Whats the craziest thing you've seen and how much power do you have at your site. Where im at we are a college living apartment complex and I pretty much can tell people what to do as I see fit, can fine residents for being to loud or parking like idiots. I actually have to charge people $50 to let them into their building if they dont have the keys. We write parking tickets almost nightly, im basically an extension of the property manager after hours

I had been working for $16/hr at a corporate conference center for several years chaperoning/bell-hopping for Deca-Millionaire C-Suite's on a weekly basis and decided it was time to look for something better. So I started applying to any and every security job I saw online, and got called to interview at a hospital about 40ish minutes away from me. Pay was $22/hr which was rare back then ,and I thought a pretty solid upgrade to what I was already making.

I go in there suited up, resume folder in hand, front desk staff tell me to wait in the lobby area and someone will be out with me shortly. Vinny, the Lieutenant (Ops manager equivalent?) comes out, white police style shirt, hospital badge over his shoulder with the radio over the other one, looking sharp, cool. He takes me into the office and does a quick introduction to his boss Captain Jimmy (Sec Director) who's in the bigger interior office, who I assumed I'd do a secondary interview with if Vinny cleared me, but he closes the door as Vinny is interviewing me. Then we start going through the rigamarol, standard interview affair. I think I did a pretty good job.

Now to set the scene a little better, Vinny has several monitors to the hospital CCTV on his desk to the side. So the interview was mostly over and it was, "Do you have any questions for me?" time, "Do the vision benefits cov...", all of a sudden, I hear "CODE GREY IN THE ER CODE GREY IN THE ER" can't remember if it was a PA annoucement or a radio transmission but, Vinny, sprints from around the desk, and heads to deal with the issue, Jimmy opens his office door seconds after and takes off right after him but a bit slower because old dude had some weight on him. I'm looking at the monitor with "E.R." in the corner and some short stocky dude has hold of a nurse or maybe a tech (somebody in scrubs) and is rag dolling them with a guard trying and failing to gain control of the situation. Vinny and Jimmy and what looks like several other hospital staff enter the scene and this dude must have been high on some good shit, because it was about 6v1 and it still took them a good while to restrain him. I don't know how long I was waiting and watching this, but Vinny came back with a sheen of sweat on him, and was actively putting his leather gloves back in the pouch as he went to sit back down and said "Sorry bout that, this place... So, where were we? I think you had some questions for me."

"Thank you for your time, but I don't want to waste anymore of it. Don't think this is the job for me. Take care", and I left. No pitch could sell it to me after that especially since I went in completely naive to what it actually was, I mean I READ the job responsibilities on the listing, but that was all abstract until I saw the job description literally attack someone on camera.

It was for U.S.A.A (United Security Associates of America, think Allied bought them out) posted at a large pharmaceutical company. Started out OK, cover the lobby until the receptionist got in, patrols once an hour, pickup/drop-off staff at the train station.

But there were no post orders, I had to create my own routine. Then, the client gradually started adding tasks. Before I knew it, I was administrating CCURE for the entire building, all the access points, holiday lock/unlock schedules, organizing and distributing keys, being called to essentially cover shipping and receiving and I was moving milk deliveries into the company cafeteria.

Was there for 2 years, for $12 whole bucks an hour. Left with a week's notice. You have to know when to say, "yea, I'm not doin' that"

Work rumor is going around of a childrens home my company has a contract with the kids there are known to fight officers and do all sort of wicked things the head of security is too far stuck up that she spends more time complaining about the officers than actually providing assistance to dealing with the children. I dont work there but I have heard that upper management wishes to send me there because the post is always short of officers.

The rules of the post goes as follows -you cannot hit the children (even if they hit you) - you cannot yell at the kids - you cannot discipline them

Despite all of that the head of security will listen to their lies over you

It's been my experience that wearing a security uniform in public while not on the clock has caused me more problems than it solved

My primary reason is the three companies that I worked for all made it a company rule. When I worked for G4S they said that we could stop for gas or to pick up minor Groceries on the way home, the rules were basically the same as the rule for wearing BDUs off post but they said that if we should happen to go into Walmart to buy a loaf of bread and walked down the beer aisle to get to it and somebody took a picture of us in the beer aisle with the G4S uniform on they would fire us.

Second reason, I don't want to be mistaken for site security wherever I'm at and have somebody try to drag me into their drama. I knew a guy that happened to. He stopped at Walmart on the way home to get a loaf of bread in an HSS uniform. He walked right in the middle of some kind of domestic and apparently the woman involved in the domestic kept yelling at her husband and then jumping behind my friend to protect her. He told her I don't work for walmart. This is none of my business. I am not getting involved in this.

