make him take his medication, and then leave. Apparently this has happened before and all Idiot 1 needs to do to calm down is take his fucking pills.

Next!
Okay, so it's 12:30ish in the morning. I just finished a patrol and am getting back into my car. I hear a loud THUD. I listen closely. I hear another THUD. Followed by more thuds in rapid succession. So I get out of my car and go to see what's going on. I see a tiny old man beating the fuck out of a door. I ask him what's going on...and then I see the blood.

This man is bleeding profusely from a gash behind his right ear. I could see his fucking skull through the wound. I hate when that happens. The man is soaked in blood and apparently had been holding the wound with his hand at one point, because when I looked to the door he was banging on there were bloody hand prints all over it. Yeah, like something right out of a horror movie. I wish I had been able to get pictures.

Suddenly the door opens and standing there is a rather large Hispanic man with a blank look on his face who was having trouble standing up. Yep, they were both drunk out of their minds.

"He hit me with a bottle!" the bleeding guy screams.

He then lunges at the much bigger Hispanic man and I have to hold him back. I ask if he wants me to call the police. I don't even wait for his answer, I just whip out my cell phone and dial 911. By the time I hang up both men are now outside, and I am having to keep them apart. After about ten minutes the bleeding man just leaves. He walks off down the road and disappears into the darkness. No way was I going after him.

The police arrive after about 20 minutes. At that point the big Hispanic dude is sitting in this dirty old recliner outside his door. After much questioning and such, it is determined that the two men are friends. The big Hispanic dude says the other guy trashed his apartment, and that he was forced to attack him to get him to leave. The apartment was the cleanest I had seen in the entire complex. Hell, it was cleaner than MY apartment was. The only thing out of place was a broken ceramic coffee mug on the floor. This was what he had hit the other man with. I have no idea why he said it was a bottle. The police are ready to arrest him. But they get a radio call that the other man has been found and does not wish to press charges. They're taking him to the ER to get stitches. So the cops give the big guy a warning and go on their way.

Next!
So I'm sitting in my car reading when two police cruisers pull into the site. I get out to see what's going on. They got a complaint that there is a crazy man keeping his neighbors awake. Apparently this was not the first call for this resident, either. The police came prepared: there were four of them, and one was armed with a modified paintball gun that shot pepper-spray pellets. I go with them to the apartment in question and am quite surprised by what happens next.

The man is literally insane. As soon as he sees the officers he begins ranting and raving about how there's a conspiracy against people with his name. He then goes into a long rant about a government conspiracy of non-action. Basically that the government was simply letting people get away with things they shouldn't. One of the best things he says is, as near as I can recall: "Slipknot is running around the city raping women and no one is doing anything about it! I caught them last night, but no one would do anything about it!"

Yes, the band Slipknot. I'm serious. He really said that. And he seemed to honestly believe it. This goes on for a bit before the police interrupt and tell him that they're tired of being called because of him. They said that if they got one more call about him they would haul him back to jail. He agrees to be quiet and goes back inside. While I'm getting information for the incident report from the police they tell me more about this guy. They get about a call a week about him because he keeps not taking his medication. He's a paranoid schizophrenic who see conspiracies everywhere. The Slipknot thing is one of his more frequently mentioned conspiracies.

This place made me buy a gun. I had no idea that such a horrible place existed in Tucson, and I've even worked the South Side(Tucson residents will get this). Unfortunately, as I am an unarmed guard I cannot carry a gun on my person while I'm working and my company is unwilling to allow me to go through the process to become an armed guard.

One final bit before I go. This is also about the above-mentioned apartment complex. One night while I was working I noticed several small trenches dug all over the site. It looked like someone was getting ready to bury some wiring or pipes. Over the course of a week or more I noticed more and more work being done. Then I finally noticed what they were doing: installing security cameras. As soon as I realized this I knew we were going to lose the site soon. Sites like this are very unlikely to have both camera and security guards. And I doubt they would employ someone to monitor the camera. I was both happy and mad about this. Happy because I hated that damn place. Mad because when I told my supervisor about it he said he hadn't heard anything about it and that the contract for the site lasted for months.

Well a week later(in the middle of the week) the complex owner called my company and said there was no need for our services any more. The contract was canceled, the owner was forced to pay the full price that had been agreed ahead of time(plus an early cancellation fee!), and I was out of work for a week while my company tried to find me a new site to work at. I don't understand why they did that. It would have cost much less to keep a guard there until the contract expired.


