"....getting to like you...hoping that you'll like me...."
um, no. more like hoping you won't shoot me....this ain't siam anymore misses anna.....
the first thing to do as a guard is get to know where you are working....get to know the property (check) and find out who is who...how else will you figure out who to bug about why they are on the property if you don't know who lives there? seems reasonable enough.
so i'm going to give you the run down of folks...granted it took me close to a week to meet everybody on the list...but at least you have a guide to our cast of characters....some of these folks will have names...others of these will just be descriptions...note that the names have been changed to protect the innocent (or not so much)...this could get crazy and take several posts...hope that's okay.....
the numbers were put on these apartments by a crack addict so the sequence makes NO sense...it sort of wraps around the buildings in this weird way....you'd think that it wouldn't be so hard to figure out with so few apartments...
i'll start with our east side building....this side was usually much quieter
so the top floor consists (from south to north) of apartments 11-15, the bottom floor, 1-5.
so the bottom of this set is pretty quiet....i never saw anyone associated with 1-3 or number 5
now number 4, that's an interesting place. there were two fluffy arm chairs (and when i say fluffy i really mean formerly comfortable and currently flat , ripped, one sided and missing cushions, but the cats like them)...the fellow who lived there enjoyed peering out of the blinds at dane and myself as we would make rounds. occasionally some exceptionally drunk person would be hanging out with the cats on the "fluffy" chairs.
The top floor was most nights a hotbed of activity....
number 11 was home to tall, rail thin african american man in his 50s named henry....henry would usually just hang out on the porch and chain smoke...but often he would creep from his side of the complex over to the back of the west side bugging people to use their phones and snag cans of beer.....he also had many many many visitors who would come and stay only a few minutes and then leave...i had some special favorites of these visitors that i will share with you soon....
12 was vacant
13 was occupied by a very frail older african-american woman whom i saw only once
No. 14...how to explain no. 14?......drunk and stoned and emmiting a continual cloud of pot smoke...that's a good place to start....
a story from our 2nd night on the job:
dane and i figured out very quickly that the north parking lot was a much better spot to take in the activities of the complex. there is only one blind spot on this side and the lighting is better....we parked out trucks side by side and kept the windows down so that we could chat with each other...i was working on homework and he was watching family guy on his dvd player.....have i mentioned how working the 8-4am shift, sitting in my truck, makes time for me to do homework as well as guard...go multitasking
so
a seriously scruffy and drunk white guy in his 60s staggers over to dane's truck. he leans precarously....the 12 pack of pbr seemed to be weighing heavily on his ability to stand (i mean the one he'd just bought at the liquor store down the street, but it's fair to say that the two he'd probably consumed prior could have been effecting this as well).....he holds onto dane's mirror with his free hand and begins yelling...
"waaaa z fuuk u dooin here?"
to which dane said..."sir??" (he's very polite, this young midwestern boy)
"hhhi sed....waaaas z fuuuk u doooin here? ..zon yooo sssppeek fuukin' englesh?"
"oh, sorry. i'm here as a security guard. we (pointing over at me) are here to help you if you need us"
"waaa z fuk?!....wee don need heelp.....weee jusss need beeer... you wan one?"
"no thank you. that's very nice, but we are working"
"waaaa z fuk??? you too fukin gooodta drin ma fukin beeer? i'm uh nam vet dammmn you....you shou drin ma beeer"
"that's cool, but we can't we're working."
"fuk you! youuur like z man! wee don nee you here.....you shou lea....so ge z fuk outta here...."
"sir please back away from my truck. we aren't trying to cause trouble."
"waaa all diss weee shit?" he turns to me "youur a par of diss conspirsy?"
"no sir, we are just doing our job."
"tel your fukin frien to lea me z fuk alone....i'm a vie' nam vet!"
dane gets out of his truck because drunk guy has now started in my direction (read lets go of dane's mirror and leans more towards me and staggers a little)
"sir, dane is just doing his job, he's not going to hurt you"
"don stan behin me you fukin' fool....i can cut yoou wi ma special gun"
(dane turns white, he can't see that the special gun is actually the drunk guys fingers)
"sir there isn't any need for that, dane is just doing his job."
