Why we Aspire to be Security GuardS

Most people look at security guards as one of the lowliest of "professions" truth is it's the best damn job you can have. The reason is simple - the job allows you to work on you.

Understand that the vast majority (if not all) corporate wage slave jobs require your time to be completely consumed and preoccupied. And more often than not that time is consumed with a mentally boring and mundane task. And even if it isn't, the culture is such that you still have to "act busy," which is even more mind-numbing than actual work. In the end, yes you do have a job, but your brain is completely and 100% occupied doing boring work that advances some other person or company. However, with security work it is different.

First, your job is to merely be present. Not to track down the bad guys. Not to do detective work. Not to be a wanna be cop. You merely sit at your station or desk, make an hourly patrol, and then return to your desk. The reason why is the big secret in the security industry. You really aren't paid to protect, you're paid because having a uniformed person on the premises gets that company or client a decrease in their insurance costs.

Second, since you aren't supposed to be doing anything other than merely existing most security companies allow you to do some other work. In other words, there is no expectation you need to be constantly occupied all the time. Matter of fact, it's expected you'll bring a book, study, bring a laptop or whatever. Some security companies and some security gigs won't allow for this (for example body guarding some socialite at a night club) and these are not the gigs I'm talking about. But the majority of security work is sitting at some corporate campus, twiddling your thumbs, killing time. Third, the caliber of the average security guard is crap. Absenteeism is a huge problem, drugs another, and nutjobs thinking they're cops .

In the end and combining all these traits together, you have the PERFECT job, especially for independent-minded people like us. You are paid, albeit it a minimum amount, to sit and work on your own stuff, occasionally getting up so you don't fall asleep, and are completely alone (assuming you took the dog shift). It is the perfect recipe for an inventor, an author, a entreprenuer, or just a minimalist who likes to read books because it gives you 8 hours a day to work on what you want. Better still, it FORCES you to work on your own projects because if you don't have anything to occupy your time you will get bored.

Though the work is not glorious and the title guaranteed not to impress chicks at bars, working security gave individuals like ourselves the time, the discipline and the opportunity to focus on ourselves and our endeavors.