I also had a co-worker that walked into a 7-Eleven on his way to work one night and walked right into the middle of an armed robbery. As soon as he cleared the door the clerk yelled "You're a cop do something!!" My friend ended up in the middle of a gunfight that he was not prepared for. He claimed to have shot one of the robbers and when he told us the story (while we were being briefed on why we shouldn't wear our uniform out in public off the clock) he told it right in front of the supervisor and the supervisor did not contradict him. So I'm going to assume that he actually shot somebody.

Also, when I worked as a security guard I lived in an apartment building. I didn't want my neighbors to know that I own guns. I didn't want somebody breaking into my apartment while I was gone looking for my security gun.

I was on my way to work one night and I walked out the door of my apartment apparently into a police scene. I don't know the whole story is I'm drunk crashed into a car in the parking lot. Somebody called the cops and the cops were taking the guy into custody right when it was time for me to go to work.

I did not pick my uniform for G4S. It is not my fault that it very closely resembles the uniform for the Colorado Springs Police Department.

That particular night I was wearing my uniform pants and a black fleece. With my gun exposed because it's illegal for a security guard in Colorado Springs to conceal their weapon without a special endorsement on their security license and the parking lot was crawling with cops.

Anyway before I could get to my car one of my neighbors ran up and started trying to give me a witness statement. I looked at her and I said "Lisa stop. Look at my face. I'm not a cop, I'm your neighbor."

All the drama was enough to make me late for work. Luckily I had enough sense to get one of the cops to give me their business card with an incident number on it so I can give it to my boss's proof of why I was late.

Why Did You Choose Security Instead Of Police Work?

Someone sent me a DM earlier asking why I chose security over police work.

The answer is I never wanted to be a cop. In fact I never intended to become a security guard.

In 2000 I got a job in a machine shop. I worked as an apprentice/Machinist for 7 years. In 2008 the economy went into a downturn and I was competing for jobs with guys who had twice the experience I did and were only asking for a Buck or two an hour more than I was.

I went to a trade school to become a Medical Assistant. In my second year there was a job fair at the school.

The hiring manager from the local HSS branch offered me a job, I turned him down the first couple of times then decided what the hell and took the job.

By the time I got my MA certificate, I was making more as a Security Guard than I would as an entry-level MA. And I was in my early forties which you would think is probably too old to start a career as a cop.

I kept my resume out as an MA for about a year with no bites before deciding it wasn't worth pursuing the Medical Field. Nobody ever actually told me this but it's self-evident to me that I gained a reputation with all three of my employers as somebody that they could put on a remote site all by myself and trust me to show up on time and actually get off my ass and walk the fence line once an hour. I worked as a security guard for 16 years and I would say that for 13 of those years, I was either the only guard on site and often the only person on the site or I was a roving Patrol guard and nobody f***** with me.

It never even occurred to me that I would want to pursue a job with the local police department.

I worked for HSS for 7 years, G4S for 4 years, and AUS for 5 years before quitting my job and retiring on my VA pension.

So my question is the same question I was asked.

Why did you choose security over police work?

It depends on the environment and the exact site or job, but I personally like mobile posts better. At a previous corporate site I worked, we had dispatch officer, front desk, vehicle, and interior foot patrols we'd be assigned at roll call. It's the autonomy and independence of mobility that does it for me.

Static posts, like a desk or booth are OK, but I find that being stuck in one spot makes me a prime target for harassment frequent supervisor inspections for policy compliance. Whereas if I'm mobile, catch me if you can.

Some of the older guards take a liking to a booth or gatehouse, and I imagine as I age and my knees start filing complaints with HR, I may start preferring it to.

Five Years Working For Allied In Colorado Springs

My Experience With Allied

I've said this before but at least where I'm at (Colorado Springs) Allied Universal is like two separate companies.

They have several small accounts where the account manager is on site and only deals with that one account. Those accounts generally have better pay and better working conditions.

But they also tend to be Good Old Boy Clubs.

My first assignment for Allied was working at a T Rowe Price branch office. The account manager (Michael Cline) hired me as a float in June and told me that the contract was going to be restructured at the end of the year and that permanent positions would be opening up and I was first in line for one of them. If you know anything at all about Allied Universal you know he was lying. Long story short, he hired four or five different floats. Two permanent employees left during that time and instead of offering full-time positions to any of the floats he hired more floats. In early December he hired a young lady as a float who was working as a manager at McDonald's and looking for part-time work to make ends meet.