"fuk himm..................(swaying just a bit)....you wanna beer?"
"no thanks"
"oooh....well fuk ya'll then...i'm goin' finish gettin' druunk....(whirls around like a weeble wobble and points at dane) and don snea up on me u fuk....i'm a vet."
see...totally getting to know and like you
when the guy staggered up the stairs to his house...dane says...."well that was lovely...do you suppose he's the welcome wagon?"
the welcome wagon actually lived in 15.
harry and his wife...older hispanic couple with a HUGE american bulldog puppy...they usually sat out on their porch and the wife...a very short round woman would "walk" this dog...basically munchkin as her hubby always called her (i never knew her name) would let fool...yes fool was the dog's name...drag her around while he sniffed and peed and she giggled...they were cute....they were friendly folk....there will be more about them later
so is that enough to digest at the moment?...are songs from "the king and i" now lodged hopelessly in your head for the next several hours?....
oh goody....
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Saturday, April 28, 2007
so this is how it goes.....the musical
this is how a typical night would go at jumpin' cholla (at least for the first two weeks)
please sing this list to the tune of "the twelve days of christmas"....and perhaps these should be hours rather than days.....hmmm
12 drug deals
11 stray cats
10 whiffs of pot smoke
9 crack vials
8 prostitutes
7 gun shots
6 drunk residents
5 movies on dane's mini dvd player
4 certifiably crazy women with small pets and no electricty
3 homeless guys
2 drunken brawls
and a stoned man and his dog
and of course like anywhere..typical is never just typical...
please sing this list to the tune of "the twelve days of christmas"....and perhaps these should be hours rather than days.....hmmm
12 drug deals
11 stray cats
10 whiffs of pot smoke
9 crack vials
8 prostitutes
7 gun shots
6 drunk residents
5 movies on dane's mini dvd player
4 certifiably crazy women with small pets and no electricty
3 homeless guys
2 drunken brawls
and a stoned man and his dog
and of course like anywhere..typical is never just typical...
Friday, April 27, 2007
on the job training...in crackland
so my first assignment was to a tiny apartment complex in the middle of town...a very shaddy part of town i might add (and no i don't mean blissfully out of the hot az sun either)...and i have come to worry about the folks who live there that i've gotten to know...i guess that's part of being a guard...you should want to help the people who live there...rather than my first impression....which was "gee, i'm being hired to protect the property from the residents..."
and so i drove over to work, without a uniform yet....you cannot get one until you are official and get your liscence (read from here on as guard card) from the state...and so i pull in to find that the person i'm working with for the night hasn't arrived yet...and i'm not sure what to do with myself....so i get out of my truck to prop against it and wait....
there was an older hispanic man sitting on the stoop of the second floor of what i will call the west side...cause there's only 2 buildings....and he yells down to me "yo man. you lost?" so i walked over and said "no..here for job training..as a security guard."....to which he replies...."huh...you should be well trained to recognize bullshit then, hanging out here....you gotta watch out for the people.....you got a gun?" (see i told you)...."no..i'm not that kind of guard"...and he says...."well don't worry about it....lots of us round here got one if you need it.".....i say thanks...i think holy shit.....
i am saved from further conversation by the rumbling of a huge chevy truck as it pulls in the parking lot and then backs into a space.....it is my coworker, dane in his sister-in-law's fancypants truck....he hops out, and i can tell he is coming at me as if to discover my reason for invading his territory....no not in some ultra menacing way....i don't think he's even old enough to pull off ultra menacing...just determined...so i stuck out my hand, introduced myself and told him i'd be hanging out with him for a while.....to which he looked really releaved....and of course our employer had failed to mention that i would be working with him..for the next two weeks...
and so, since i know you are dying for the ten cent tour at this point, i give you the amazing tour of (for our purposes) jumpin' cholla apartments.....