My next post will probably be my last with security stories. Despite how much of an arrogant badass I make myself out to be, these stories are a tiny fraction of my total encounters with idiots on this job. The vast majority of the time I am kind and courteous and don't act like an asshole. And I also learned a neat trick: if they are ranting and raving and cursing and all that, the best way to make them even madder is to remain calm and polite but still refuse to bend to their will. Eventually they get so frustrated they demand to speak to a supervisor or manager, in which case I simply give them our office number and hours, or they simply give up and leave.

[gunsage]

Well, that makes sense, you can really fuck someone up with a pen.

Or pencil, as somebody found out first-"shoulder" in high school via me.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

And horse flies like...like...um...an equestrian? Yeah, I got nothing.

[princess4life]

And I also learned a neat trick: if they are ranting and raving and cursing and all that, the best way to make them even madder is to remain calm and polite but still refuse to bend to their will. Eventually they get so frustrated they demand to speak to a supervisor or manager, in which case I simply give them our office number and hours, or they simply give up and leave.

Killing them with kindness I love doing that. The great thing about my security is I am a supervisor so when they get mad at me and ask for a supervisor they are SOL.

[TheRedHawk]

I think this will be my last post with stories. I really can't remember anything else worth being posted here. But who knows? Spring Training starts Feb. 8th, maybe I'll be assigned to Hi Corbett again.

How I cost a Realtor his sale

My last permanent site before being moved to the one I'm at now was a really crappy apartment complex being converted into cheap condos. This place is just across from St. Mary's Hospital and is in a bad neighborhood. The apartment complex was a complete slum before it was bought out and everyone was evicted.

What they were doing was knocking down walls and combining apartments to make larger living areas. They were also redoing plumbing, wiring, and interior fixtures(cabinets, sinks, toilets/showers, etc.). Even after all these upgrades the place was still a mess and in a bad area. A few months into working this site I saw a full-page ad in the paper for properties by the realty company that was renovating the site. The condos at this site were literally the cheapest they were selling: The next least expensive condo was $100,000 more than the ones at this site.

Anyway, in my time there I had spoken to many of the construction workers about the work they did, and how they were made to do shoddy work to save on materials, and other such cost-saving methods of questionable ethics. They also told me a rather terrifying story that I will go into detail on later in this post. I had also realized just what a bad location this place was in.

As I'm finishing a patrol I see one of the Realtors walking a middle-aged Hispanic woman from one of the demo units to the realty office. She sees me and calls me over.

Her: Excuse me, how long have you worked here?
Me: A few months now. How can I help you?
Her: What is your honest opinion of this place?
I flinched. I glance to the Realtor. I had gotten to know him in my time here, and he was a genuinely cool guy that I got along with. If I were to give her my honest opinion of this place I could very well cost him the sale. His grin, full of over-bleached teeth, fades and he just grimly nods at me. So I tell her the truth.
Me: Ma'am, this place is a dump. First of all, it's in the South Side. It may be the beginning of the South Side, but it's still a bad neighborhood. I hear gunshots in the distance at least twice a week. Second, it's right next to St. Mary's Hospital. You have evac helicopters flying in and out of this place at all hours of the day and night. You also have ambulances coming and going. Third, in my time here I have gotten to know some of the construction workers and they have told me how they have been forced to do sub-par work to save on costs. In my honest opinion, you could not pay me to live here.

She just nods and thanks me. The Realtor takes her to the office and I go back to my car. A little while later I see the woman leave. About an hour later the Realtor steps outside the office for a cigarette. I go up to him and ask him if I cost him the sale. He laughs and says this: "Yes, I lost the sale. But I don't blame you: You couldn't pay me to live here either."


Creepy Shit

Early on in exploring the site I found something unusual in one of the rear apartments. The entire place had been gutted and a wall had been knocked down to connect it to the unit next to it. The original apartment was set up like this: When you walked in the door you entered into the living room. In front of you was the kitchen. To the right was a hallway. In that hallway on the right was the master bedroom. To the left was the bathroom and a smaller bedroom. At the end of the hall was a small walk-in closet. This closet also had a door connected to the master bedroom. Both of the doors to the closet had been bashed open with what looked like repeated blows from a sledgehammer, and it was easy to see why: the doors had been nailed shut...from the inside! There were literally at least 50 nails in each door, sealing these things shut. In the closet it looked like there had once been wallpaper covering the walls, but it had all been ripped down. I asked one of the construction workers about it. He, a very large and built black man that seemed the type that could kill you with a look, shuddered as he thought about it.

