Hip hop heron redux

Jinx!

JinxjinxjinxjinxjinxJINX!

I had a nap before work. And I had my spaceship pilot dream. This of course consists of dextrously hitting huge panels of buttons in bewildering sequence to achieve a particular effect.

Of course, in reality I was just repeatedly smacking my snooze button, and the time was already past when I should have left for work, and I hadn't showered or shaved or anything. Bah.

So I showered, skipped the shave but brushed my teeth, and caught a cab. Expensive, but better than being late.

I show up for work, and the S/S is there. He says hi, we shoot the bull for a bit, mention The Sleeper's odd behavior from the other night... and the S/S asks "Have you seen this?" as he tosses a couple of pieces of paper at me. One comes close, the other not. I pick up the close one.

It's a list of the winners of a raffle to give away from computers. No notable names on it.

"No, this one," he says, and hands me the other paper.

Background information:

The buildings that the bike patrol guys do all used to be done by my company. Seven buildings, multiple security officers, coordinated effect.

Then my company was looking to move its own office into larger digs, and one of the buildings on this site looked good. But on the expensive side.

Eventually my company chose a different location to move the offices to, and it apparently was a problem for the property manager at my location (this was all a few years ago - before my time with this company). He cancelled the security contract with us, and went with another company.

But a tenant in one of the buildings had liked us well enough that they chose to keep us on as their own security. And that's my site. It's three floors in a double building.

Also housed in this building are two floors and an outbuilding for a major surveying and resource-exploration company, and the property manager with which my company had the falling out.

Now, the vice president of this property management company is a good guy. I see him on occasion, and he always makes a point of coming out to talk to us (guys from both security companies) and asking how we are, how the shifts have gone, any problems we'd like to mention... stuff like that.

And he mentions how glad he is that we work together for the common good. You know, feel-good stuff to say to those way under you in the hierarchy.

But the actual property manager guy that we had the problem with, he's been coming in a bit more often on my shift. In response to my "Good morning" I get a grunt. But if one of the bike patrol guys happens to be there, even if he's never met him, they get a big smile and a "Hello! How are you doing?".

No problem.

Meanwhile, back at that piece of paper...

It's an email from this property manager to my company's liason at the site. Basically it says that he's noticed their security guy (me) has been posting himself near the front door lately and greeting people as they come in. (Actually, it's been for close to three solid months - way to keep up to date)

And he goes on to say that while this may appear to be a good thing (at which point he puts "safety in numbers" in parentheses), that this is confusing to people as they are sometimes confronted (not my choice of words, but okay) by two different security guards.

This is confusing (he says) because how will people know who to go to if there's a problem?

Therefore, he asks that I be restrained to specifically site areas and not be seen in common areas. I can watch the front door through a window, if I like. Arrogant prick.

Also, do you remember the receptionist that parked in the emergency lane in front of the outlets for the firehoses? It can be found here if you're inclined to remind yourself.

Well, she went and told this hostile property manager that I admonished her for parking there for a few minutes. This is not the channel that she's supposed to take - she went clean outside the company.

Not unlike me tattling on her to the guys in the mailroom because of her improper use of a letter opener so that she never receives correspondance again. Know what I mean?

So that was included in this email too - that I'm overstepping my mandate by dealing with the fire lane.

Note that I was off shift, and out of my uniform. I wasn't being a guard, I was being me. Same as I'd do if I'd just happened to walk by and see such.

Yes, I'd have to write it in my notebook, since she parked there when I was on shift, but it never appeared on any report.

Anyway, the reply from our liason: "This was not a result of any instructions from me - I'll see that all of this is stopped immediately. Thanks for the information."

Bah.

So I sat in the cafeteria just behind the door that I have to open about three dozen times each morning for people that forget their magkeys. If a bike patrol guy happens to be out in the lobby, he phones me and lets me know there are people that need to be let in.

If he's not there, they just have to wait until someone who has a key comes along and lets them into work.

And when they would walk in and see me sitting there, they'd ask (not angrily, but puzzled) "How come you're not outside?" I'd say "I'm not allowed out there anymore" and let them read the email.

If they asked further questions, I encouraged them to email my liason. What else can I do? I don't want the hundreds of people I see each morning who've grown used to me being there and able to grease them in, or take their guests up to their offices so they don't have to be down waiting for them while they've got work to do to think that I'm just slacking off. Better they know that it's not my idea, right?

The property manager came by this morning right before I went off shift, and I was sitting in reception behind some windows. For the first time I've seen, he went and had a long and friendly conversation with the Polish bike patrol guy. And I caught him smirking at me through the glass a few times.

After he left, the Polish guy gestured for me to open the door and let him in. I did, and sure enough the property manager had been gloating over how I'm not allowed to be out there anymore, et cetera.

A few of the people I usually let in went over to him and asked about it too.

This seems astonishingly petty to me. I'm incidental, this is all about some longstanding feud and I'm just a checker that someone blocked.

It's not often I find someone even more immature than myself. Lame.