Sathnam Sanghera: Security Guarding

Security Guarding

We were only half an hour into a 12-hour shift and, already, our conversation had covered the 1883 Factory and Workshop Act, the weather, canteen food, Margaret Thatcher and the way the embankment of the Thames had narrowed the river and increased its depth.

A silence mushroomed between us. Instinctively, my hand reached towards the mouse attached to one of the computer terminals. “No!” warned Trevor. “Those belong to the receptionists! We are under strict instructions not to touch!” What? So we can’t e-mail? “No!” We can’t surf the net? “Oh, no, no, no, no, no! We have to keep our minds on the job!”

The job in question was being a security guard. I had ended up here, on duty in the FT’s reception area on a Tuesday evening, after the most common office conversation of them all (next to the one about what you’d do if you won the lottery): what’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

I had remarked that working in a hospital laundry was, by far, the most depressing thing I had ever done for money. My colleague had responded by saying that this was nothing compared to one of his worst ever jobs: being a security guard.

I was shocked. Security guarding had always looked quite easy – appealing even. How could it possibly be worse than wiping blood, excrement and vomit off hospital sheets? I ended up volunteering to do a night shift with the office security team, between 7pm and 7am, to find out.

I was only minutes into it when my biggest assumption about the job – that you could while away the hours reading novels, browsing the internet, contributing to late night radio discussion programmes – was proved wrong. It appeared that security guarding actually involved a large degree of security guarding. “We have to keep a look-out for walk-in thieves, tramps, drunks and disgruntled ex-employees,” pronounced Trevor, my partner for the night.

Despite this, there were already several things I liked about security guarding. I liked spying on people via CCTV. I liked seeing how silly my colleagues looked in their staff card photos. I liked the time I had to appreciate the office environment.

Indeed, it was only after sitting there for an hour that I noticed, for the first time, that there was a green plant on the front reception desk, planted in a vase full of glass chippings. Why had someone thought this would look good? Flicking through the CCTV screens I also noticed, for the first time, that there was a litter bin outside the ground floor entrance with “Sponsored by the FT” emblazoned across it. Why had the marketing department decided to sponsor a bin?

By dinner time I had concluded that my colleague was definitely wrong. Being a security guard was great – not least because having dinner in the office at 9pm is preferable to having lunch in the office at 1pm in every way: there are no queues for food; there’s little chance of the boss coming and sitting next to you; and you have enough room at the table to belch and to spread out newspapers.

I arrived for my next task – a night patrol with Trevor – with a spring in my step. He had prepared for the job by donning a reflective jacket and strapping a high-powered torch across his torso as if it were a machine gun. He explained that we would be looking for suspicious packages around the perimeter of the building, checking locks and emergency telephones and inspecting vehicles to make sure there was “nothing untoward”.

As it happened, there were no suspicious packages, all the locks were locked, and all the emergency phones were working. But I did spot something highly untoward in one of the directors’ limousines. Suppressing a shriek, I beckoned to Trevor, who ran over and shone his torch at the front seat. He looked back at me, exasperated. “I’m afraid that a Phil Collins CD does not classify as something untoward.” He marched off to the next destination. “I quite like a bit of Phil Collins, occasionally.”

Running after him, I asked if he had ever found anything “untoward” during a patrol. “No.” Had he ever found a suspicious package? “No.” Had he ever seen anything salacious? “No.” Anything horrific? “No.” Anything slightly titillating? “No”. Anything mildly violent? “No.”

This was the theme for the rest of the night. On the ground floor security desk, at 10:30pm, there was some excitement when Trevor declared a package addressed to the fashion desk “suspicious”. He took it away, had it X-rayed and came back, clutching it under his arm. Was it dangerous? “No. It’s an electric toothbrush.” Had a “suspicious” package ever turned out to be dangerous? “No. We get quite a few electric toothbrushes. And electric hair curlers.”

And this is the bad thing about being a security guard. It’s not the endless conversational silences, the dining alone at 9pm, the half-day shifts that are difficult. It’s the fact that even though nothing ever happens, you still have to behave as if something very serious might happen at any minute. This isn’t boring. It’s just exhausting.

In fact, a recent article in the FT reported that scientists are discovering that human beings are just not wired to do such surveillance work. Cognitive psychologists say that after 30 minutes of sustained concentration, the ability to detect signals drops significantly. Under high stress and fatigue, this rate can be as little as five minutes.

This, at least, is my excuse for ending my shift early. At 12:15am I was exhausted. At 12:20am I was in a taxi. At 1:30am I was tucked in bed, the tune of Phil Collins’ Another Day in Paradiserunning through my head and a new-found admiration for security guards galloping through my heart.