He told me this: when they first started work on the site they found that unit with the locked closet. So they used their tools to remove the handle and lock. The door still wouldn't open. So four of them grabbed sledgehammers and went to town on each closet door. It took them nearly an hour to get those doors open. Inside they found pretty colored wallpaper covered in a child's crayon drawings. These drawing covered every single surface of the walls up to a height of about five feet, like a little child had been locked in there for a long time and had nothing better to do than draw on the walls. He also said that it was very cold in the room, despite the fact that it was the middle of the day in July and was over 100 degrees outside. The power had long been disconnected to these units, so the A/C wasn't running. These four big burly construction workers ran the fuck outta there like Spring Heeled Jack was on their tail.

For days the workers were too afraid to go near that apartment, saying that it "felt wrong" or "evil" in there. Finally they were ordered to start work on it. The very first thing they did was go into that closet and tear down all the wallpaper. He said it was just too creepy to work with that stuff there. They put it in a pile outside and burned it. After that the creepiness seemed to leave the apartment and they were able to work in there without any further problems. They never did figure out what had happened in there. But they did find a small removable panel in the ceiling of the closet that led to an attic crawlspace, so that's how they figure someone was able to get in, nail the doors shut, then get out again.



I just remembered! I do have two stories from the current site I work at!

Right now I work at a fancy golf resort in Marana(small suburb North of Tucson). We used to work at three places that were all part of the greater resort: the Sports Club, the clubhouse/restaurant, and an electronic gate leading to expensive homes owned by the resort. This first story has to do with that electronic gate.

Being a construction manager still makes you a construction worker

A little background info: construction and renovations were being done at the housing area and construction wasn't supposed to start until 6:00AM. The construction company was apparently unable to get any permits to start earlier. But that didn't stop them! Somehow they got a hold of the key code to open the gate and were entering and starting work as early as 5:00AM. So, rather than go through the hassle of changing the code, they changed their contract with us so that we watched that gate from 5:00AM to the end of our shift at 6:00AM. Since there was no gatehouse the guards would park off to the side of the road and attempt to stop workers as they came up to the gate. This was not very successful, so our orders changed: park in front of the gate itself and only move for people that can prove they are residents.

Now with that long backstory out of the way I can get into the story itself:

I had been working at this site for about a month now. My company had been blocking the gate for over three months by this point. The workers understood what was going on and when they would be allowed in. So it's about 5:45Am and I'm parked in front of the gate as usual when a large shiny black truck without a speck of dust on it pulls up to the control panel and punches in the code. The gate opens next to me and the truck pulls up to my car. I don't move. If the person was a resident he would have had a very noticeable green sticker in his window. The truck is now literally less than a foot from the side of my car. He finally stops and blares his fucking horn at me repeatedly!!!

As soon as he stops I begin hitting the front of his truck with my flashlight and cursing at the top of my lungs. The truck backs up bit and I get out. The driver rolls down his window and yells down at me that he demands to be let in(I don't think he even noticed me bashing his truck, that's how big this stupid thing was). I calm down a lot and calmly ask him if he is a resident.

Him: No, I'm the construction manager.
Me: No construction workers are allowed on the site until six AM. You still have a little over ten minutes.
Him: But I'm the manager! I demand to be let in.
Me: I can't do that. No construction workers are allowed on the site until six AM.
Him: Who do you work for?
Me: (I tell him)
He gets on his cell phone and rolls up his window. He backs up right next to the control panel and turns off his engine. I would like to point out at this time that all the workers who arrive early when we were blocking the entrance kindly pulled off to the side of the road to allow room for cars that were allowed to enter to get in. This jackass was blocking the entire entrance road with his huge truck.

He puts away his phone after a few minutes and pulls up right next to my car again. I'm standing outside smoking a cigarette. He gets out and sheepishly approaches me.

Him: Umm, I'm sorry about that. I just spoke to your manager and he backed you up. He said he would not tell you to let me in. He even pointed out that I was in on the meeting where we agreed to this whole arrangement.
Me: Would you mind not blocking the road? A resident could show up and be blocked by you.
Him: There's no room anywhere else.
Me: Well, you only have a few minutes. Go ahead and wait by the control panel. As soon as I leave you can enter.

I got a call from my manager the next day. He asked if I really had the balls to stand up to that guy, because he said he was the biggest jackass he had ever met. He also had no idea how the guy got his personal cell number, as he almost never give it out and we(the lowly grunt guards) are not allowed to give it out either.


This is what kids do for fun these days

This is a very basic setup of the site.