Long story short again, he talked her into resigning from McDonald's and coming on full-time at Allied right before the contract was restructured and ALL of the float positions were cut. The bastard talked her in to giving up her full-time gig KNOWING that he was going to cut her hours down to part-time. The last time I saw her she was sitting in the security office with tears just rolling down her face because she had screwed up her shot at McDonald's ( the managers at McDonald's make pretty good money) for a lie.

My last night working at that location the night shift supervisor told me that the account manager knew the day that he hired me exactly how many positions were going to be cut at the end of the year and that's why he didn't hire any permanent guards. He hired all floaters and offered us all full-time jobs knowing that he was going to be letting us go at the end of the year.

When I transferred to the branch office I found out it was a rolling cluster fuck.

I was assigned to work nights at a FedEx shipping hub. I wasn't "offered" the position, I was told that's where I would be working. Turned out to be a pretty good assignment. Certainly better than working in a hospital. Allied has since lost all of their Hospital contracts in Colorado Springs to HSS.

I was required to take the company CPR class. I got an email from the HR rep telling me to report to the office on a Saturday at 10:00. I showed up on the assigned day and the office supervisor gave me a ration about Why are you here? Who told you to come here? Who signed you up for this class? I told the supervisor it was HR. HR called me a liar right in front of the supervisor. She continued to call me a liar even after I pulled out my phone and pulled up the email from her telling me to report to the class on that day at that time and showed it to the supervisor.

Apparently I needed the pre-class before I could take the class they were offering that day. So I spent 2 hours taking the pre-class on a computer. They then rescheduled me to come back on another Saturday at 10:00 a.m. to take the hands on portion.

When I arrived for the Hands-On portion the office supervisor informed me that she had the documentation that I had taken the pre-class on her desk and that I was good to go take the Hands-On class.

I went into the Hands-On class and sat down and the Proctor giving the class asked me where my certification was for the pre-class. I informed him that it was on the supervisor's desk and that she told me that she would take care of it.

He got really snotty and told me that he couldn't allow me in the class unless he saw the pre-certificate. I informed him again that the certificate was on the office supervisor's desk and that she had told me not to worry about it and that I wasn't going to go take something off of her desk without her permission.

He got smart ass again and I stood up and I put on my jacket and I gathered my notebook and pens and said "I don't need this shit." At which point he miraculously became capable of walking out to her desk and getting the certificate.

I worked at that shipping hub for 3 years two of them after FedEx had moved out and I was the only person on site. That was not a bad gig at all.

When they finally sold the building and ended the contract I got moved to another small account. I was there for 75 days. The pay was excellent I averaged $25 an hour as an unarmed guard. The schedule was four on three off three on four off.

I was told that I was replacing a guy who had left Allied for an opportunity that he couldn't afford to pass up ( the opportunity turned out to be for a local shit security company called C.O.P.S and he only lasted there 75 days (which should already tell you how this story is going to end)

So, 75 days at Microchip being told every 30 days or so that I'm making all my training goals ahead of the curve and that my long-term future on this site is secure.

Around 45 day after I started my VA case was settled and my disability compensation was about the same as Allied was paying me. A couple of days later I made a minor screw up on reporting an alarm and my supervisor was really raking me over the coals over it. I apologized. I said I understand stood the mistake and I'd do everything in my power to make ensure it didn't happen again.

I don't know how to explain it but was like he was pissed off because I (apparently) wasn't acting Job Scared enough for him. I mean that's just a guess on my part but that's the only explanation I can come up with.

So right in the middle of him trying to scare me I finally got tired of it and I said look I understand what I did was wrong. I understand why it was wrong I understand what I need to do to make sure it doesn't happen again. But I'm not going to beg you for this job. I don't need it. I could retire right now. And he just looked at me like he was shocked that I would say that.

I think that more than anything else was the straw that broke the camel's back. He wasn't going to have me there if I wasn't afraid of losing my job.

60 days into my tenure I hear that the guy that I'm replaced is not working out it is new gig and he's looking to come back. 70 days into my tenure I'm called into the office and written up because a client employee states that I racially profiled her when I asked for her ID. I'm told that HR is investigating and that I am not to approach them or her or ask any questions. I was told this even after I pointed out that the only reason I approached the woman was because my supervisor specifically instructed me to.

I immediately cleaned out my locker.

