Yesterday, because I had the day off, I decided to walk to a coffee shop about 2 blocks away to get a cup of coffee. This entailed walking past a mixed-use building whose first floor, along the street I was walking down, consists of 4-5 spaces each occupied by a casual dining/takeout place.
As I was approaching this strip, a security guard, walking down the cross street toward the intersection, went around the corner such that he was walking the same direction I was, in front of me. He approached the first doorway of the first one of these establishments in the row, held what looked like his cell phone up against the door jamb, and it make some sort of sound, like an artificial chime.
Since he was well in front of me, he had the chance to move on and do this to the next doorway too, and I could see what he was doing: every doorway of every one of these shops (and some shops had two) had a flat, off-white, disk, about 1.5 inches in diameter, affixed to the right-hand side of the door jamb. He was going up to each one of these disks, holding either a smart phone or something shaped like a smart phone up to it, which would then ding, and he’d move on to the next one. This was around 11:45 AM on a weekday, so all these establishments were open.
Effectively clocking in at each point. I once did a few nights as a security guard in a large factory. We had a device, a bit like a supermarket scanner. At various points around the building, there were cards with a barcode which we had to scan. This was how the bosses checked that we were actually patrolling and not fast asleep in our office.
Agreed. Many (pre-smartphone) years ago, I worked for Pinkerton Security at an industrial facility. We were given a small device the size of a garage door opener. As we went on our rounds, we would have to press this device against small plastic badges screwed into various checkpoints. These badges contained coded magnetic strips not too different from the strip in your credit card. When we finished our rounds, the device would be plugged into a computer and a record of our rounds would be saved.
I’m told that years before I was there, the security person would have to carry a portable time-clock device the size of a hubcap and weighing about 15 pounds. At each station on the round, he would have to use a specially coded key that was chained to the wall to punch through a timed, rotating paper disk in the time-clock. I had to watch a training video on that device but never had to deal with it myself.
Ah, yes-the time clocks. There were two types. One used the keys previously mentioned to impress numbers on a rolled-up strip of paper, and the other used the keys to impress numbers on a slowly rotating paper disk. The tape was susceptible to breakage, the disk was susceptible to jamming…and both were susceptible to security officers that forgot to wind up the devices(once a week for the tape, and once a day for the disk).
They were using pretty much this device in the early 1930s. If you watch Modern Times, you’ll see Charlie Chaplin, in his job as night watchman at a department store, making his rounds and wearing something like this around his neck. He punched in at different places in the store.
I knew a security guard who worked a slightly more sensitive location which had one of these systems installed. Only in this case not only did he have an expected rounds schedule but the building’s alarm system was connected so that if each check in location wasn’t attended in time the alarm would go off… part of the job was essentially continually turning the alarm off before it tripped all night long.
The idea was that if the guard didn’t turn off one of the stations on time (there was extra time built in to attend to small things in between each check-in) then he was busy dealing with a significant problem or had been incapacitated, so the alarm automatically went off to bring in help. This was about 30 years ago.
Back in the 1970’s I had a security job like that. Each key had a number encoded on it. Clicking the key in the clock impressed a paper disk with the number - each key a different length so the number appeared at a different radius from the center of the paper, and the disk turned with the clock. The whole thing was about 3 inches thick and about 6 inches diameter. We were supposed to do the orunds every 2 hours, about 12 strategically placed keys would take us 40 minutes or so.
Apparently on clever fellow simply cut the chains holding each key, took them all back to the office, so he could “do his nightly rounds” without leaving the office. last time he walked around and put the keys in the holders again.
Since this was during the workday, he wouldn’t have been checking the doors, but after business hours, that would be the reason for the specific placement of the points, to ensure the doors are secure.
This may surprise you, but while security personnel aren’t generally raking in the big bucks, they rarely are minimum wage either.
Think about it for a moment - generally speaking, security guards are monitoring property worth millions of dollars, dealing with an unpredictable public and handling all kinds of emergencies from broken windows to burst water pipes that may threaten everything on every floor of the building. You need people who are responsible and able to think on their feet and you need to be willing to pay enough to attract such people.
Any company trying to hire security guards for minimum wage is only going to get warm bodies and is likely to wind up paying in other ways.
Yep.
In the 1970’s, I worked night shift in a location where there was one of the check stations near me.
They were made by Detex company, who was the big one in the field. The stations had little metal boxes screwed into the walls, with a metal key on a short chain inside. The guard carried a clock with a paper disk inside. When the key was inserted, the number on it was punched onto the paper disk at the current time. Once a week or so, the guard supervisor would open the clock and remove the paper disk, and replace it with a new one. Then he could read the disk, and verify that the guard was at each location at the scheduled times. (And the clock marked the paper disk if it was opened or closed, so fiddling with the disks would be obvious.) But the clock device was only about the size of a water canteen, and weighed only about 5 pounds (2 kg).
The Detex company stopped making these mechanical clock versions in 2012, but they had been sold for about 125 years before that. They may not have sold them to you, but only leased them, so you paid forever. You also had to buy the paper disks from Detex, at an inflated price.
You do need at least a minimum of a sense of responsibility.
I worked campus security to pay for my university and the salary was such that there were two groups of employees: students and “lifers.”
The lifers just were not the brightest or most motivated people in the world. Not the stupidest or the laziest, but clearly not professionals.
A quick check online, gives an average of $31k. That’s about what I’d expect.
For shopping mall security, you don’t need people who can solve all the problems on their own, but you need people responsible enough to not ignoring the problems.
When you have millions of dollars of property and equipment, you don’t want to be at the mercy of someone making that salary range. You design the system so that if the alarms are set and the doors are locked you will be secure. Then you hire people who will go around and be at least somewhat attentive as they check.
There were two of us on night shift who were taking the same engineering classes. We would study together rather than spend all night walking around.
We had a couple of devices that we had to use keys to access and do whatever, but mostly not. Technology is so cheap now it would be silly to not have devices like in the OP.
In Silence Of The Lambs, Lecter asks if Clarice’s father had to use one, thereby subtly pointing out that he wasn’t a policeman, he was a security guard.