It's 1:30AM. I am parked in the spot marked in the image when a tan van blows past me and begins making a u-turn in the small lot behind me(before the lower lot) and then slowly drives past me. As it drives past I hear a woman yelling as loud as she can: "Fucking faggot fatass rent-a-cop!" I make a simple note of the incident in my log and resume listening to the radio.

Ten minutes later the same van is back. They roar past me and down into the lower lot. I figure they're just fucking with me and that they think there's another way out down there. There isn't. So I wait for them to come back and wait for more insults to be hurled at me. After a minute of them not leaving I get out of my car and walk down the path to the lower lot. I see their van parked and three people outside of it: two men and one woman, all college-aged.

I shine my light at them and they panic. They rush to get back into the van but these idiots apparently decided to lock it as soon as they get out, as one guy is yelling and cursing at the other to unlock it. They get it open and all dive into the van and pull quickly away. I calmly walk back up the path(which is much shorter than the way a car must go) and meet them back near my car. Sadly I did not make it in time to actually block their path.

As they drive past I can hear the woman screaming "RENT-A-COP! RENT-A-COP! RENT-A-COP! RENT-A-COP! RENT-A-COP!" over and over and over again until I hold up both hands and give them the ol' double bird and shout back at them as loudly as I can: "You think I give a fuck!?" before laughing like a maniac. With a final "Fuck you!" from the woman they roar off away from the site. I make another note of the incident in my log and resume listening to the radio.

Ten minutes later I'm standing outside my car watching the road leading up to the site. I see the same goddamned van come down the road and stop at the intersection leading here. The van very slowly pulls forward and to the left, acting as if they are going to pull into the access road, but are not sure about it. The van stops there in the middle of the little intersection, blocking three lanes of traffic. Luckily this late at night almost no one is on that road. Then I hear a woman shouting:

"Hey! Who are you?"

I ignore her and continue smoking.

"I mean it, who are you?"

I ignore her and continue smoking.

"I just wanna know who you are! I'm scared and If you don't tell me I'm gonna call the cops!"

I can't take it any more.

"I'm the fucking security guard, bitch! I fucking work here! Now get the fuck outta here!!!"

What is her great retort?

"RENT-A-COP! RENT-A-COP! RENT-A-COP! RENT-A-COP! RENT-A-COP!" at the top of her lungs as the van once again roars away.

Sick of all this bullshit I call the police to report the van for reckless driving. The cops showed up quickly but were unfortunately unable to catch the idiots. But I never did see them again.

The whole incident did not faze me in the slightest. I was not insulted by their repeated yells of "rent-a-cop" because I AM a rent-a-cop. And I don't care. Those idiots are probably the spawn of some rich businessman or lawyer and have never had to work a day in their lives. They find this nonsense fun. I pity them. How sad must your life be to sit around one night and all of the sudden decide: "I'm bored! Let's go drive like morons and bug the security guards near here!" The whole thing is so sad it's funny, and I was laughing like a madman the last two times they decided to bug me.

Idiots don't faze me.

Feel free to ask me any questions you have about my job and I'll do my best to answer them. I'm afraid I am out of stories. Maybe if I'm lucky I can dredge up one more, but right now I got nothing.

[Bramble]

Mmm great... I really hope I don't get those kind of guys when I start.

[Parrothead]

You'd think she could come up with something more original than shouting "rent-a-cop" over and over.

[PepperElf]

Just about anything can be a weapon. My car keys can make a hell of self defense weapon. An umbrella? Can function as a bat. Now if only I knew how to defend myself against fresh fruit.

Yeah look out for those pineapples
*ducks*
but what about point-ed-sticks?

[AKWalMartCartGuy]

Don't fuck with the security guard, folks. We work long hours and have to deal with more stupid people than you can imagine. I don't know about other companies, but as I said, ours didn't care much about making idiots happy. You piss us off, we will be assholes to you. You cuss at us, we will cuss back. You yell, we yell back. You threaten us in any shape, way or form and we will beat you senseless. You threaten anyone near us and we will beat you until you stop making noise. We don't fuck around.

can I have your job when you're done with it?

[Mr. Security]

ah yes contract security, god how I hate it and love it at the same time

can I have your job when you're done with it?

don't worry contract security hires anybody and I do mean anybody

[RayvenQ]

Yeah look out for those pineapples
*ducks*
but what about point-ed-sticks?

Now I'm in a 3 way Dilemma, Do I choose to use the Gun, the Weight or the Tiger?

Ontopic: I'm glad that there are at least some people who are in a position to give as good as they get with their jobs.

At my former workplace we had a saying, "This counter is for Rissoles not Arseholes." Oh if only I had been free to say that to some of the people that deserved it.