[bobbinsbob]

I used to be a security guard after I left the army (no skills in civvi street to get a better job).

Couple of things come to mind reading this. One that security guard is probably getting paid a pittance to do that job and you get what you pay for. Two the guard recognises you and your colleagues, knows you work there and doesn't really care that you're playing silly games because on their wage it's not worth the hassle pulling you up for you to get all high and mighty about the inconvenience of a lowly security guard daring to question you. Three that single guard, whilst ostensibly there for "security" is really just there for show, there's no way a single lowly paid guard can possibly provide security for a building housing 8 or 9 companies even with the best intentions.

My experience as a guard was that the employees of the companies within the building treated me with contemptuous distain until something happened at which point it was righteous anger.

[exikyut]

> My experience as a guard was that the employees of the companies within the building treated me with contemptuous distain until something happened at which point it was righteous anger.

:(

It's good to see (from the existence of these new articles) that companies are slowly starting to realize that security isn't something to sweep under the carpet and hold in distain.

What do you mean by "righteous anger" though? It sounds like there's a potentially interesting story (or three) hiding in there...

[bobbinsbob]

I have many but I'll tell you this one.

I once worked on a building that was essentially ruled by the office manager (henceforward to be referred to a the wicked witch, WW for short) of one of the buildings companies. The building manager would physically shake everytime she was near.

Anyway to cut a long story short I went to the toilet without asking (yes you heard that right) and came back to find this WW at my desk basically vibrating with righteous rage. An argument ensues which ends up with WW storming off to make a complaint about me going to the toilet and my "bad" attitude which according to WW left to whole building insecure.

Up comes the building manager. I had to call him when I needed the toilet from now on.

Anyway I had noticed that the vast majority of the employees of the office WW managed had invalid passes, they were meant to have photos and employee numbers, but practically all had worn away. So I started to do my job "properly" as per the instructions set forth by WW. Every one with an invalid pass had it removed and they could not get back to work, WW was called to verify identity and she would just give them their pass back and allow them in. WW was not impressed. This lasted until lunch when no one got back into the office. They were queuing out into the street. WW was livid and tried to publicly ridicule me, just a lowly security guard messing thing up.

By the end of our second argument during which I was overly polite in tesponse to the screaming banshee the WW had turned into it was obvious she had lost.

End result. All employees allowed back into work after reissue of invalid I'd cards, I was allowed to go to the toilet when I wanted, I was sacked from that building that evening.

[exikyut]

Ouch. Wow :/

Have you considered (or do you) post(ing) this sort of thing to https://reddit.com/r/talesfromsecurity? This kind of thing would definitely be very well received.

[shalmanese]

You should post this on Reddit's /r/MaliciousCompliance

[SomeStupidPoint]

Not going to discuss specific stories for confidentiality reasons, but when I was a security guard, bad clients only had two things to say:

When things are fine: "Why are you in the way, doing X?"

When things aren't fine: "Why didn't you do something?"

Nevermind if the X they explicitly tell you not to do is related to stopping bad thing.

[exikyut]

This also sounds like IT. It seems that security and tech are considered to be nothing but cost centers. And then the world can't stop laughing at the string of things that happened to Equifax in a row....

[bobbinsbob]

This, this sums it up perfectly.

[giesch]

It seems pretty clear that what they were holding in disdain wasn't security, it was anyone who had a non-tech/management job.