if you stand where i parked the first night, the south parking lot, this is what you see
a total of 12 parking spaces...two of which are occupied by cars that run but look as if they shouldn't....if you look left (as i am facing north) there is a 2 story, 20 unit building of white cinderblock with peeling blue trim (the west building), face the center and there are two sort of scraggly trees, an organically shaped swimming pool that is fairly clean and would take like 40 laps to equal 1 in an olympic pool, and a tiny building with a coke machine that rattles and leans as if it might topple over at any second..it was a pleasant surprise to discover that it worked,,,,the tiny building that seriously MIGHT be the size of my living room was divided in half...on the west side was the laundry room that was big enough for two washers and two driers and a closet that held the hot water heater....the other half was the theoretical apartment complex office...which was supposed to be occupied 24/7 but was occupied only once for about 15 mins one night that i worked that complex.....turn left and there is the second 20 unit cinderblock 2 story building with peeling blue trim (the east building)......and the north parking lot was basically the same size as the south..... with a 30 year old white van with four flat tires and no widows, and that was filled with scrap lumber, coke cans and broken glass...and appeared to be the home of several stray cats...and a green chevy pickup that ran but that looked like it had been flipped over at least twice.....there was also a scattering of livingroom furnature outside being used as lawn furnature, pot plants in front of a few places that look like they died 5 years ago, a few bicycles...not necessarily in working order either and quite a few shoping carts.....
all i could think is..what the crap did i get myself into?....which i would think more and more often for the first couple weeks....closely followed by...where's the bathroom?
i turn to dane....so where's the rest room?,,,he smiles and point to the tree nearest us....um you've got to be kidding....to which he says...well there's always that shed you can piss behind or under the stairs.....
so dear reader i pause on this lovely discussion of pissing out of doors to say this.....oh i can hold it......oh yes i can....i've been known to hold it for 12 or 13 hours due to lack of bathroom....i tried to hold it across texas once....but the state is just too damn big......
i just shake my head and mutter "great place"....while thinking ...huh...i haven't purchased that dick yet.....this will be fun......
oh and it was.....oh yes it was.......
and so i drove over to work, without a uniform yet....you cannot get one until you are official and get your liscence (read from here on as guard card) from the state...and so i pull in to find that the person i'm working with for the night hasn't arrived yet...and i'm not sure what to do with myself....so i get out of my truck to prop against it and wait....
there was an older hispanic man sitting on the stoop of the second floor of what i will call the west side...cause there's only 2 buildings....and he yells down to me "yo man. you lost?" so i walked over and said "no..here for job training..as a security guard."....to which he replies...."huh...you should be well trained to recognize bullshit then, hanging out here....you gotta watch out for the people.....you got a gun?" (see i told you)...."no..i'm not that kind of guard"...and he says...."well don't worry about it....lots of us round here got one if you need it.".....i say thanks...i think holy shit.....
i am saved from further conversation by the rumbling of a huge chevy truck as it pulls in the parking lot and then backs into a space.....it is my coworker, dane in his sister-in-law's fancypants truck....he hops out, and i can tell he is coming at me as if to discover my reason for invading his territory....no not in some ultra menacing way....i don't think he's even old enough to pull off ultra menacing...just determined...so i stuck out my hand, introduced myself and told him i'd be hanging out with him for a while.....to which he looked really releaved....and of course our employer had failed to mention that i would be working with him..for the next two weeks...
and so, since i know you are dying for the ten cent tour at this point, i give you the amazing tour of (for our purposes) jumpin' cholla apartments.....
