Your run-ins with security guards

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Have you ever had a run-in with one of those tall, menacing individuals with their walkie-talkies and navy jumpers with shoulder patches?

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 21 November 2003 10:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I did. Last night on leaving the office, circa 17.45 hours, with a PC under my arm! It was completely legit; my company is giving away its old PCs (and I suspect in some cases not giving away, as I've seen a few end up in the skip in the car park). I was actually in the revolving door leaving the building, when the security guard stopped me. I explained that I was in the revolving door so would have to go all the way round and come back in again, at which point he walked up to the door and yanked it BAKWARDS so i could reverse avec PC back into the foyer.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 21 November 2003 10:18 (twenty-one years ago)

All the time when I was at university. But then the bouncers were just fellow students and I could give them shit without being sent to casualty. And I did, by god. I was the Chosen One (for abusing poor studes just trying to earn a few quid).

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 21 November 2003 10:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Sainsbury's, Tottenham Ct. Road. Got £100 of food vouchers out of it.

― dave q, Friday, 21 November 2003 10:42 (twenty-one years ago)

OK I got a story. But my woman has champagne and is friskily attired, so I will tell it later.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Friday, 21 November 2003 10:45 (twenty-one years ago)

...luckily I did have the letter from IT authorising the giveaway in my bag and so was able to show it to the guard to prove that it was ok (like, some proof, I could have easily knocked up something on headed paper that would fool him). Someone pointed out to me that if I'd had a laptop in a case he would not have questioned me!

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 21 November 2003 10:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Heh. None really, but a campus security officer just came round in a blond wig and lipstick collecting for Children In Need. Which scared some of my overseas students just as much as being accused of criminal activity I think.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 21 November 2003 11:26 (twenty-one years ago)

A few years ago when I was 18 and broke I used to rob a grocery store a lot. I would grab as many expensive groceries as I could carry and walk out casually which worked better than concealing anything, especially during business rush time. The place was open 24 hours, so after a while I got dumb and started going in when it wasn't busy late at night, and just wandering the aisles eating stuff and loading pockets too before leaving. They started to catch on, and one night I was leaving with my pockets stuffed with things, including a bunch of 5-packs of Maxell gold tapes and some of that ersatz vegetarian pepperoni- then one of the night maintainence guys ran into the door and blocked it and got the lone night security guy on the radio. Shoulda ran out the back- anyways, they escorted me to security office, and he asked me to empty my pockets. I handed him the pepperoni, and said "why don't you grab ahold of my sausage!" He turned bright red and hissed "why don't you go to hell!" It was totally hilarious, even when a real cop showed up, cuffed me tight enough to cut off circulation, and frog-marched me to the patrol car, because they told him what I said. After a few minutes I politely asked him if he could please loosen the cuffs, then he relented and gave me an appearance ticket and let me go. I got 50 hours community service. That was also an adventure. I spent the time at a thrift store in the basement with a bunch of other delinquents, mostly just sketching and reading. They smoked a lot and told me stories about selling crack. The managers didn't give a shit because the place was too cluttered to really do anything with, but I did a little cleanup just to be nice, so they signed my papers and let me go with 10 hours off the 50.

― sucka (sucka), Friday, 21 November 2003 12:21 (twenty-one years ago)

tell all dave !!!

i get *constant* grief off the fckers. most often in house of fraser, manchester. always in there, always get mithered by the idiots.
didn't know there was money to be made.

once in h.o.f. a guy told me to open my bag after i innocently passed aa security alarm and it went off. i opened it, he rummaged about, nothing to see here, let me go. this was in front of a very busy saturday peak time shopping crowd. when i told my dad, he said
that if they ever do anything like that again i should say 'call the cops'. i wonder...

― piscesboy, Friday, 21 November 2003 12:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Within a week or two of 9/11, I had to deliver a package to this fairly non-important building and a security guard in the lobby asked for my ID, inspected my belongings, patted me down then directed me to a place outside and out of the guard's view, where ANOTHER security guard did the SAME THING before I could take the package upstairs! Like, what the fuck was the point of that?

