Most of the time I telecommute. It’s a great plan, it works for my employer and I get to stay at home with my daughter. As a plus, now that I’m pregnant again, I get to enjoy morning sickness by working from bed as I sip gingerale and try not to puke.
But I do go into the office on a regular basis, usually for a couple of afternoons each week, to have staff meetings and conduct interviews and employee counseling sessions, when necessary. I’m the VP in charge of human resources so everybody knows me, because they all met me before they were hired or are part of the executive staff.
I went into the office on Wednesday afternoon, and happened to arrive at the same time that my assistant was returning from her lunch break. We have a completely secured facility, the only portions of our space which are accessible without a magnetic security badge are the public restrooms and vending area. Even our reception desk is behind a locked door and requires a badge or a security guard to remotely allow entry.
There has been much ado about not allowing “tailgating” through security doors – they expect every individual to close the door behind them and make their colleagues scan their badges one by one to enter the work areas. Frankly, I think they want a record of who is using what doors and when, and I don’t think it’s our (contracted, not internal) security’s business when we come and go to outside meetings or lunch or how frequently someone visits the Coke machine or ladies’ room.
But that’s neither here nor there – it would be rude and ridiculous to close a door on the face of a known co-worker so that they are forced to scan their own card to get to their desk. And since workgroups frequently move en masse from their work areas to the laboratories or conference rooms (which requires exiting one security area, passing through an another, exiting it and entering yet a third) it would be time consuming and ridiculous if everyone had to come through the doors on their own. If it were that important an issue, then we would have, as a company, demanded that all security doors were the “one click” revolving variety that only move enough to allow one person to enter/exit at a time, and only if a valid badge is scanned. But we didn’t, because it’s not.
Anyway, back to Wednesday. I met with my assistant in the lobby and we walked back to our offices together, talking about this and that. When we got to the security door, she had her hands full so I scanned my badge and we both passed through. We continued walking down the corridor and I glanced back and noticed a hand catchng the security door before it was fully closed. I saw that it was a security guard (they’re uniformed) so I kept on walking. I didn’t see which way the guard went.
The next thing I knew, there was a hand grabbing my shoulder and elbow, hard and spinning me around so fast that I quite literally came out of my shoes. My response to this was for my martial arts training to kick in, and I grabbed the hand of my aggressor that was on my elbow, got him by the bony part of his wrist, and used the surprise factor against him so that I was able to shove him away. He was so surprised that he couldn’t quite recover his footing, and banged into a table, whereupon he let out a most unpleasant squawk and a couple of choice profanities.
It was the guard. Apparently a new one, because now I saw that he wasn’t one that I knew, and he didn’t know me. Apparently he was also not familiar with the notion of corporate security which says that you don’t ever manhandle people unnecessarily, certainly never without saying something to them first, and particularly without identifying yourself as security when approaching from behind. He also seemed unaware that one need not apply a hell of a lot of force if it’s necessary to manhandle a 5’2", 120 pound woman in a business suits and heels.
When I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, grabbing me like that, he got very indignant. I had breached security! I shoved him into a table! Who was I, and was I even authorized to be in the area? Didn’t I know that we were on high alert? I had no right to allow my assistant to enter without scanning her card, she could be a terrorist, after all.
I gave the pipsqueak the full read on my credentials. Then I got angry and serious, but very quietly and with as much dignity as I could muster because I was infuriated. I pointed out to him that if he was concerned about who I was and why I had let my assistant through the door, he could have simply called out to us, and asked us to stop. I asked him what in the world would make him think it was necessary to grab me so forcefully that I was yanked out of my shoes. His response was to turn haughty and glibly state that he was “authorized to use force to secure the work area.”
Realizing that he was an idiot, I told him I would take it the matter with his boss, and turned and walked away, leaving him gaping, them muttering something into his walkie-talkie.
When I got to my office, I realized that my elbow really hurt. I took off my jacket, and found that I already had a distinct handprint bruise around my arm, another bruise starting where his thumb was pressed against the bone in my shoulder and my elbow was starting to swell from being wrenched. My assistant brought me an ice pack, and used the office Polaroid to photography my injuries.
I called the head of security, then I called the police. The head of security knew why I was calling, because the pipsqueak had already gone whining to his boss to make a complaint against me for shoving him while he was “merely carrying out his assigned duties” and tried to claim that I just flipped out and started pushing him when he “tapped on my arm” to call my attention to a serious security matter. I told the head of security that I’d called police, and told him that he should probably come to my office when they arrived.
By the time the police arrived, I was also beginnning to show bruises around my ribs where I must’ve banged against the wall when I was grabbed. (I don’t remember that happening, but my assistant did, and I certainly have the evidence of it now.) Given all the quick, heavy bruising, when the police learned that I was pregnant, they felt it was an appropriate “precaution” to call for EMS to transport me to the hospital for a thorough check.
EMS wouldn’t let me walk, they put me on their little wheelie chair and pushed me out of the building. It was extraordinarily embarrassing. We got outside and they put me in the ambulance and were assessing my vital signs and whatnot before pulling away. I felt completely silly about that.
But the silliness was put completely out of my mind as I saw the overaggressive security pipsqueak being led to the police car in handcuffs. He’s been charged with assault (I’m not sure what degree) and battery, and has been fired. With a criminal record, he won’t work in security again.
And he spent a night on Riker’s Island. I’ve been to Riker’s Island. (As a visitor.) It’s not a nice place.
I hope he enjoyed it greatly while I sat at home with a sprained elbow, bruised ribs, multiple hematomas and unable to do anything more than apply ice packs and take one Tylenol every eight hours.
I wish I had some pithy way of wrapping this up, but I don’t. I just had to get it out of my system (and gloat a little) but if I talk about it much with Mr. tlw, he might end up in Riker’s himself because he’d like to go pound the guy down into a hubcap.
But I am left with a few questions: why are overaggresive pipsqueaks drawn to working in sensitive fields like corporate security? Why are corporate security nerds getting their panties into a wad over terror alerts when the biggest risks in the corporate atmosphere are still disgruntled employees or (especially in a highly specialized technical company like mine) industrial espionage? And for my fellow Dopers, a personal question – do you think I would’ve been out of line if I had followed through my original instinct, which was to kick the guy in the cojones, which I would’ve done had he come back to me after I shoved him away?
