Unemployment, RULES!

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/school-ditches-rules-and-loses-bullies-5807957

Try to read the above article. This stupid blog isn't letting my post a link again.

See this is what I'm talking about! I just love it when someone else does research, experiments or a study that proves I'm not just ranting and raving here like the conspiracy theorist lunatic I am sometimes taken for. There's being proactive and then there's being meddlesome. It starts early in life. "We have to wear knee pads, elbow pads, helmets, Kevlar body armour and have someone supervising who has dialled 9 - 1 and has his/her finger on the 1 button if we want to roller blade, skateboard or ride a bike." says Teacher. "Screw it then I'll stay inside and play video games or beat someone up for their lunch money." says the kid. Kids develop their frontal lobes when taking risks. They teach themselves, (and let's face it, WE can't in a sterile classroom environment), how to evaluate risks and consequences. Overzealous protection takes those chances away from them and bores them to the point of rebellion.

We've become so used to this overzealous protection that it has become a, (lucrative), part of adult life too. If people eat at a place and get sick either the owners will smarten up and employ cleaner practices in the kitchen or the people will stop dining there and they'll go out of business. There are health inspectors who routinely check on this stuff and if it's too bad they'll shut the place down. The problems in a free-thinking, freedom to make our own choices, succeed or fail on our own merits society would tend to take care of themselves. Prospective customers would be able to weigh the risks and consequences of eating at a sketchy restaurant and choose for themselves to go somewhere else. The business owner would see the risks of lazy kitchen habits costing him the rewards of frequent customers. I'm typing in the hypothetical because we don't live in a society like this do we? Do we need EVERY single worker in the food industry to pay a couple hundred bucks to take a Foodsafe course? Do we need every entrepreneur who can make something that other people might be interested in having go through the process of licencing, legalization and giving the government, lawyers and other parasitical agencies THEIR unearned portion of his/her good idea and hard work? That's just the "busy-ness" I've blogged on before.

This might come as a surprise to my readers. Am I saying that I am against taxes? Well, it sure might sound like it from the things I write. But if taxes could be administered by people who would give them to people who can't get work because of age, disability, or some legitimate reasons like that, and take them equitably from people who can, I'd like the idea of taxation. If they were taken to make roads and infrastructure more from the people who use those roads and infrastructure and less from those who don't, I would have no problem with taxes. But you will notice I am typing in the hypothetical again.

Back to the point. When principal Bruce McLachlan, a dude who, no doubt, had most of his opposition from overprotective and maybe controlling mothers, yet sacked up and did what was right anyway, talked about bullying, graffiti and wrecking things, he was talking about the rebellion that is a natural response to over structured environment.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/01/24/firefighters-search-frozen-rubble-after-quebec-seniors-home-fire

There's another example of what I'm talking about. Come on! A guy who's lived on the earth 70, 90 years is not allowed to decide for himself to go out into the dangerous cold air and smoke a dangerous cigarette? Why not? Was there, as we say in the security biz, an "elopement risk?" Did the orderly reckon that one cig would burst the old man's heart and because he had given him permission to smoke it, he could be somehow held liable? Or was his supervisor constantly giving him shit for letting residents bend the rules from time to time? I sure know what that's like!

When a contractor comes to my site I am supposed to check the records and see if there was a memo posted in the memo book about that contractor coming. No memo, no access. That's exactly what Melissa, the representative of the company that owns the buildings, Morguard, said. And in a threatening way! I haven't had a memo in my site memo book since October and every day except sometimes weekends, I let contractors on the site who have no memos and are not in the acceptable contractors list. I'm also supposed to take I.D. like driver's licence when I issue them passes or keys to move about the buildings and get their work done. I just get them to sign the contractor sheet. That way they can drive if they have to or drop their passes or keys in my card drop box if they want to leave and I'm not at my desk. Instead of wasting their valuable time waiting for me to get back to my desk. You see what I do expedites things and I have found no contractor who does not like that. They show their appreciation by ALWAYS remembering to return their cards or keys and being friendly. But I could probably be fired for doing such a great job!

