Perpetual Ruminations

Thursday

This is much better than yesterday. Although, yesterday's entry was actually early this morning if you want to be technical. Today is my last day off this week, and instead of three days off it turned into two. I got called in yesterday, but not by any of my crew. No, this was my boss, in the home office, needing someone to get up to Aberdeen and fill in for the rest of the day.

It was interesting, to say the least, but not a bad day at work. Things are quite a bit different up there than at our site, not only the layout of the yard, but how things have are done. It seems they have had some less than professional guards, and things do not work as smoothly between the store and the security personnel as it should. Of course, it's not the guards, although I'm sure they have had some bad ones. No, the problem comes from the top down, and in our case not the office staff, but the local supervisor. I know, because we also had a less than professional supervisor when I started working as a security guard, and we had the same problems.

In fact, that's how I became the supervisor.  Ours resigned his position, since he wasn't ever there, and was seldom doing anything even close to supervising. The person who applied for the position didn't have what it took, and did about as much; or as little, depending on how you look at it. Things continued to build up to a head, until something had to be done. I was the exception I guess, and didn't follow the general pattern. Not that I intended anything other than just doing my job, I just take a little pride in my work and wanted to do things right.

We had not been properly trained, and what I had was not enough to do the job correctly. It was a pain in the butt, so I took it upon myself to learn how the job was suppose to be done. One reason, as I mentioned, is a little pride in my work, the other was the fact that I wanted to keep my job, and that would mean doing the work right. So, I read the manuals, I asked questions of the management, and I sort of self taught myself the ropes of the job.

Management observed this. Not ours, my boss and fellow workers were threatened by my desire to do the job right, and I was often accused of being a kiss up, of trying to make them look bad. I even was laughed at and ridiculed some, but I didn't care, I knew the truth. I didn't make them look bad, they were doing an awesome job of that on their own. As for the accusations, I didn't let it bother me, since my boss was as much a screw off as the rest of them, so the only way to kiss up to him was to follow his advise on how to do things wrong. As far as the rest, it didn't matter, since they were not doing anything right, and were in fact the ones earning the chuckles and ridicule from anyone who knew anything.

See, we work at a local site, but our office is in Iowa, a couple hundred miles away. So, the people who observed all of this were the ones we worked for. They noticed and appreciated my hard work and dedication, my professionalism, and my desire to do the work right. I did not know at the time that the head of the store chain was also observing and our security service was drawing a lot of unwanted and negative attention. So, without my knowing, the store management put in a request that I be promoted to supervisor. I did know the position was still open, and that the current person in charge was just there on a temporary basis, but I had not desired to apply for the position, since I was the newest member there.

Also, I knew that the rest of them were all a bunch of screw-ups, and if I took the position, two of them who had been supervisors would now be under me. In fact, the supervisor who had hired me and then resigned his position still pretty much ran things, he just muscled the guy who took his position around. In fact, the rest of the guards used this to get things done their way, get time off, and to keep the new supervisor in check. So, why jump into the middle of a hornets nest and take on the headache of trying to set policy back to what it was suppose to be.

So, when anyone asked if I was interested in applying for supervisor, I just told them the truth, I wasn't really looking to be in charge, I just wanted to do my job right and hoped that it may rub off on the others some. But, they had other ideas, and they requested of the home office that I be appointed the new supervisor. My boss called and informed me that I was being refereed for the position with high recommendations from the store management at various levels, and he wanted to know if I would accept the position. I talked it over with Rhonda, and she agreed that I should take the position. I wasn't sure yet, but everyone around me seemed to think I should accept, and a few days later the vice president came up, relieved the current supervisor of his position and appointed me. He went over the training requirements, then informed me there was no time to take the training and twenty minutes later shook my hand, told me who needed to go, what they needed done, and was on his way.

Now, I see the same problems in Aberdeen, and they also need to find someone who is a leader to take over the position as supervisor. I'm not asking for the position, and really don't want to go through the aches and pains of doing this all over again. But, they needed someone to fill in for one half a day, and I was asked to go. I did, and by the time I finished my shift, the store management was asking me to transfer and clean up the mess there. I really hope my boss does the job, and I'm not asked. It's a hundred miles from home, and it would be a big, tough, and unpleasant job. Besides, I still have work to do here.

We have a pretty good crew, but one is in need of some motivating and training, another is taking a second job and not taking his position with us serious, and I may likely be training in another new guard real soon. The local manager has asked me and my wife to take full time hours since we do the job well, and that means I need to have a crew I can count on to work their shifts, fill in as needed, and work together as a family.

But, who knows were it will go -- I've seen this all once before.