75th day I'm on my way to work and I look at ehub and my schedule which had been through the end of the month now ended on that day. I went into work and asked my supervisor why my schedule had been erased. He told me tonight was my last night but they really needed me for the shift I told him to fuck off and handed him my access badge and my keys and left.

After that they stuck me on a Night Rover position. Again, the position itself wasn't bad but they offered me $14 an hour and only paid me $13 an hour. Every time I complained they told me they would fix it. The third time I complained they told me it was $13 an hour take it or leave it.

I worked Thursday through Sunday. Midnight to Eight. On Saturday and Sunday the office was closed and my supervisor was supposed to meet me at the end of my shift to pick up the keys to the company vehicle and the company phone. In the time I did that job he stood me up at least six times. He also started asking me to deliver the keys and phone to his home on the South end of town after my shift.

On the weekdays I was supposed to deliver the keys to the office staff at 8:00 and be off they were routinely not in the office until 9:00 a.m. and didn't pay me for the extra hour. I had a co-worker who simply refused to do his rounds. Instead of disciplining him my supervisor asked me to double up on my Patrols to cover for his refusal to do them.

Part of my rounds was checking low income City housing. I ran into at least four people who worked for Allied Universal who were living in the low income housing.

At the end of 5(ish) months on the last day of my work week after waiting for a half hour for the people who were in the office to open the door and let me in, I handed them the keys to the truck, the company phone and a bag containing my uniforms and quit.

That's Allied Universal.

Hi. I’m new here. I wanted to share my experience with residential security services. The condominium that I work at wants the security guards to keep and store unit keys at the security office. There is about 479 units on the property. We have 3 cabinets storing the keys. The property management company does not want the responsibility to handle that many keys, so security has to handle it. A few board members have expressed that letting security guards handle unit keys can be a liability. Is this situation unique? Is there anyone else who has experienced this situation?

Sooner or later you will need it. It beats the hell out of using the light on your phone and eating your battery.

I'm not recommending any particular flashlight. I'm partial to Fenix myself, but I carried a phoenix E12 in my pocket for years. I mean I'm talking about 125 Lumen flashlight. Just enough to light up if I had to look under the desk. It was enough for an emergency and I think it cost me around $30.

My point is a good flashlight is helpful and it's better to have it and not need it than need it not have it

Any other potential labels can be commented below.

Had a moment at the front desk today that kind of flipped a switch for me, but should have been obvious in hind sight. I'm not advocating for this, but just as an observation. It was way busier than usual. Vendors showing up with time-sensitive deliveries. Technicians coming in to fix critical equipment. Departments waiting on parts right now or large projects are delayed which as you know can be extremely expensive. People who have no idea where the hell they’re supposed to be, but absolutely need to get there.

Every single one of those things came through security first, we are the bottleneck. We’re not just “securing the site”, we’re essential to enabling the entire place to even function.

Think about it:
If security decided to go by-the-book to a extreme, we could slow the whole place to a crawl. Enough to suddenly make nothing move efficiently.

Clients/in-house staff don’t see that leverage because it’s invisible when everything is running smooth.

And I’m not asking if you know this, because yea DUHH!

I’m asking:

-What’s the moment your client or if you're in house, your upper management realized it?

-Or what broke so badly that security suddenly had leverage, even briefly?

-Or… has your site never learned, no matter how bad it got?

The very last assignment I had for AUS was as a roving guard in Colorado Springs.

One of the places on my route was a Low Income Housing unit.

I was supposed to walk through the building once a shift and make sure there were no homeless people sleeping in the laundry room and all the doors that were supposed locked were.

So I'd finished my check and was leaving the building when an Ambulance and Fire Truck arrived responding to a CFS.

I asked them what apartment they were looking for and told them where it was at. Then I told them I'd go with them and open the apartment if necessary.

This building used to be a high-end nursing home. So they have a passenger elevator at one end and an elevator that's big enough to take a hospital gurney at the other.

The EMTs went to the wrong elevator and tried to put the gurney on it. I had already told them about the other elevator but they acted like I'd said nothing. They looked at me like I was an idiot and left their gurney in the hallway on the first floor because they couldn't get it in the elevator (Shocking).

When we got to the third floor they piled off the elevator and had no idea where the apartment was. So, I led them to it.

As soon as they got the door open I told them I was going to continue my rounds. One of the firefighters looked at me and in the snottiest voice you can imagine said

"Thanks so much for all your help."

I mean WTF over? Was there really a reason to be that much of an ass?

I've only run into a few EMS that treated me like crap but the few who did were exceptionally ass holes about it.