if you stand where i parked the first night, the south parking lot, this is what you see
a total of 12 parking spaces...two of which are occupied by cars that run but look as if they shouldn't....if you look left (as i am facing north) there is a 2 story, 20 unit building of white cinderblock with peeling blue trim (the west building), face the center and there are two sort of scraggly trees, an organically shaped swimming pool that is fairly clean and would take like 40 laps to equal 1 in an olympic pool, and a tiny building with a coke machine that rattles and leans as if it might topple over at any second..it was a pleasant surprise to discover that it worked,,,,the tiny building that seriously MIGHT be the size of my living room was divided in half...on the west side was the laundry room that was big enough for two washers and two driers and a closet that held the hot water heater....the other half was the theoretical apartment complex office...which was supposed to be occupied 24/7 but was occupied only once for about 15 mins one night that i worked that complex.....turn left and there is the second 20 unit cinderblock 2 story building with peeling blue trim (the east building)......and the north parking lot was basically the same size as the south..... with a 30 year old white van with four flat tires and no widows, and that was filled with scrap lumber, coke cans and broken glass...and appeared to be the home of several stray cats...and a green chevy pickup that ran but that looked like it had been flipped over at least twice.....there was also a scattering of livingroom furnature outside being used as lawn furnature, pot plants in front of a few places that look like they died 5 years ago, a few bicycles...not necessarily in working order either and quite a few shoping carts.....
all i could think is..what the crap did i get myself into?....which i would think more and more often for the first couple weeks....closely followed by...where's the bathroom?
i turn to dane....so where's the rest room?,,,he smiles and point to the tree nearest us....um you've got to be kidding....to which he says...well there's always that shed you can piss behind or under the stairs.....
so dear reader i pause on this lovely discussion of pissing out of doors to say this.....oh i can hold it......oh yes i can....i've been known to hold it for 12 or 13 hours due to lack of bathroom....i tried to hold it across texas once....but the state is just too damn big......
i just shake my head and mutter "great place"....while thinking ...huh...i haven't purchased that dick yet.....this will be fun......
oh and it was.....oh yes it was.......
Sunday, April 1, 2007
what is it that you want to know?
top five questions asked of someone who has just been newly hired as a security guard on the board....
*kiss kiss* and the lady says....do you get to carry a gun?
survey says??? number one answer!
ah yes...the first thing from most people's lips is "do you get to carry a gun?"....my answer: no..... and sometimes: should i want to?
no. 2 so if you aren't carrying a gun, then what do you carry to protect yourself?
this question is often followed by several well considered options like a tazer, cause that could be fun? a billy club? mace?
the answer is my cell phone and a pencil and paper because my job is to "observe and report:
no. 3 is usually a comment on number 2 like...what?? observe and report?? and no weapon??
and my answer is usually...right
no. 4 logically follows with....so how big is your flashlight then?
that's kinda personal don't you think? and actually it's rather small...but i've discovered that size doesn't really matter if it's a well made flashlight, and i know how to use it properly.....
no. 5 aren't you scared? or are you at a mall?
well....who wouldn't be when you are guarding crackland?...but i think i would also be afraid in the mall as well....out in front of claire's....all that pink and girly crap could totally cut into my hyper macho way of being.....
and i must include this most favorite of the questions i've been asked...even if it has come up only once: "so are you doing this as an art project?"
are you kidding? no!
i'm doing this for my blog
*kiss kiss* and the lady says....do you get to carry a gun?
survey says??? number one answer!
ah yes...the first thing from most people's lips is "do you get to carry a gun?"....my answer: no..... and sometimes: should i want to?
no. 2 so if you aren't carrying a gun, then what do you carry to protect yourself?
this question is often followed by several well considered options like a tazer, cause that could be fun? a billy club? mace?
the answer is my cell phone and a pencil and paper because my job is to "observe and report:
no. 3 is usually a comment on number 2 like...what?? observe and report?? and no weapon??
and my answer is usually...right
no. 4 logically follows with....so how big is your flashlight then?
that's kinda personal don't you think? and actually it's rather small...but i've discovered that size doesn't really matter if it's a well made flashlight, and i know how to use it properly.....
no. 5 aren't you scared? or are you at a mall?
well....who wouldn't be when you are guarding crackland?...but i think i would also be afraid in the mall as well....out in front of claire's....all that pink and girly crap could totally cut into my hyper macho way of being.....
