Officers are always on their guard

AN ARTICLE WAS RECENTLY PUBLISHED IN The Financial Times (issue dated 23 August) as part of an ongoing series targeting “the worst jobs ever”. This time around, the subject of security guarding fell under the spotlight as journalist Sathnam Sanghera detailed: “My night as a security guard”. Here, we reproduce that article followed by a response from Douglas Greenwell, marketing director at Group 4 Securicor

“WE WERE ONLY HALF AN HOUR INTO A 12- hour shift and already the conversation had covered the 1983 Factory and Workshops Act, the weather, canteen food, Margaret Thatcher and the way in which the Embankment along the Thames had narrowed the river and increased its depth.

“A slience mushroomed between us. Instinctively, my hand reached towards the mouse attached to one of the computer terminals. ‘No!’ warned Trevor. ‘Those belong to the receptionists! We’re under strict instructions not to touch them!’ What? So we can’t e-mail? ‘No!’ We can’t surf the net? ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, no! We have to keep our minds on the job!’

“The job in question was being a security guard. I had ended up here, on duty in The Financial Times’ reception area on a Tuesday evening, after the most common office conversation of them all (next to the one about what you’d do if you won the National Lottery) – ‘What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?’

“I had remarked that working in a hospital laundry was by far the most depressing thing I’d ever done for the money. My colleague had responded by saying that this was nothing compared to one of the worst jobs ever: being a security guard.

“I was shocked. Security guarding had always looked quite easy. Appealing even. How could it possibly be worse than wiping blood, excrement and vomit off hospital sheets? I ended up volunteering to complete a night shift with the office security team from 7.00 pm through to 7.00 am to find out.

“I was only minutes into the shift when my biggest assumption about the job – that you could while away the hours reading novels, browsing the Internet and contributing to late night radio discussion programmes – was proved wrong. It appeared that security guarding actually involved a large degree of security guarding. ‘We have to keep a look-out for walk-in thieves, tramps, drunks and disgruntled ex-employees,’ pronounced Trevor, my partner for the evening.

“Despite this, there were already several things I liked about security guarding. I liked spying on people via CCTV. I liked seeing how silly my colleagues looked in their staff card photos. I liked the time I had to appreciate the office environment. Indeed, it was only after sitting there for an hour that I noticed, for the first time, that there was a green plant on the front reception desk, planted in a vase full of glass chippings. Why had someone thought this would look good? Flicking through the CCTV screens I also noticed, for the first time, that there was a litter bin outside the ground floor entrance with ‘Sponsored by the FT’ emblazoned across it. Why had the marketing department decided to sponsor a bin?

“By dinner time I’d concluded that my colleague was wrong. Being a security guard was great – not least because having dinner in the office at 9.00 pm is preferable to having lunch in the office at 1.00 pm in every way. There are no queues for food. There’s little chance of the boss sitting next to you. And there’s enough room at the table to spread out the newspapers and belch if you need to.

“I arrived for my next task – a night patrol with Trevor – with a spring in my step. He had prepared for the job by donning a reflective jacket and strapping a high-powered torch across his torso as if it were a machine gun.

He explained that we would be looking for suspicious packages around the perimeter of the building, checking locks and emergency telephones and inspecting vehicles to make sure there was nothing ‘untoward’ going on.

“As it happened, there were no suspicious packages, all of the locks were locked and the emergency phones working. But I did spot something highly untoward in one of the director’s limousines. Suppressing a shriek, I beckoned to Trevor, who ran over and shone his torch at the front seat. He looked back at me, exasperated. ‘I’m afraid that a Phil Collins CD doesn’t classify as something untoward’. Trevor marched off, stating: ‘I quite like a bit of Phil Collins, occasionally.’

“Running after him, I asked if he’d ever found anything ‘untoward’ during a patrol. ‘No’. Had he ever found a suspicious package. ‘No’. Had he ever seen anything salacious? ‘No’. Anything horrific? ‘No’. Anything slightly titillating? ‘No’. Anything mildly violent? ‘No’.

“This was the theme for the rest of the night. On the ground floor security desk, at 10.30 pm, there was some excitement when Trevor declared a package addressed to the Fashion Desk ‘suspicious’. He took it away, had it X-rayed and came back, clutching it under his arm. Was it dangerous? ‘No. It’s an electric toothbrush’. Had a suspicious package ever turned out to be dangerous? ‘No. We get quite a few electric toothbrushes.’

“And this is the bad thing about being a security guard. It’s not the endless conversational silences, the dining alone at 9.00 pm or the half-day shifts that are difficult. It’s the fact that, even though nothing ever happens, you still have to behave as if something very serious might happen at any minute. This isn’t boring. It’s just exhausting.

“In fact, a recent article in The Financial Times reported that scientists are discovering that human beings are just not ‘wired’ to do such surveillance work. Cognitive psychologists say that after 30 minutes of sustained concentration, the ability to detect signals drops significantly.

“This, at least in part, is my excuse for having ended my shift early. At 12.15 am I was exhausted. At 12.20 am I was in a taxi. By 1.30 am I was tucked up in bed, the tune of Phil Collins’ ‘Another Day In Paradise’ running through my head along with a new-found admiration for security guards.”

SIR – THE FINANCIAL TIMES ARTICLE entitled ‘Why be a security guard if you can’t surf the net?’ couldn’t fail to catch my eye. A journalist from the paper had spent a night shift as a security officer, only to have his expectation that he’d be able to surf the Internet all night blown out of the water within a few minutes.

I was initially disappointed to see the article open with a summary of how the author had a conversation with a colleague about the worst jobs they’d ever had to do. This discussion had preceded the author’s decision to take the night shift and see how bad it really could be.

We shouldn’t be all that surprised that the profession still has a poor reputation among those who aren’t in touch with the industry. Indeed, Sathnam Sanghera’s preconceptions speak volumes about the amount of work still to be done to educate the business community.

However, it was gratifying to see the author learn at first hand that there’s a great deal of misconception surrounding the demands of being a security officer. As he learned, it’s a far cry from browsing the Internet, reading novels and catching up on late night radio phone-ins. Actually, it’s a challenging responsibility requiring both mental and physical strength, vigilance and total concentration. As the reformed sceptic found, it can be exhausting, but it’s also rewarding to be responsible for the safety of others.

I’d like to challenge everyone who’s ignorant of what being a security officer entails to spend a shift or two doing the job. There’s no room for slackers.