So here we are again at the start of a new week. I am at work, a few hours from the end of my night shift. It may only be a twelve hour shift, but the fact that it finishes at 9 in the morning makes it feel long in some ways. It's the whole thing of it being daytime on my way home. When I've worked at places before it has been from five until five, six until six, or even seven until seven. This finishing time though is just strange. You start later on in the night, so essentially I'm leaving home when most people are settling down, and then on my way home I sometimes get caught up in the hustle bustle of people going into work in the morning.
It's a strange one in my opinion. I sort of enjoyed where the company I am working for had me at before, especially when I was on night shift. There I worked from five until five, so that way my first day off wouldn't be so bad because we actually changed over at around half past four, and that meant me getting in at around quarter to five (it was near where I lived), and then I would be in bed for five. I could easily get up at eleven in the morning after a decent six hours sleep, and then basically enjoyed my time off. Here though that is completely useless. I instead get in around a quarter to ten in the morning, and then am in bed for about ten, and then wake up before one in the afternoon, which makes me ratty for the rest of the day. I can't stay in bed much later than that because I feel like I am losing a day off, and I only get two off in a week, rather than the three days off a week that I asked for when they had taken me on. If truth be told, I'm not sure I would have worked for this company if I knew they were going to mess me about like this, because there were another couple of offers on the table.
When it first discussed in the interview stage, they were okay with it and even said that they would keep me local. I know that I am not travelling far, but it is still not in the local area. I am still driving 13 miles each way for work. That isn't local in my opinion.
A big problem is though that I do actually like the site very much, and the staff as well. I don't particularly like one of the guards, but the other one I understand and get on with. I am just not fond of the fact that I still have to travel for work. That really pisses me off big time, especially when this firm don't pay anything towards your fuel because they apparently don't make enough from their clients to pay expenses. I think they have a problem if they are willing to take such small amounts of money to provide security. They should put tenders in a way that benefits their guards and provides a professional service, rather than the cheapest service that can be offered.
That's enough of me trying to put all of that to rights. No matter what I say or do, security guards in this country at least will always be seen as the bottom rung of the ladder and treated as such, even when security guards are the first people that get their faces smashed in, or get stabbed or, on very rare occasions, get shot by would be thieves and criminals. All that in most cases for a lousy minimum wage. Now I will admit that all of these cases are very rare but, it does happen.
Most security guards work alone on sites, so it is easy for a single guard to be caught out by people on the sites they are working, and who knows what could happen to them. If you value what they are protecting, or you think their job is important then, in my opinion, they should be treated as such. I will admit that in all of my years of working in security, I have never liked it when someone has treated me as less of a person, and it has happened a few times. I go along with the "all men are equal" philosophy, and I speak to everybody on the same level. Okay, I treat people with respect, but that is just basic courtesy and politeness. I always call people Sir or Miss, until they say I can call them otherwise.
What is great though is that I can stay in touch with people who I made friends with at the different places where I have worked over the years. Over the last year alone, the company I worked for before this sent me to so many different Morrison's stores to work security for them, that I have built numerous friendships with people from many stores including Lincoln, Mansfield Woodhouse, and Loughborough. Of course I have maintained friendships from other jobs I have had over the years as well, specifically the job I did for many years in Chesterfield at The Avenue, where I have maintained contact with a lot of the people I worked with, and with some of the staff (one of the staff there in fact is one of my references when I apply for jobs). I sort of miss that place in a lot of ways, but not the travelling there and back, because that was a bloody journey every day from Newark to Chesterfield and back again.
Anyway, I think I will leave it at that now, because that is a lot of chat about work to be honest, and I don't think that people want to hear too much about it, and I probably shouldn't be talking about it too much.
I hope that everyone is okay and has had a lovely weekend. I have enjoyed the weekend, albeit having to work through the whole thing every week (another bone of contention there I might add, because the odd weekend off would have been nice).
Here's to a nice week ahead, although I won't be doing much because the car is playing up again, and I am always scared of taking my cars to a garage, especially so close to Christmas when I need to be thinking about people's presents and the like.
Take care and thank you for reading.
November 7 2011 (40 years, 11 months, and 12 days old).
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