and i must include this most favorite of the questions i've been asked...even if it has come up only once: "so are you doing this as an art project?"
are you kidding? no!
i'm doing this for my blog
Thursday, March 29, 2007
oh rent-a-cop, where art thou?
and so my life as a certified security guard with the state of Arizona begins thus....
i had received a phone call from the company i now work mere hours after leaving my resume online....i was excited by this quick turn around having be really skeptical about people actually receiving my resume... and it not actually being some sort of joke site that promised jobs but instead was run by someone who just got his jollies out of teasing poor unemployed saps....so i waited a bit to see if the other things i applied for would pan out....and actually i did get several calls, the only problem is that they all wanted me to work 8-5 everyday...
and just so you know...even when i had a full time job....it was at a newspaper and was never 8-5...i generally regard 8 am as a good time to still be sleeping as i am usually and naturally up until 3 am.....
so i decided after about a week and some time having tiny panic attacks that i should check into this security gig....little did i realize that when one calls this company, expresses interest, and brings by a resume and fills out an application...you are in fact hired upon strolling into the building....no questions, no interview....just a thanks, a handshake, and a be back in two days for training......great....and frightening....
so wednesday arrives and i'm in the office for "training"...so i was mentally preparing myself for videos, paper work and lots of role playing...lets face it...i work for the reading cult and also have had tons of volunteer training in my life between stuff i did in high school and undergrad and now as a happy participant in queerland....i was also slightly afraid that there could be some sort of obsticle course involved.....but i really wasn't prepared for what the day would actually hold
picture it....sicily...1932......no...picture it...a small conference room.....a table, chairs, tiny tv/vcr unit, stack of videos, folders of paperwork...and vacuum cleaners.....not just uprights but also those huge units that are built into walls so all you do is hook up a hose from room to room.....basically there is enough room for 5 people to conference...uncomfortably...and enough vacuum cleaners for us to have one for each hand....perhaps we will be role playing with vacuums?
so i take my seat, and across from me are the two single most unhappy looking people i have seen in a long time...my mother included.....there is a woman, mid 50s i'd guess, salt-n-pepper hair, longer grown mullet, flannel plaid shirt, jeans, boots....immediately i thought oh good i'm not the only queer person in the room (this will prove to be incorrect a bit later)...and she's scowling and staring at the table as if it has just insulted her haircut.....and this tall, slight, white boy...like 17 i think...he hasn't even accomplished facial fuzz yet let alone hair......is curled into that grey office chair like it's a lifeboat and has pushed himself as far away from the woman as he can get without french kissing the nearest vacuum cleaner...
i sit...i smile...at no one...and we wait in awkward silence until jim comes into the room....now jim is a friendly older guy who used to be with the tucson police department...and he's our trainer for the day....which means that his job will actually consist of changing out video tapes, asking us if we have question, taking our tax forms when we are done filling them out, and filling in the gaps for us when the sound craps out on the vcr....so without....well any ado...the baradge of video tape watching begins.....
these tapes were nothing short of AMAZING.....and i mean that in an utterly mindblowing sort of way.....these things were from the late 70s and early 80s....jim at one point tried to claim that they were but 6 or 7 years old...but i know better...the kid across from me wasn't even born when these tapes were well into use.....and these tapes were all the training that we were getting....forget role playing and obsticle courses....these tapes were sure to enlighten us in the most useful of ways.....well....they were certainly enlightening.....
the first tape was all about our responsibility as a guard...which included a 10 minute segment on the importance of being clean and neat since people expect rent-a-cops, jim's term here not mine, to be slovenly because we've been given a bad rap in the media....so everyone please remember to wash your uniform especially if you get katsup on the front of your shirt, tuck in said shirt, remember your lovely trucker security hat and wear nice, polished shoes.....
