Its not the greatest paid job in the world but sometimes one of the most satisfying. All of you who work within this industry must think I’m mad. Let me summarize for you my reason for saying this. Not all placements, or assignments as we’d usually call them, are as invigorating as others but sometimes have more benefits. Still not making sense?
I work an assignment where I control the access & Egress of vehicles & visitors and take telephone calls. Sounds like a receptionist but I’m not. Sounds simple but I have been there for many years and still don’t know everything about the assignment. I truly believe that no person will ever know everything there is to know about any assignment regardless of how many years that person has been there. At the placement/assignment where I am currently situated I have a lot more freedom to do things for myself as it’s not a busy site and every day is not quite the same but I know what to expect. I have worked on other sites and I tell you that as much as there is more to do its not the same as a permanent assignment. Lots more to do, members of the public to deal with and rowdy teenagers who just wanna have a laugh at the uniform you’re wearing. OK, sometimes change is a good thing but not all too often in my case. To be honest I’m glad I don’t change sites much.
Sometimes whilst at work I have the time to reflect on how the job is going and where its going to go in the near future but I always come up with same conclusion: No flaming idea. I doubt I’ll ever know where this job is going. I’m just taking every day in its stride and enjoying the people who come and go on a daily basis. Some days can drag on and be the most boring days ever but I just think to myself about all the people who are unhappy in their jobs and it brings a smile to my face. Not in a nasty way you see. Just that I have found the job I am meant to be doing and know that I’ll be doing it for many more years to come.
I said my assignment benefits me. Let me go in to a little more detail. Over the years I have been able to progress my guitar playing skills a little due to night shifts being very quiet. It has also given me a chance to get some singing practice too. Also I have had nights where a games console has brought me many hours of enjoyment too. Pro Evolution Soccer and various other games. Most recently though I have invested in a laptop which I use to browse the web and chat to the missus at home. Passes the time just right and probably the best investment I have made yet. Although the work pc is there and I can communicate with people on site via e-mail, I’m not allowed to use it for personal reasons. A bit of a pain but the reasons are completely understandable.
What more can I say about the job really? It is loads of fun when there are a few security officers working at the same time, obviously. some sites have more than one guard at a time and others don’t. This can work to an advantage in certain situations where you’d need strength in numbers to deal with all kinds of problems but if there is only one of you then major problems will occur. I personally have only ever been involved in one incident where I have been outnumbered two to one.
It was one evening a few hours after starting a night shift an I’d not long closed all the gates and secured the perimeter when a couple of men came to the main gate asking for directions. Being as I know the area and I always like to help people out I told them how to get to their destination. About an hour later they came back and told me that I had given them the wrong directions. They were now asking for a different location to the previous one and I could instantly see that they were slightly intoxicated. They were raising their voices and calling me all sorts of names for sending them in the wrong direction. Because I didn’t know where the next location was they were getting annoyed so i decided the best course of action was to find one of the night shift workers and ask him if he knew where the men needed to go. Thankfully he knew and all was resolved in a peaceful manner and no harm came to anyone. I was grateful to the worker and I am probably lucky that he was nearby and that the gates were shut otherwise the situation might have been worse.
Security is not all it’s cracked up to be but if I had another chance to go back and choose another profession I’d most likely stay with security. Give it a try, you might like it!!