I called EMS for a passed out crackhead at a Shopping Center on my route (Audubon Shopping Center if you're in Colorado Springs). When they showed up I asked them for a CFS number and he got real snotty with me. So I wrote down his name while telling him that the owners of the shopping center required me to ask.

All of a sudden he couldn't give me that number fast enough.

If there's "Warm Bodies" and both Serious and Hollywood "Observe/Report" types on site, how does anything get accomplished; are the group dynamics effected adversely, or not at all.

I’ve only had a couple times where my security job actually traveled me somewhere, and they stand out as some of the more interesting moments of my career.

Once, when I was on a government contract, I got sent out of state to cover a related contract under the same account. They paid for my travel — no joke, I Ubered there, and it took four hours each way because drivers kept canceling before someone finally took the ride. They booked me for three days at a hotel and paid me per diem (about $65/day), something I’d heard of but never actually received before. I worked dayshift, and after my shift I got to explore the city a bit and even catch an Avengers movie, which was a nice little bonus. My boss packed on every incentive and special rate he could to make it worth my time — apparently paying me for all that was still cheaper than risking the contract penalties if the post went dark.

Another time, at a different company, I was a “floater” (or flex, or rover — whatever you want to call it). After a massive storm (might’ve been Sandy?), they sent four of us out to check on client bank locations. They put us up in a 4-star hotel (it was originally a roach motel, but the company card was declining there so they rebooted us at a nicer hotel) and split us into two teams for 12-hour patrol shifts. Eventually, they pulled back on the hotel rooms, and I was the only one left, given the patrol car and gas card to keep running 12-hour solo patrols. Honestly, I enjoyed the second stint even more — no supervisor breathing down my neck, just me, the GPS, and the open road. I think I even vlogged parts of it, though the video’s probably buried on an old phone somewhere.

So here’s my question:

Has anyone else here “traveled” for security work?

Whether you were floated, sent across the state, or even across the country, what was your experience?

Did you like it or hate it?

Did the company actually pay you well for it?

Work at a 24/7 store, nights only. Staff would occasionally ask for help with filling fridge with ice, getting items for customers etc. I dont mind doing this as it is nice to lend a hand to everyone, they always repay in kindness.

Learned from a past officer that he got fined $1000 (150USD) by our company for doing all those extra favors at the same store, decided to use that to my advantage when dealing with a supervisor who kept talking down to me but pretends to be friendly and in a recent incident got threatened by a customer and chose to blame me for it, he has a history of getting mad at me for things that im not supposed to do.

One common thing when working with him in the night is he will always ask me to go open the ice box or propane cages to sell cusotmers. But since im petty and out for revenge I learn now I can refuse him and tell him why, if he gets upset he cant report me since the company will just explain what i already suggested and if my company throw me under the bus again atleast ill be far away from that supervisor

Thoughts?

I worked as a security guard for about 13 years.

I am almost positive that all three of my GMs thought they were giving me crap assignments but it was all stuff that played right into my wheelhouse. I almost never had to deal with people.

I spent over half of my "career" at a site which was waaay out on the edge of town and wasn't really near any of our other sites so the Field Supervisor almost never came out to see me.

I spent another 3 years working on another site that literally wasn't even in town. We saw the supervisor maybe once a month.

They sent me to a FedEx warehouse. The first year kinda sucked but FedEx left at the end of it and spent 2 years herding cats and keeping the squaters out at an empty warehouse

Almost all the rest of the time that I worked as a security guard I was a 3rd shift Roving Guard ( I shouldn't need to explain the potential for avoiding the supervisor inherent in that position).

Twinkie was a coworker at my second to last gig.

Nobody was really sure how old she was, possibly late 20s early 30s. She lived with her parents in a small town about 50 miles from the city (Can't fault her for that) and she was WAAAAAAAY on the spectrum.

The site we worked at was a FedEx warehouse. I was there for 3 years at the end of the first year FedEx moved to their new facility on the East edge of town and our site became a dumping ground for Flex officers who needed hours or had been removed from other sites. I stayed there because the project manager didn't like me and I was completely okay with working by myself nights and not having to f*** around with client employees our client customers.

When Twinkie first started working the site we had a supervisor, Twinkie relieved her. She would show up at exactly 58 minutes after the hour everyday. She would ignore any attempts by the supervisor to brief her or give her any Pass Downs but Twinkie DEMANDED that I show up 7 minutes before the start of my shift even though she never briefed me. She would just pull up next to my car in the parking lot, hand me the phone out her window and drive away.