this tape also included some important hints about how to act while on the job again since security guards have gotten such bad reps because of the media....personally the ones i recall seeing on tv generally just wind up getting killed because they didn't have a gun, but maybe that's just limited tv intake on my part.....these hints included things that were obviously aimed at straight white men.....like for instance...the raspy narrator's voice says "don't gawk at the oposite sex while on duty"....as they show a bunch of pudgy white dudes in uniform oggling some young woman in red short shorts.....i couldn't help but notice that camera spent a lot of time on the girl's butt and much less time on the guards...hmm....
then there was the tape of common sense things (and i recognize that this might not be common sense for the average caveman) like for instance.....always be nice....you are there to help not harm people....and when guarding a closed area of a building that people want to cut through, be sure and be polite no matter how agitated they may become....don't do things like raise your fists or giant mag light in a confrontational posture....and don't base your helping someone on personal prejudices...again don't help the pretty blonde girl in red short shorts while ignoring the old lady in the wheel chair....
and then there was the legal issues video...my personal favorite...and also the one that jim had to translate in spots for us due to crappy sound...this video included actual helpful advice like..if you are in a guard booth and you send someone away from a gated community who you know is intoxicated, call the police because you can be held responsible for letting that person drive away while impared.......
but it also included senarios about being a bad mall or hospital cop (note our company doesn't even do those types of contracts) and also about how to behave properly while conducting searches of people (also something we don't do)...the explaination of how to do a good search verses a bad search was so amazing that i must share it
so imagine the way that this video has been functioning up to this point....there is a young woman with bad bad frizzy 80s hair in a madonna-esque business suit explaining the finer points of the law involved in the scenerios being presented....and so she says "now we will look at proper and improper conduct when searching the contents of someone's purse or bag"...the video cuts to a scene of a sloppily dressed white male guard at a search post.....a young attractive woman (i swear it's that same gal with the short shorts) walks up in a purple dress carrying a HUGE black leather purse....the guard askes to search it and then begins pulling stuff out of it..he retreives a large video tape case and pops it open.....and then he says..."well well....triple x.....if you are into that sort of thing then maybe i should just take you on back to the office, pop in this tape, and innitiate a strip search" leer leer evil laugh evil laugh...........the video cuts away from this scene and back to our fair narrator....and she says "obvously this is an example of unexceptable behavior".....obviously this is the understatement of the year........
the last tape was attempting to explain to us how to fill out a guard report...which consists of if you see it and it looks suspicious you should write it down...and do it in a way that makes sense....seems reasonable to me...but it crapped out after 10 minutes...and yes that explaination actually took that long....
and then they sent us off to lunch.........
when we return, we are fingerprinted....and this is where my life gets a touch more interesting than i wanted it to.....there are moments in every transperson's life where the checking of a certian set of boxes can cause some distress.....generally up until recently i would answer honestly based on how the question was asked.....gender: obviously i'm not lying if i say male...because of course the entire world recognizes that sex and gender are NOT the same thing....and sex: again i try to be honest and say...not for quite some time........but this particular day, i had to address these boxes on a fingerprint card that was being sent to the state as part of my background check....so i left it blank thinking i could just skip past it...but jim decided to check our cards as we were handing them in and immediately noticed that it was blank....and so now i am faced with should i be honest (and when i say that i mean answer that question in terms of do i have a dick or do i not)...and have him question it in front of said unhappy fellow trainees or lie and hope the state figures it out?......
well of course i checked male.....because that's what he saw when he looked at me...and that's who i am....even if my birth certificate claims otherwise....and so on the form that went with it, there was this stupid question that i'm starting to see more and more (thank you fucking bush administration) about what other names have you worked under...and so i wrote my given name (really small) and noted it legally changed as of its date and prayed for the best....
well obviously either the state figured it out...or missed it alltogether....since there's a more of this story to tell....
i had received a phone call from the company i now work mere hours after leaving my resume online....i was excited by this quick turn around having be really skeptical about people actually receiving my resume... and it not actually being some sort of joke site that promised jobs but instead was run by someone who just got his jollies out of teasing poor unemployed saps....so i waited a bit to see if the other things i applied for would pan out....and actually i did get several calls, the only problem is that they all wanted me to work 8-5 everyday...
