Security Officer, Sergeant Potts

1984, the United States climbed out of the hole created by the Regan Recession of 1982/1983. I had just finished a job with Jews for Jesus in San Francisco, CA, and was back home in Chicago looking for a job. My employment hunting approach was, to paraphrase Winston Zedmore, “I’ll believe anything as long as there is a steady paycheck in it.” After too many weeks and too few results, I ended up at a small firm on Milwaukee Ave in the Norwood Park neighborhood of Chicago. I’ve been working, on and off, in Private Security for the last 40 years. The only form of Security I have yet to work is being a correctional officer, but that did cross my mind once or twice.  

The primary way to handle difficult situations in Security is not to panic. Learn to trust yourself. Accept that you will face situations where there is no correct response.

A Security Officer, anywhere in the world, is not a Police Officer. The position predominates observing and writing, observing, writing what you see, and reporting what you see. However, there are variables based on training and contractual expectations. As a Security Officer, you may have to administer first aid, use a fire extinguisher, talk down a suicide, or calm down a cornered criminal. That is all part of the job as well. The role is a very finite one. The job is not to stop the bomber or apprehend the terrorists; the job is to protect the principal, those personnel, and that property. The employer will be happy to remind you that the Security Officer is not a superhero due to liability in a litigious society. That is the job of the Police and the military. As the saying goes, that is above your pay grade.

Training for a Security Position has improved vastly since 11 September 2001 (9/11). However, compensation for the training has lagged by at least 20 years. As recently as 2019, the pay was the minimum wage for most positions. Unfortunately, because of the lack of pay, the general population held the position in very low regard. That is low regard until something happens, and then they want to know why you were not Tony Stark/Iron Man. In the post-pandemic world, private Security has become a better-paying position. There are multiple sociological reasons for this. One of these is the social realization that the position of a security officer is an essential service in society. They could not keep people on the job either. This shift in perception and compensation is a positive development for the industry, indicating a growing recognition of the importance and value of private security services.

The local governing body dictates the minimal training requirements.

One example is Illinois, which requires 20 hours of classroom instruction for an unarmed security licensed position and 40 hours of training for an armed position. Once training is complete, the Officer’s license is for life. As of the last time I checked, if you lose the 8.5″ x 5″ sheet of paper, the Officer must pay for the training again. Obtaining a license in Illinois involves submitting an application, undergoing a background check, and passing a written exam. This ensures that only qualified individuals can work in the private security industry.

Many years later, the Officer must attend a 20-hour training for any unarmed position in Texas. However, the 20 hours of training is a set of videotapes, usually three, which the Officer must watch and refrain from falling asleep. If, however, the Officer needed to work armed (traditionally rewarded with increased pay), then the Officer had to attend an additional 40 hours of classroom training, which concluded with a written exam, a live fire range examination. The license to work as an Armed Security Officer is only valid for 90 days. If you do not secure an armed security position in time, the state revokes the license, and you must retake the class. While working armed in Texas, I made a whopping $12.00 an hour. McDonald’s pays more (even then).

When I decided to work as an Armed Security Officer (or Commissioned Security Officer, as Texas names the position), I took an additional eight hours of training with a Marine (there are no ex-Marines) small arms specialist. I learned more from him than from the state-required and sanctioned course. By this time, I had earned my technical degree and valued any education I could acquire.

With the development of the Internet and self-paced learning systems like Udemy, getting extra security training is much easier. I have acquired many certificates to validate the skills I have developed over the years. I am a Certified Level 1 Security Analyst, a skill used every time you write a security report. I am also a Certified Forensic Profiler, a skill I first developed when initially working on my master’s in criminal justice. I am also a Certified Diplomat, a Marine Engineer, and a Private Investigator. I developed these skills over the years, and the certifications validate them. Due to necessity, I am working on a beginner’s diploma in Cebuano.

Recently, I looked into the requirements in the Philippines for working as an active security operative or a private investigator. It was a tangle of bureaucratic hoops to jump through. However, my job is no longer protecting clients or their assets. My job now is guiding others to do the job. I’ve seen my share of full moons at midnight and sunrises at the end of a work day.

Two questions demand answers at this point:

How do you prioritize and manage multiple security tasks or responsibilities?

How do you ensure compliance with security protocols and regulations?

A Rip Tide is a current of the ocean’s shore that runs laterally to the coastline due to fluid dynamics. If swimming in the sea, you can be dangerously pulled far ashore by a Rip Tide.

There is a Rip Tide in answering these questions. How do you prioritize your duties and ensure compliance by adhering to the post orders of the particular post you are assigned to as long as there is, by convention, a specific understanding of compliance and priorities? You must understand precisely how the Client wants you to fulfill the obligations they have set down on paper and agreed to with your firm’s management.

Let me give you an example: the names have been changed. An Officer was working in the evening as an after-hours receptionist for the highrise. The building had an evening Anger Management class twice a week. On this one particular day, a student completely lost his self-control, got into an altercation, and was murdered. Without even the courtesy of a phone call, the Police show up, the Paramedics show up, the fire department shows up, and the building superintendent shows up. The parties who did not show up were the Security Company’s Shift Supervisor or the General Supervisor. Per the demands of the Client and building management, no one notified the Security Company. As this decision was your typical Texas pecker measuring contest, it had little rational cause behind it; this was not unusual. The Security Officer later left the firm because she had other rainbows to chase and violated the post orders. It also violated Texas law (or Occupational Code), which required an accurate daily activity log from even shifts worked by a given client. Had this even gone to court, there would have been questions about the lack of security reports. Mostly, it is just sloppy security work done by an extremely lazy Security Office.

In a far less severe case, the same falsification of records occurred in Iowa. The only thing the Client was interested in was the Security Officer writing that he completed a given task at a given time. The Client was not interested in details on what the Officer witnessed or discovered during that portion of the shift’s duties. This same Client went through every reputable Security company in the city before hiring a firm of ex-military barroom bouncers as Truck Gate Guards.

In many cases, Clients will hire Security Companies at the insistence of their insurance company. If incidents are unreported, insurance rates won’t increase due to crime in the neighborhood. There is more to it than a pecker contest. Not recording events as required under the written agreed post orders is fraud.

As unfathomable as the fraudulent reporting is, the next worst is no post orders. The company and the Client have agreed that they don’t want to be liable if an event occurs and someone has to contact authorities. It is plausible deniability and allows both the Client and the security company the freedom to hang the Officer out to dry. Cambridge defines that term as “to allow someone to be punished, criticized, or made to suffer in a way that is unfair, without trying to help them.” That is also known as scapegoating.

That is your Rip Tide. You are to do your job as perceived by the post orders unless the Client and the security company say otherwise. If you follow the verbal orders, terminatioin may follow. If terminated, you do not lose anything. However, if you are doing what you know you should do, you will likely have a better position, at better wages, at a different client. A decent, accurate, honest, intelligently managed Security Company doesn’t just run through employees.

How well you communicate with the Client and their staff depends on the Post Orders. If your primary responsibility is to protect the Client’s employees, you stick to the charges like the proverbial mother hen. If the job is more loss prevention or crime deterrence by walking around, you should be polite but detached. They are not your friends and could cause the company’s losses; most losses are due to internal conversion (that business speaks for theft). Your necessity to communicate is within the context of the job you do.

The motivational factor in working in Security is relatively simple, primeval, and reptilian. You do the job to be helpful to the community at large. That is it. There is no other real upside. And you can always find a job.