The WTC center had a bunch of obnoxious security bullshit in place involving photo IDs and what not. Once, in order to get up to my workplace on the weekend, I had to wait an HOUR for a security guard to 'escort' me up to the office. None of this prevented our offices from being royally ripped-off once by what was almost certainly an inside-job: one Monday, everybody returned to find that a lot of personal radios and electronic equipment -- more than several armfuls -- just vanished.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 21 November 2003 12:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I always wake up around sundown, and at school, I was the only person there around the clock working. The drawing studio was supposed to close after hours, but security couldn't keep us out. (I even got to know one of the guys and he showed me a secret trick to pop open a certain locked door.) Another reason things were lax was because a bunch of students had revolted and gotten administrators fired over wasted tuition money. So, basically I had the run of the place and even slept and cooked there a lot and kept crates and crates of old tapes there for fun times. Besides security people, maintainence workers were in every night, and they saw me kind of living there. They worked through an outside company, and they were a closed group of foreign people, perhaps greek or balkan so I didn't get to know them. Anyways, most of them were older, but two young guys started working- they were little bastards- coming in for work around 3am one night, I caught them drunk, scratching fuck words on the chalkboard and fucking up all the lights in the studio, messing up instead of cleaning. I guess they didn't like me seeing that so they started to get on my case- acting like I was a loser & fag comments, for working so hard and being there all the time, instead of cruising for chicks or whatever the fuck they did in their spare time. Anyways, one night the dude followed me into the bathroom asking for a fight after I walked over a wet floor, so I called him a mop monkey, whipped out my dick, and asked him if that was what he was in there for. The dude got some hilarious bug eyes and took off, then a while later security showed up at my desk. They accused of exposing myself, so I said the dude was trying to make me look bad with some outrageous lie to cover his ass for him and his friend doing their job drunk & making messes. Neither of them were seen working there again.

The other part of the story is that at the end of the year, I still wasn't done with my film, so I got permission to stay a few weeks if I made a special arrangement with the upper admins and paid more tuition. Knowing they never talked to the regular admins and being broke and having already spent a fuckload of money for the school, I just never paid it. I spent an entire 4 months over the summer living there and on a friend's couch. The studio was deserted except a couple friends doing the same thing and one guy who actually paid. He had the electronic card that let us all in the computer lab. Anyways, every time it was used security got a message someone was in there, and after a while they got suspicious that only one card was going between several people. So I started having to dodge them and hide out in deserted areas and on the roof of a classroom, and even when I got caught a couple times lying about my name which eventually got the real card holder in trouble. Fortunately, this was a few weeks before the new semester. A sympathetic staff guy was coming in to prepare, so he let us in without alerting anyone and we got away with it. It only worked because I knew about that secret door that let me sneak in the building in the first place. I finished the film and even got a congratualtion from the admin for doing so much work (after he finished yelling at me.)

― sucka (sucka), Friday, 21 November 2003 12:49 (twenty-one years ago)

This didn't happen to me, but to a person I knew at my old Youth Theatre group (and I was there at the time) - this guy I knew was larking about in a car park (one that joined onto the theatre where our group met up) and he got caught by a security guard. He searched him for some reason and found some packets of Pro-Plus. The security man thought that the Pro-Plus was clearly hard drugs and that this guy I knew was a raging junkie. He started to take his name down and everything, but luckily he was able to convince the security person that it was just Pro-Plus and nothing more came of it.

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Friday, 21 November 2003 12:57 (twenty-one years ago)

A friend and I were walking aroudn the mall, telling filthy jokes loudly, pressing our asses on glass windows of department stores and being obnoxious towards suburbanites. On the way out, a security dude started chasing just as we were at the car. I got in and we locked up just as he reached us. The guy pounded the hood and commanded us to get out, so I started up and slowly pulled out of the space, making him dance backwards as he pounded the hood telling us to stop. I gradually sped up making him dance faster and faster, until he leapt out of the way cursing. We circled the parking lot and yelled "dance copper dance"! on the way out.

― sucka (sucka), Friday, 21 November 2003 13:00 (twenty-one years ago)

what's pro-plus?

― sucka (sucka), Friday, 21 November 2003 13:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I was at a wedding over the summer where a friend of mine got so drunk he thought it would be a good idea to try a head first slide over a glass table in a hotel lobby. Didn't work out too well, as he went right through it. Security came, we went on the lam.

― Chris B. Sure (Chris V), Friday, 21 November 2003 14:16 (twenty-one years ago)

friends and i used to be followed around by in-store security at meijer. probably rightly so, since we'd start food fights and other nonsense.

last time i was actually hassled by one was at a mudhoney concert when i was about 16 and setting leaves on fire (it was on top of a parking structure), which were stomped out by a guard's combat boot.

guess i just look like a good kid!