and just so you know...even when i had a full time job....it was at a newspaper and was never 8-5...i generally regard 8 am as a good time to still be sleeping as i am usually and naturally up until 3 am.....
so i decided after about a week and some time having tiny panic attacks that i should check into this security gig....little did i realize that when one calls this company, expresses interest, and brings by a resume and fills out an application...you are in fact hired upon strolling into the building....no questions, no interview....just a thanks, a handshake, and a be back in two days for training......great....and frightening....
so wednesday arrives and i'm in the office for "training"...so i was mentally preparing myself for videos, paper work and lots of role playing...lets face it...i work for the reading cult and also have had tons of volunteer training in my life between stuff i did in high school and undergrad and now as a happy participant in queerland....i was also slightly afraid that there could be some sort of obsticle course involved.....but i really wasn't prepared for what the day would actually hold
picture it....sicily...1932......no...picture it...a small conference room.....a table, chairs, tiny tv/vcr unit, stack of videos, folders of paperwork...and vacuum cleaners.....not just uprights but also those huge units that are built into walls so all you do is hook up a hose from room to room.....basically there is enough room for 5 people to conference...uncomfortably...and enough vacuum cleaners for us to have one for each hand....perhaps we will be role playing with vacuums?
so i take my seat, and across from me are the two single most unhappy looking people i have seen in a long time...my mother included.....there is a woman, mid 50s i'd guess, salt-n-pepper hair, longer grown mullet, flannel plaid shirt, jeans, boots....immediately i thought oh good i'm not the only queer person in the room (this will prove to be incorrect a bit later)...and she's scowling and staring at the table as if it has just insulted her haircut.....and this tall, slight, white boy...like 17 i think...he hasn't even accomplished facial fuzz yet let alone hair......is curled into that grey office chair like it's a lifeboat and has pushed himself as far away from the woman as he can get without french kissing the nearest vacuum cleaner...
i sit...i smile...at no one...and we wait in awkward silence until jim comes into the room....now jim is a friendly older guy who used to be with the tucson police department...and he's our trainer for the day....which means that his job will actually consist of changing out video tapes, asking us if we have question, taking our tax forms when we are done filling them out, and filling in the gaps for us when the sound craps out on the vcr....so without....well any ado...the baradge of video tape watching begins.....
these tapes were nothing short of AMAZING.....and i mean that in an utterly mindblowing sort of way.....these things were from the late 70s and early 80s....jim at one point tried to claim that they were but 6 or 7 years old...but i know better...the kid across from me wasn't even born when these tapes were well into use.....and these tapes were all the training that we were getting....forget role playing and obsticle courses....these tapes were sure to enlighten us in the most useful of ways.....well....they were certainly enlightening.....
the first tape was all about our responsibility as a guard...which included a 10 minute segment on the importance of being clean and neat since people expect rent-a-cops, jim's term here not mine, to be slovenly because we've been given a bad rap in the media....so everyone please remember to wash your uniform especially if you get katsup on the front of your shirt, tuck in said shirt, remember your lovely trucker security hat and wear nice, polished shoes.....
this tape also included some important hints about how to act while on the job again since security guards have gotten such bad reps because of the media....personally the ones i recall seeing on tv generally just wind up getting killed because they didn't have a gun, but maybe that's just limited tv intake on my part.....these hints included things that were obviously aimed at straight white men.....like for instance...the raspy narrator's voice says "don't gawk at the oposite sex while on duty"....as they show a bunch of pudgy white dudes in uniform oggling some young woman in red short shorts.....i couldn't help but notice that camera spent a lot of time on the girl's butt and much less time on the guards...hmm....
then there was the tape of common sense things (and i recognize that this might not be common sense for the average caveman) like for instance.....always be nice....you are there to help not harm people....and when guarding a closed area of a building that people want to cut through, be sure and be polite no matter how agitated they may become....don't do things like raise your fists or giant mag light in a confrontational posture....and don't base your helping someone on personal prejudices...again don't help the pretty blonde girl in red short shorts while ignoring the old lady in the wheel chair....