I have worked security in jail and hospital situations and I understand the need for highly regulated sites in these cases. There are people who are not in full possession of their faculties due to mental illness, stress, or mind altering drugs. When I worked in these positions I was less likely to bend a rule because they were warranted. Still, every prison show we see on TV shows the prisoners using drugs and the guards and warden allowing it. Why? If they allow it a little, they can regulate it and they know who is using it. Otherwise rebellion. The drugs will still find their way into the prison and then the authorities WON'T know how or where.

I have heard several stories of people forgetting their access cards and being swiped in in the morning to gated parking and then at the end of the day pressing the intercom to be let out and being told by security that they can't do it. No card, no luck. So they just get the next person leaving the lot to swipe them out. Or a nice security guard like me might do it. But I will get in trouble if I do. Because Morguard wants to run their buildings like prisons on lockdown. It's going to bite them in the ass someday. People will realize they can't talk to security about this so they will go about getting access from friends and giving it to friends. This will cost Morguard money. They may also just keep their daily parking passes longer in rebellion again costing the parking lot owners money. All the while security is not going to know who is swiping in who and someday the wrong person will be swiped in. Probably just someone who will just drive through the wooden gate on his way out. But you never know. Someday maybe someone who loads his pick-up full of computer equipment before leaving. An arsonist, a rapist. I'm not saying if I were guarding I'd recognize the person as a bad guy and not swipe him in. What I'm saying is if they know security will swipe them in and they don't take it upon themselves to break the rules, at least I would get a good look at the person and his vehicle before he commits a crime.

Unfortunately if this happens, guess who would be blamed. The guard. And guess what "solution" would be applied. Stricter rules! This is why guards are always trying to cover their asses and not do anything that they could be blamed for. Like Bruno Belanger in Quebec. It's a tough position to be in. As guards, and Bruno was sort of doing that, we take all the responsibility and some group of greedy scumbags get way more than their fair share of the earnings for doing almost nothing. I've worked a position in which my employer got in the neighbourhood of 500 bucks for every hour I worked. They gave me 10. Scumbags. Was it Bruno's fault? Surely not! But in a world where we are allowed to think for ourselves and we have the freedom of discretion, I have no doubt this tragedy could and would have been avoided. Who knows how many problems I have avoided at work with my thinking man's approach to security? Why, just the other day there was a fella who came in. He was not happy because it was a really busy day at work and there was just no parking. It was obvious he was upset. He said it's crazy that he works for Cenovus and has to pay to park at their building. He had an appointment at Cenovus and could find no parking anywhere on the site. I asked how long he expected to be and he said from 2 PM to 3. I told him we had 2-hour free parking but he told me all the stalls were full. I told him about some he didn't know about and walked out with him to check. They were all full. So I said all I could do was sell him a 10-dollar underground parking pass. I said it didn't seem worth it for an hour but it was an unusually busy day and that was all I could do. He said, "Well shit, I guess I have no choice." It was already 5 after 2 so he went out before I could show him where to get into the underground lot. He drove right past it and reached the upper parkade gate. The card didn't work. He got a bit angrier. Then he pressed the intercom and talked to Melissa. Melissa is a hardass at the best of times but I'm betting this guy was not the most polite to her and I KNOW she was not polite to him. I was told later that he became abusive to her although I didn't hear anything about what Melissa had said. I DO know she didn't bother to tell him that all he had to do was go to the entrance before the one he was at and the card would work. No I guess they just argued. She called me on the phone and told me the guy was coming back to see me and that he had gone to the wrong gate. I saw his truck lurch to a stop out front of my building and I went out the door while he was getting out of his truck. I yelled across the lot to him, "The entrance right there with the sign!" He got back into his truck, sped over to the entrance, forgot to swipe the card and went down to the gate. It didn't open so he reversed back up the hill, swiped the card again and finally parked about 25 minutes late for his meeting. I am positive he was ready to kill somebody!

