Tough gig.

For those that don't know, working security is a tough gig.

You're hated  at least as much as the police are, but with only a fraction of the power and protection they have. The pay is crap, and a good chunk of many paychecks goes towards equipment, uniform upkeep, and even just getting licensed and trained in the first place. On top of all that, the work is incredibly boring and lonely. If you're lucky, you'll have homework to do, or a partner to bullshit with so the time passes a little faster. If you're unlucky, you're stuck staring into space for hours on end. If you're REALLY unlucky, you're stuck trying to distract your partner from the topic of how the country is run by lizard people and the only solution is to build a bunker in the hills.

DON'T YOU SEE, IT'S ALL OBAMA'S FAULT.

You most likely have developed an addiction to some form of stimulant, either to help keep you awake or to just have something to do. 4% of your time is spent writing reports describing the 95% of your time spent sitting or walking around. 1% of your time is deciding if being paid slightly above minimum wage is worth being spit at, punched, stabbed, bitten, shot, blown up, burned, trampled, or otherwise wanting to go back to working in fastfood.

At least the only person that wants to kill me...is me.

...and then there's my job.

LP stands for Loss Prevention. It's a job that involves all the above mentioned bullshit, but instead of checking ID badges at secure entry points and clearing out fire hazards, we mainly catch shoplifters.

Maybe if I put it right next to my wallet, I won't forget to pay for it this time.

LP officers are often undercover, and they will be quick to tell you that it is hard work to look like you're not working hard. We have to use every trick in the book to look like we're not looking at you and everyone else in the store, and then use all that we know about profiling, human behavior, and good old fashioned gut feelings to figure out who is stealing.

They also have to physically catch the people they see steal, and as you can imagine, many  people really do not want to be caught. As much as we try to talk people into being cooperative, our job sometimes involves some sort of fisticuffs.

I JUST WANT BACK THE WALLYTWABBER!

Getting in fights with complete strangers sucks. While you've generally been able to figure out how drunk/intoxicated they are by the time it comes to them trying to hit you, you have no idea if they have any weapons, diseases, or friends that could make your day go from "soul-sucking" to "killer" in the most literal sense of the word. Not to mention, most people you have to chase, er, "maintain observation" before attempting to "assist them to the ground" and place them in "properly fitted and double-locked hand restraints" - which is actually doing everything but breaking their squirrelly little arms so you can cuff them safely. Then you get to escort them back to the store and hope they don't trip and kill themselves somehow, because once you've cuffed them, they are your responsibility.

Then, when all is said, done, and potentially bloody, you get to make a report of the incident (which is a legal document) while your adrenalin is pumping pounds upon pounds of stupid juice into your brain.

I COT THEEF. IS GOOD.

Then, when all is said and done and did, the jails are usually too full, so the person you just caught often walks out the door and goes to steal somewhere else. It's not uncommon to catch the same person multiple times in a month. So, it all just seems like one perpetual circle-jerk where the only upshot is that I never have to worry about there being a shortage of people to catch.

Empathy pt. 1

In Seattle, there is something called "The Seattle Freeze" and it refers to how most people in this town are apparently allergic to making new friends. Most people are polite and will even make small talk, but whenever the conversation rolls around to the topic of things like hanging out, meeting again on accident, or otherwise devising some means to have another conversation, they'll shut you down faster than an church youth group performance of "Silence of the Lambs."

He just wants to fill you with his spirit. Actually, he just wants to fill you skin with it.

The result of shitty social skills phenomenon is that most of the people I talk with in Seattle on a regular basis are recent transplants, fellow volunteers (they tend to be much more friendly when they have to be), or homeless.

In fact, because of work, most of the people I talk to are homeless. Whether it's making friends with the panhandlers in front of the store I'm in, or someone I've caught and am just killing time while waiting for PD to come and ID them, we have pretty good conversations most of the time. Even the ones that are in cuffs, because they tried to run or fight, eventually calm down enough to realize I hate doing my job even more than they hate me doing my job.

Chuck Norris is the only person whose job hates him.

The other option is that we're all just lonely. Either way, despite my work requiring me to put a significant damper on their day, I have grown to really want to help many of the people that I catch, because the hard fact is that I'm only a couple of missed paychecks away from being right there with them.

Actually, I'm closer to half a paycheck away from being right there with them.