― colette (a2lette), Friday, 21 November 2003 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Many years ago, the Art Institute of Chicago opened a new wing, and since I was a student, I was obligated to check it out. I wasn't familiar with the turf, and I couldn't find my way out of the maze of new galleries. I found an "exit", and the elderly security guard sitting nearby was asleep, so I just walked through it, thinking I'd find myself in a parking lot or something. I found myself in a large storage area with a bunch of paintings. Then I couldn't find my way back out and I panicked. I ended up locked in a stairwell, and security people had to walk me out. On the way out, they yelled at the poor security guy who had fallen asleep on the job.

A friend and I were banned from a certain JC Penney for life for screaming in an elevator.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Friday, 21 November 2003 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Pro-Plus are caffeine tablets. About two of them is equivalent to a strong cup of coffee.

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Friday, 21 November 2003 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I AM one. College art museum. I am not scary and the most I have ever interceded with viewers is to get old ladies little stools, but I have an Andy Warhol badge. Watch out, yo.

― Maria (Maria), Saturday, 22 November 2003 01:30 (twenty-one years ago)

your uniform looks like this?

http://www.gkhandbags.nl/C2002/Img/Minibags/aw1.jpg

― sucka (sucka), Saturday, 22 November 2003 02:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Is colin done with his lady friend yet?

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 22 November 2003 02:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Blimey, I'd be impressed if he was still at it - he said that at 9ish last night and now it's 2.30 the next day! :)

― Trayce (trayce), Saturday, 22 November 2003 03:32 (twenty-one years ago)

teeny, Trayce, that was a total disaster. She had on a video of 'Charlies Angels II' or whatever it was and we were just lying on the bed drinking champagne and, er, getting foolish. Then, I don't know quite how it happened, but it must have been the boring movie, champagne, a long hard week, and too meany early mornings, but I just... er... fell asleep. I woke up about 40 mins later. The movie had finished, the woman was no longer in the room, she had changed into jeans and t-shirt, ahe was fuming, and I didn't get any that night. It took several hours to calm her down.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Saturday, 22 November 2003 08:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Whoops =)

― Trayce (trayce), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Whoops. It was like something from Everybody Hates Raymond. Hell hath no fury etc.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:19 (twenty-one years ago)

McG ruins yet another life

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:21 (twenty-one years ago)

aw, colin, I think that's precious. If I was the lady maybe I would have put lipstick on you or something but I wouldn't have left.

― teeny (teeny), Saturday, 22 November 2003 16:02 (twenty-one years ago)

four months pass...

Why are security guards such assholes?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 10 April 2004 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

one made me dislocate my knee, once.

― RJG (RJG), Saturday, 10 April 2004 16:58 (twenty-one years ago)

You know that they don't have any actual powers, right?

― dean! (deangulberry), Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:03 (twenty-one years ago)

do you mean magical powers or shit-kicking powers?

― RJG (RJG), Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Legal powers. Unless they are off-duty cops, they have no more legal authority that you do.

― dean! (deangulberry), Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I believe you but I also believe they might kick the shit out of you, anyway.

is it worth taking a beating so that you can sort out the legal stuff, after, and have them in trouble?

― RJG (RJG), Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:12 (twenty-one years ago)

No, of course not. It's no different than if someone on the street were threatening you, except that the security guard is more easily identifiable.

― dean! (deangulberry), Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, you can sue the establishment where he works for any moneys you think you might be owed!

― dean! (deangulberry), Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:14 (twenty-one years ago)

It's easier to get a result if you're female. Telling a security guard at Brixton Academy that he risked possible assault and false imprisonment charges if he so much as laid a finger on me might have been a slight exaggeration, but he went away when told.

― suzy (suzy), Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, it also helps to not be immediately intimidated. If you're already thinking that you're going to get your ass kicked, then it can't be that far off.

― dean! (deangulberry), Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah. Knowing the limits of their authority qualifies as useful trivia. Most people running security have to register with the council for the borough/county they are working in, and if they have a criminal record they can't register, so they really can't afford to fuck up.

― suzy (suzy), Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I should say too that I am speaking only about the US. It is pretty frightening how relaxed the certification is for security guards, especially in California. They spend more time training to arrest and control people (which they shouldn't really be doing much, as they are only citizens) than they trying to think calmly and handle situations properly, as if you could learn that in 60 minutes of an outdated video.

― dean! (deangulberry), Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:58 (twenty-one years ago)

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