From Talking Chickens To Flying Beer Bottles —

Standing in front of the stage with four of my colleagues, I looked out over the 40,000 capacity arena and realized that soon it would be filled with about as many screaming 12-year-old girls.

It was my very first assignment as a security guard. A Taylor Swift concert at the city’s largest venue. A 40,000 seat multi-use arena/auditorium.

Being new to security I was a bit nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. Generally, new guards start part-time and get the occasional gigs such as concerts and special events. It was a good way to break in but it still didn’t make me feel any less anxious.

My job along with four others was to guard the stage in case anybody tried to climb onto it. Somehow I doubted that would ever happen, but at the same time I thought, if 40,000 screaming 12-year-old girls wanted to rush the stage, I certainly wasn’t going to stop them.

As it turned out I was correct. However, the night did not go without incident. The auditorium had rules that we as security guards had to enforce. One such rule was “No standing on the seats”. It turned out that one father decided to do just that with his daughter on his shoulders, in the front row. Not once, but twice, and was warned about it both times. When he did it a third time he and his daughter were escorted out of the venue. I am not sure how much front-row seats to a Taylor Swift concert costs, but whatever it was, that father just threw it away because he wasn’t going to get a refund.

As I gained more experience in security I was able to switch to full-time and get my own “permanent” properties to look after.

One such property was located downtown. “Downtown”, that right there was a turn-off for me, but I couldn’t really refuse as it was my first full-time property.

The two mixed-use buildings were connected only by the lower parking level. My job was to “babysit” both buildings overnight…and, oh, I did mention this was “downtown”?

Both buildings had commercial on the ground level. One building had four floors of offices above. while the other had a sleazy hotel on the second and two-story residential on the third and fourth. Then there was the huge underground parking shared by both that was monitored by a third-party company that I still had to patrol.

The hotel had its own security but sometimes I was asked to help.

On one night I was asked to help remove a disruptive individual from the hotel. Upon arrival, just past the check-in desk, I noticed that a man was arguing with two other security guards. I also noticed that the man was dressed in a chicken costume. It was mid-summer so nowhere near Halloween.

Between the three of us we were able to get the man to leave, but all the time I was trying very hard to be professional as difficult as it was.

On another night while patrolling the parking area I saw two men having sex right there in the middle of the public parking. Although I don’t understand that lifestyle, I think it can be agreed that kind of activity does not belong in a public parking space. I was at a loss for work, but I did have to ask them to leave, at which point I was completely ignored as the pair continued.

I did not stay long at that property and was moved to another property a little further down the street.

This was a larger hotel building with 20 floors, but the top 10 floors housed mostly long-term residents while the lower floors were for short-term stays. Although this hotel was unique in that the minimum stay was 30 days. It was primarily used by film crews. Every time a film was being shot in the city, the crew would stay at that hotel. In addition, the staff of Disney Cruise Lines also stayed there. Apparently, there was a class or course of some kind that they had to take in the city as part of their job orientation. Then there were other various business people who stayed for the purpose of doing business in the city.

The best people were the Disney people. I never had any problems with them, but that might have had to do with Disney. They were likely told to behave as they were representing Disney. I would not put it beyond Disney to do that.

The film crews were another story. They were the most impatient and rude people I had ever met.

Then there was that one night. There was always that one night. I had started receiving some rather odd phone calls to the security office. Something about beer bottles being thrown from the building.

Sure enough, I had discovered that two guys staying in a suite on the ninth floor were tossing empty beer bottles from the balcony and they were landing in the street. Ironically, there was a film crew shooting across the street and some of the bottles were striking their trucks.

The police were called by a number of people. When they arrived, I told them the room number and offered to escort them up, but they advised me to stay.

It turned out that the two staying in the suite were investment brokers and it was their last night in the hotel and they were slightly drunk. The police told them to “stop it”, and then left the building.

Wait. These two investment brokers got away with doing that? They weren’t ticketed or charged, or taken away, or anything? Just “stop it”?

I wonder if the fact that they were investment brokers (rich) had anything to do with it?

Then another time I was sent to a residential-only area. Two apartment buildings. Anytime I was sent to an apartment building, I always expected the worst. Why would an apartment building need a security guard?

The two buildings were across from each other but exact opposites. One was immaculate and the other was a dump. Guess which one had the security office?

There was a serious cockroach and mouse infestation and the garbage area constantly had bedbug-infested furniture in it. It got to the point where I stopped bringing lunch to work for fear that I might bring something a little extra home with me.

The last straw was when I was sent to another series of residential buildings. An entire four city blocks of them. Nine buildings in total. I had to patrol all of them.

This was right around the time of the George Floyd incident and right at the beginning of the pandemic.

I would patrol with a partner and he was a black man and me being white, that caused more than a few issues at the time. Apparently, because a black man was killed by police in the U.S. it had something to do with a white security guard working with a black security guard. I got along fine with my colleague, but apparently, the community pictured me as the “bad guy”.

I had worked at a total of eight different properties over my eleven years as a security guard and I had finally had it. I could no longer take any more crap. The weirdness combined with the disrespect and name-calling. I left security for good.

To this day I don’t wish that job upon anyone.