Did I Get Hit On? Again…?

I mentioned before that I’m not too solid in the brain when it comes to getting hit on.  Well…I think it’s time to prove that point even further.  I once worked as a security guard at a Condo building.  The place was like 18 floors of condos, although the first two floors were a parking garage, office, and there was a small grocer’s shop attached to the front entrance.  They also had a fitness center and a open lounge (for tenants) on the 3rd floor.

It was actually a pretty nice place to live in, I think.  Of course I was getting paid $10 an hour to work there at the time and the cheapest Condo was $1100 a month.  They’d just decided to cut costs by firing the $30 an hour doorman and hiring an unarmed security guard to lock up the lounge, fitness center, and shop on the weekends.  This caused some confusion because something a lot of people don’t understand is that a doorman and a security guard are not the same thing.  They are actually the opposite of each other:

A Doorman opens doors for people, helps them carry their bags, and is generally supposed to be accommodating and helpful.

A Security Guard keeps doors closed, checks peoples’ bags for stolen merchandise, contraband, and bombs, and is generally supposed to be vigilant at their post.

 

Back on track, then!

 

But that’s a whole other story…one not nearly as interesting as the one I started telling.  You see during this time I had a couple of chances for some sweet lovin’ that I only realized several years later.  Several years and a wife who thinks everyone who waits on our table is out to sleep with me.  Well okay, there was that one waitress, but that’s a different story.

Anyway the first one was awkward on several levels.  You see this guy ordered some delivery food and when he came down I was at the front desk just wiling away the time (I generally polished my desk three times a night…because the job was reeeaaallly boring).  He introduced himself as ‘Mac’ and I haven’t changed the name because the fact that his name was actually Mac is pretty funny.  Especially when you consider that he was a 5’6” white guy named Mac.

Anyway Mac said that he made a mistake when ordering his sandwich, he got one that was way too big.  He told me that he only wanted a half sub, but he had to order the whole sub because of the delivery minimum.  He offered me half his sandwich, said he had a case of beer we could split, and was about to watch the game.

I told him I was on duty and couldn’t drink.  He then asked me when my shift was over, I told him 2:00am and he promised he’d still be up, and he had the game recorded so he could just rewind it if I wanted to come up then.  I’d be off duty, so the sandwich and beers would be totally cool, then.  I should like to point out that during this conversation it was only 8:00pm.

He wrote his apartment number down and handed it to me, so I’d remember which apartment was his.

Everybody tells me that I could have had my first gay experience if I’d just taken a little stroll up to the eighth floor that night.

Shame I had to wait until that night in Mexican Pris–I mean, never mind.

So what do you think?  Are they right?  Was Mac hitting on me?  Do you think he was disappointed that I never came up to his place?  Let me know in the comments.

~RCS

Bad Manners Make Good Workers

Notes: This post was written over three years ago, in the early days of this site; but it was scrapped and never posted.  I was working as a fairly low-ranking security guard and has just started working in a new building.  I decided as a little Christmas Treat I would pull it out of the old bin and put it up.  Enjoy!

Yesterday my boss approached me when no one else was around and informed me that the client company we work for had complained about something I was doing.  Always willing to listen to constructive criticism, especially from the folks who sign my paycheck, so I nodded my head and waited to hear what nugget of wisdom would keep me from getting fired.

“The Facility Manager said that she wants you to stop saying thank you,” he told me, “When you page someone on the intercom.  Just say their name and the extension to call, then hang up; they don’t want you to so say ‘thank you’ anymore.”

The look I gave him must have screamed “WTF” because he shrugged and added, “You’re not in trouble, or anything, just something for you to work on.”

He then went on to wax poetic about other weird things people have done over the intercom, like announce personal messages over the PA system.

Mark, your oncologist just called. That growth above your rectum is benign.

Now I’ve had some pretty strange requests in my time in the industry, from one place asking us to lock the break rooms after the production run is over so that workers don’t loiter on the site (in an attempt to prevent job-site vandalism by employees), to being told to make sure no one is in a part of the building…including security (how can I chase people out, if I’m not allowed in?), all the way up to the prize-taker of being told to physically force a drunk female employee to lay down on a couch in a locked office and hold her still until she sobered up (can anyone say Sexual Harassment?).

But really…don’t say thank you?  And now that I have been verbally warned, the next step is a written warning if I say it again, followed by an unpaid suspension, and finally termination.  I have the hope that I can appeal the termination and simply be demoted and transferred to another location.  What if someone told you that kind of deal was in store for you at your new job?  I think you’d say no thank you.

Only in America can you be fired for saying, “Thank You.”

~RCS

Happy Holidays, folks!  Whatever you celebrate: Christmas, Festivus, etc.