A little later, an hour later as he said it would be, he was leaving. I radioed Melissa and told her. She had previously asked me to get all his information including licence plate, name, number and such because she was interested in pursuing some sort of punishment for his attitude. She told me to verify his plate and that she had deactivated his card. I couldn't believe it. Obviously if he couldn't get out after all the problems he'd already had he would have been REALLY mad! Maybe he would have pressed the intercom and given Melissa a long streak of invectives. Or maybe he would have plowed through the gate and thrown the card away. Or maybe he would have come in to ME to return the card and yell at me. I ran down to the lower parkade exit and got there just as he was going to swipe his card. I told him it had been turned off, swiped him out and took the card. No further incident. Luckily. I am pretty sure Melissa WANTED one though.

But this is what people want from security at a lot of sites. I don't want to be a part of it. I asked for a transfer off the site this week. Still haven't received any kind of answer but told them my last day of work at that site will be Feb. 8th. If they don't find a better spot for me by then I'll just look for work elsewhere. It really sucks to be looking for work again but for this and about 11 other reasons it's time to leave the site I've been at for so long now. Well almost three years. That's long. For ME!

So, anybody need a worker? Know of anyone who does? I have a few ideas for jobs but nothing solid yet. I'm waiting to see if the company I work for will give me a new job. It sucks to be leaving a site where I've made lots of friends but it's really far from home and the commute is a killer. I'm actually unable to get home Sunday night after work. How crappy is Calgary Transit? So I've spent lots of time waiting out in the cold or taking expensive taxi rides that I've had to wait up to 2 hours for. How crappy are Calgary's taxis? They're taking way too much off my checks for taxes and such so while I was promised a tiny raise, it has actually worked into a pretty big pay cut. And since moving and more than doubling my rent, I need more money not less. At contract time I was assured by everyone I would remain in SLP3 and 4 the AHS sites, no everyone is saying that nobody is hired for one site, they are hired for all four. There's a new plan for me to work the other sites half the time. Only a couple months after being promised to work just the one. And maybe the worst part of all is that all the hierarchy of supervisors right on down the line had the brass bollicked arrogance to try to convince me that this was a good move that would improve security. The double whammy is I now know where I stand with them in that they think so very little of my intelligence that they were all sure they could lie to my face and I would not remain unconvinced. The company changed hands, 11 days after I started, from TSM to Garda, small to big. SUPER big. And one of the reasons I had quit Paladin is that they were getting too big. I don't like the new sites I will be working half the time. One of them is secretary work, not security. The other will soon house the offices of Paladin Security who I am trying to distance myself from! Garda had the perfect opportunity to act like a small company that cares about its employees and throw a Christmas party for us. Nope. No party and no invitation. Way to make a first impression Garda! Someone's been stealing my food out of the fridge at work. I know who it is but just don't want extra confrontation. I have no access to the building where I work. Every time I ask Melissa she says I don't need it even though everyone else who works there has it. In fact I had it when I worked as an AHS guard there. There are all kinds of other reasons just screaming every day at me to get the hell out of that place so I have put in for a transfer. In true big company fashion, TSM/Garda has not only ignored my request to this point, (5 days), but they made an error on my latest paycheck. I got 857 bucks for 84 hours of work. Woohoo I'm back to 10 bucks an hour again! I called about that too and have received no response. I'm sure I'll have to do lots of paper pushing, getting my pay stubs copied in triplicate and the manual timesheets as well to provide the company with evidence. Then they will process it for a while and THEN give my the money that was withheld by mistake, in two to three weeks.

Do you think I need any more reason to leave? Because I have more. I guess this might be why my blog posts have been EXTRA melancholy lately. Not like they're usually cheery but it sucks when you dread going to work. I'm not looking forward to two more weeks of it to tell the truth. But it'll give me some dough just in case it takes me too long to find a new job.

Anyhoo, I'll take any help I can looking. I wish I could make some money writing my blog but until that happens I have to be part of this hypocrisy we call the work world. Help me find a different soul-sucking job if you can. Thank you.