and then there was the legal issues video...my personal favorite...and also the one that jim had to translate in spots for us due to crappy sound...this video included actual helpful advice like..if you are in a guard booth and you send someone away from a gated community who you know is intoxicated, call the police because you can be held responsible for letting that person drive away while impared.......
but it also included senarios about being a bad mall or hospital cop (note our company doesn't even do those types of contracts) and also about how to behave properly while conducting searches of people (also something we don't do)...the explaination of how to do a good search verses a bad search was so amazing that i must share it
so imagine the way that this video has been functioning up to this point....there is a young woman with bad bad frizzy 80s hair in a madonna-esque business suit explaining the finer points of the law involved in the scenerios being presented....and so she says "now we will look at proper and improper conduct when searching the contents of someone's purse or bag"...the video cuts to a scene of a sloppily dressed white male guard at a search post.....a young attractive woman (i swear it's that same gal with the short shorts) walks up in a purple dress carrying a HUGE black leather purse....the guard askes to search it and then begins pulling stuff out of it..he retreives a large video tape case and pops it open.....and then he says..."well well....triple x.....if you are into that sort of thing then maybe i should just take you on back to the office, pop in this tape, and innitiate a strip search" leer leer evil laugh evil laugh...........the video cuts away from this scene and back to our fair narrator....and she says "obvously this is an example of unexceptable behavior".....obviously this is the understatement of the year........
the last tape was attempting to explain to us how to fill out a guard report...which consists of if you see it and it looks suspicious you should write it down...and do it in a way that makes sense....seems reasonable to me...but it crapped out after 10 minutes...and yes that explaination actually took that long....
and then they sent us off to lunch.........
when we return, we are fingerprinted....and this is where my life gets a touch more interesting than i wanted it to.....there are moments in every transperson's life where the checking of a certian set of boxes can cause some distress.....generally up until recently i would answer honestly based on how the question was asked.....gender: obviously i'm not lying if i say male...because of course the entire world recognizes that sex and gender are NOT the same thing....and sex: again i try to be honest and say...not for quite some time........but this particular day, i had to address these boxes on a fingerprint card that was being sent to the state as part of my background check....so i left it blank thinking i could just skip past it...but jim decided to check our cards as we were handing them in and immediately noticed that it was blank....and so now i am faced with should i be honest (and when i say that i mean answer that question in terms of do i have a dick or do i not)...and have him question it in front of said unhappy fellow trainees or lie and hope the state figures it out?......
well of course i checked male.....because that's what he saw when he looked at me...and that's who i am....even if my birth certificate claims otherwise....and so on the form that went with it, there was this stupid question that i'm starting to see more and more (thank you fucking bush administration) about what other names have you worked under...and so i wrote my given name (really small) and noted it legally changed as of its date and prayed for the best....
well obviously either the state figured it out...or missed it alltogether....since there's a more of this story to tell....
why this job? why now?
so i had to get another job this semester since i didn't have the oportunity to teach...and as is my nature...i put this off for as long as i could...which wound up being too long....so i lept onto the tucsonhelpwanted.com website to discover that i am actually pretty qualified to do a lot of different things...so long as those things are full time....which as we all know doesn't go with being a full time grad student....
so i landed a part time job...rather quickly.... as a security guard
this blog is dedicated to all the weird jobs that i've had ...and yes there have been a few....either as recognizably strange from the get go or as they sort of emerged with all their unusual glory....perhaps i will talk about others...but for now the amazing life of a transgendered security guard is what i give you here....
enjoy
so i landed a part time job...rather quickly.... as a security guard
this blog is dedicated to all the weird jobs that i've had ...and yes there have been a few....either as recognizably strange from the get go or as they sort of emerged with all their unusual glory....perhaps i will talk about others...but for now the amazing life of a transgendered security guard is what i give you here....
enjoy
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