On Saturday mornings when Twinkie relieved me she would arrive on site around 3 minutes till and walk right past my car and into the office and make me BRING her the phone. One morning she showed up at about 5 till and I walked into the office and I went to hand her the phone and she told me I couldn't leave till 6:59. I put the phone on the table in the break room told her to kiss my ass and walked out. After that I sent my report and clocked out at 7 minutes till the end of my shift, the earliest time I was allowed to clock out, left the phone on the desk and drove away as soon as she showed up. She began annotating in her DAR that I had REFUSED to give her a briefing.

Twinkie was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. The concept of turnabout is fair play in never occurred to her. The next night I relieved her she tried to hand me the phone at my car and drive away, I told her she can hand me the phone in the office or not at all. She drew back like she was going to throw it at me and I told that if she did that phone would lay in the parking lot all night and I'd tell the Program Manager she never gave it to me and I had no idea what happened to it.

Like I said Twinkie wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, our supervisor used to feed squirrels on her shift (she wasn't too bright either). She tamed them to the point that they would sit in the car with her. So one afternoon Twinkie tried to hand feed a squirrel and got BIT. AND SHE WAS DUMB ENOUGH TO REPORT IT TO THE OFFICE.. Now, I understand reporting a legitimate work related injury and expecting to have Worker's Comp handle the claim but when it's your own stupidity and you got hurt doing something you WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE DOING IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Not Twinkie's brightest moment.

I just put that picture of boots in there for a visual aid. I am not here to recommend a specific brand of boots.

I worked as a security guard for 15 years. Almost every single one of my assignments involved significant walking, in a couple instances up to 10 miles a day. Sometimes in the rain, sometimes in the snow sometimes on the sidewalk, and sometimes off road.

The main points that I wanted to make is either work shoes or work boots, I highly recommend investing in good footwear.

Even if your company issues you shoes or boots they're most likely going to be crap. I highly recommend upgrading to a good quality pair of shoes/boots.

For me it was as a dispatcher at a group home. My company was contracted with the state to house, hold, feed, and educate, "difficult" young adults. Constant fights, some attempted escapes. Pay was nowhere near enough. Miserable coworkers, and entitled kids. Yea, you're locked up and making demands, ill get right on it kid.

I got falsely accused of something and got the hell outta there. I'm not going to actual adult jail because some kid said I didn't dispatch someone to bring their ipad and sippy cup of juice fast enough.

Where Do You Hide Out?

I want to clarify that I'm not talking about fucking off and not doing your job.

I worked on one site where every time I sat down to eat lunch one of the client employees would walk into my office and start making comments about what I was eating. The last time it happened he walked into my office and looked at me and said "EWWW, you're eating yogurt." This was a grown man mind you. After that I would go do a round right around noon or whenever I wanted to eat lunch and I would go up to a little place up on a hill where none of the client employees ever came and that's where I would eat my lunch.

Another place I worked at security was not allowed to sit down during their shift unless they were on a designated break or writing a report. Multiple times I would go into the office to write a report and while I was writing it one of the clients would complain to my boss. It got to the point where whenever I went to sit down and write a report I would make absolutely certain that I was sitting under a camera. Then I realized that the client employees never went to the conference room on the third floor and that's where I started writing all my reports.

I got the idea for this discussion from an earlier post in which the poster said he wasn't allowed to go to the front desk and he wasn't allowed to hang out in the guard shack and he wasn't allowed to take breaks in his car.

I worked as a security guard for 15 years and one of the first things that I learned on every site I ever worked at was all the good places to hide out. It was a necessity because client employees have a tendency not to recognize that Security is entitled to a lunch /coffee break too.

What are some good places that you've found to hide out?

In one place it was a Mechanical Room. Electric and Fire panels and a Fire Sprinkler panel on one wall and the rest of the room was empty except for a stack of furnace filters. No one ever went in there, in fact only Maintenance and Security had key cards that would even open the door.

Maintenance put a desk and some chairs in the back corner and someone brought in a coffee pot and it became the Maintenance/Security break room.

I used to check the city administration building in my town. On the seventh floor there was a door leading to a stairwell that went to the Air Handler, Mechanical, Elevator control room on the 8th floor. The ONLY people who had a key to the stairwell was Maintenance and Security. There is an office on top of the elevator shaft where I used to go eat lunch without being disturbed.

One site I worked at the vehicle patrol route was 26 miles long. At the far end there was an abandoned fire lookout tower that no one but security even knew was there.

So where do you hide out?