Justin Rocque As The Security Officer
The following was written the day I resigned (March 12, 2005) from my security job and completed on April 4, 2005
The following was written the day I resigned (March 12, 2005) from my security job and completed on April 4, 2005
Well, I'm sorry (actually I could care less) to say but today is my last day working as a Security Officer in Tesoro at the construction gate.
During the little over two months of working here, I had enough. It has physically, mentally, and dramatically screwed with my life and I don't mean that in a good way.
When I first started in January, I thought it would be a pretty easy job, according to what it looked like and what everyone here was saying. But, of course, that would be too easy because with something easy, there is always the bullshit which goes along with it.
First off, let's talk about my schedule, which seemed pretty sweet at the time: work Wed from 12PM-6PM, Thurs through Sat from 6AM-6PM and off the rest of the week until Wed again. So, that's 4 days of work and 3 days off. Seems pretty sweet, don't it? In all honesty, it sucked ass, unless you like waking up at 5AM and going to bed at around 11PM. I sure as hell don't. Even though I got used to the schedule after the second week, I got off at 6PM and the bank I go to closes at 5PM, so I had to wait until Monday to deposit my check. Also, I have to schedule my appointments for stuff on Monday and Tuesday's, which isn't that bad but it's just a pain. Most of those days I have been helping people with their PC's so that doesn't give me a day off anyway. Sunday is when I did my laundry, cleaned my room, tried to keep my bills in order and also tried to catch up with my emails.
Now let's get to the part of actually "working" at the construction gate. I had to be there a little earlier than 6AM, which I can never be anyway because it takes around 30mins to get there. As soon as I get to the site, I had to drive to the main gate first, which is a two-minute distance from the construction gate. Most of the times when I used to pass that gate at around 5:55AM, there was already a line of people in front of the gate waiting to get in because they have no patience and are always in a damn rush to get to work and a damn rush to leave work. People are just… always in a rush and to this day I still can't figure out why. As soon as I got to the main gate, I had to sign in. Then I'm off to the construction gate, where I worked. I got to the gate, opened it, let the few cars in, and then sit in the shack, which was just a shed with an a/c, radio, small fridge and chair to sit on.
I'm at the site from 6AM-6PM. During that time, I signed people in who didn't have passes and almost got ran over because there were those people who, like I said before, are always in a rush and can't wait for me to sign a person in so they go around the car in front and just barely miss me. Dump trucks also went in and out of the gate and, because it's a construction gate and the entry road was not paved, I got a shitload of dust blowing in my face, which was not fun at all. Everytime I got home from work, I couldn't breathe though my noise because it was so clogged up with dust.
There was a mad load of the Cuban/Mexican nature of people working there, which meant, they barely spoke the American language so I had to try to understand where they worked at and for whom. Not to sound like a prejudice ass (I am not) but it would be a great help for all of us if they would at least "try" to learn the American language but I doubt most of them do or at least care to. We, instead, have to spend our own time and money to learn "their" language just so we can understand "them" and they can understand "us." I think it's a little ironic, doncha think?
As if that weren't bad enough, not that I couldn't handle it anyway, I also had to call people who worked on the site because there were a few Mexicans who needed to be picked up from the gate and brought to the area they were supposed to be working at. Of course, while I did this, there were also people I had to sign in to go through the gate and then you get those damn dump trucks flying by with the dirt on the road flying in my face.
There were a few other things which I couldn't stand, like the 20min lunch break, not being able to leave the property to go out to eat, and other balogna. However, those reasons was not the reason why I left. It had something to do with the manager in charge of the security there and how, all of a sudden, the Captain and the patrol officer, whom I became pretty good friends with, got "laid off." It was because of that reason why I left a couple days after them. Without them working at the site, I knew the place would suck even more working there because they were the only one's who actually stopped by and spent some time with me for a little more than a few minutes. They are pretty cool people too so there was really no "logical" reason as to why they got "laid off." During that time, there were a few people who were getting hired too. I'm not going to get into the specifics as to why they did because I figured that out or as to what was up with the manager of security there because the fat lady has not sung yet!
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't really that bad of a place to work at but the nonsense I went through was just a lot of bologna. It was a nice community and so were most of the people who worked there. I built a nice rapport with the people there; one person who works at the sales office gave me a couple cookies a few times too which was pretty nice. I made more money working there than any other job I had so far which was pretty cool but I just had to go because I knew if I stayed there would be trouble, even though if I left, there would be double. ;-)
Is Justin Rocque, the Security Officer done with? Hardly; I am currently looking for another security job. The wheels are in motion; I'm just waiting for a phone call now, which should be this week.
Update: I just received that phone call tonight so more about that will be explained here soon!
Click on the pic of me standing by my car like a cool dude to go back to the main page!
This page was created on March 22, 2005
Last updated on April 4, 2005