[swombat]

I can't recall where I heard/read that, but I seem to remember some psychology research that proposed that the psychologically damaging thing about the search you describe is not actually the search itself, but precisely the fact that you can't do anything about it.

IIRC, the conclusion of that research was something along the lines of: to completely destroy someone's self-confidence/emotional stability, all you need to do is that every day, for five minutes, at the same time, five people appear out of nowhere and hold him down, without harming him, for five minutes. If you do that every day for a year or two, you'll have a remnant of a human being at the end (in most cases).

My father works with victims of "mobbing" (basically bullying at work). One of his clients was a normal office worker who was being bullied by the security guard at work. Every morning, the security guard would single him out for a pat down search - every single morning. Apparently the guy was on the verge of a nervous breakdown by the time my dad saw him.

[Zak]

I have to ask: why would a security guard in a normal office situation have the authority to randomly pat down someone who is known to work in the building?

[swombat]

I don't know, I never asked... I think it was a government job... there might have been some special security. No idea, though, sorry.