A bit of reflection after the Omaha Mall Shootings.
Mall Security is paid minimum wage, or close enough to it as to make the difference meaningless. You can’t support a family on a rent-a-cop’s wages, so there is a lot of turnover. No one wants to stand on their feet for eight hours at a time on the very pretty, but damned hard on your feet, marble floors of most mall common areas.
There are a lot of retired people working security, think of Dick Van Dyke in The Museum.. The young people that work security are doing so until they can find a real job. Many of these fine folks want to be Cops, but can’t cut it in real law enforcement.
You don’t want these people to be carrying firearms in a crowded mall. Really. You Don’t.
A security company might charge thirty or forty dollars an hour for a guard, if you are paying that wage you might expect the security guard to be pretty happy about having such a cushy job. The security guard does not get paid thirty or forty dollars an hour. They get the very least that the security company can get away with paying them. Just like every other company in America.
I worked mall security about twenty years ago, so maybe things have changed. But I doubt it. Off duty cops might make thirty or forty dollars an hour, and do more off duty work than police work as a result. But from what I can see, the normal bottom of the food chain rent-a-cop at a shopping center is still not exactly rolling in the dough. Sack boys have better jobs than Rent-a-cops, fast food workers have better jobs than rent-a-cops, any low paying job you can think of is better than being a rent-a-cop.
So why does anyone do it? You need money and you don’t want to go on welfare to get it. Plus, Security is zero skill work. If you can stay awake for eight hour, or happen to be a light sleeper, you can get a job as a security guard. But it is not good work. It is dead end job.
Being a normal day-in, day-out security guard is not like working for some outfit like Blackwater or Haliburton that hits the news. There are hundreds of little bubba companies with the company logo slapped on the family car with a magnetic sign when they go on patrol. But even the big outfits are not dream jobs.
People who hire security guards don’t know what they are hiring. They want their security guards to make arrests, to catch people stealing and slap the cuffs on them, to never sit down and keep moving. The security guard is to solve problems when they arise and handle unruly people. Did I mention that no one cares what a security guard has to say anyway? And that they are paid next to nothing?
A Security Guard is a Scare Crow. Period. End of Line. Full Stop.
I traveled to London a few years ago and entered that fascinating city by way of Gatwick Airport. The English have been dealing with terrorists of one sort or another pretty much, well, forever. But I was still a bit surprised to see the Security at Gatwick Airport. Soldiers in black full body armor carrying M-16s at the ready walked around in pairs. This did not make me feel safe.
So how would you feel about Blackwater or Haliburnton cruising around a mall parking lot in their flat black Humvees with a fifty caliber machine gun on the fender?
It’s a problem with no easy solutions. Crazy people who want to kill everyone in sight look just like everybody else until they whip the guns out. There are a lot of mentally retarded, mental unstable, mentally wrong people out there.
Whatever PC term you prefer to nutjobs, there are a lot of people that shouldn’t be out on the streets with the rest of us. But you can’t lock them up anymore. That is wrong. Violates their civil rights and other such nonsense. But even if you could lock up the bad people, you can never be sure that you have them all locked up. New crazies pop out of the nowhere and into the here everyday.
When I was a Security Guard, nothing serious happened at the Mall I worked. A kid got his finger stuck in an escalator once, just about shut the place down. He got a broken fingernail and I’m sure his mom got a nice check.
You never know what you will do if something really bad happens, but I tend to think I would have been looking for cover- just like everyone else.
I am temporarily working security at a mall I like most parts about my job, except that I work for IPC and they SUCK ASS, but as you said I’m only doing it while I’m getting my degree in Criminal Justice, specializing in Law Enforcement, I would feel much better if my company would at least provide us with Pepper spray or a baton (a non-lethal) weapon. In the State of Texas a Security Guard has more privelages than what IPC gives us. For instance we can carry Pepper spray, baton, handcuffs, and tasers, and a gun (if we pass a very very stringent background check for our guard license) In face my supervisor and myself are gonna laugh if IPC looses it contract with this Simon Mall. We have discussed that after becoming peace officers for 20 something years and when we retire we could start our own security company that would arm the director, and supervisor and then if the guards passed a stringent pyschological test and have at least 6 months to a year on the job at the same location we would arm them. Plus IPC has a policy that says they want us to come to work with a conservative haircut then they make you wear a hat that gives you hat hair so that defeats their policy. Plus the hat makes the guards look like 70’s porn stars…lol and are extremely uncomfortable to wear. Apparently IPC DOES NOT care about its employees because their benefits SUCK. And they make you work your butt off for less than 10 bucks an hour. (we are short like I said and have to fill so many hours with 5 guards) so we are pulling 70-80hr work weeks. To me that is a HORRIBLE WAY TO RUN A COMPANY. I hope IPC goes out of business soon at least at the mall I work at.
I worked for a number of security companies and none of them had benefits worth mentioning and their idea of a good raise was ten cents.
Security companies change thirty or more dollars an hour and pay their employees less than ten. Fine, then need to make their money too, but it sure feels like they are screwing everyone that works for them.
And they don’t care.