At the onset of the 2008-onward recession it became more or less impossible to get the sort of summer gig that college students traditionally get. I couldnât get a callback from any of the area fast food restaurants, the babysitting gigs were gone, I drew blanks on waitressing, dishwashing, landscaping, car washes, summer camps, you name it. The big local summer attraction near me is a horse racetrack, and I put in apps for every position from betting clerk to horse manure removal tech. I got one (1) job offer that summer, and it was to be a security guard. I was a 19 year old girl with a perky ponytail, big olâ doe eyes, and no experience or interest whatsoever in policing, so I genuinely thought Iâd gotten the offer because theyâd confused my application with someone elseâs⌠until the first day of training.
Training consisted of a number of retired high ranking New York State Troopers very earnestly trying to convince a room of âdudes who desperately wanted to be a cop but couldnât jump even that low hurdleâ and also âone increasingly incredulous 19 year old girl who could only hear a loud high pitched note in one ear because she stood too close to her amps at the punk show last nightâ not to bring swords, shurukens, or butterfly knives into work.
We went over the âdo not bring in your own weaponsâ lecture for the majority of day 1 of training. Day 2 was also âdo not bring in your own weaponsâ for a lot of the day, then we moved onto âidentifying the different types of fire extinguisher,â and wrapped up the day with âwasp stings.â Well, actually during âwasp stingsâ we had a sidebar when this one guard who looked like Ben Franklin raised his hand and shared that he, personally, took care of wasps by blowing their nests up with improvised gasoline-based explosives, so technically we wrapped up the day with âdo not bring in your own weapons even if those weapons are to harm a wasp.â
Day 3 was a half day, where we reviewed everything weâd learned about no weapons, fire extinguishers, and wasps, and then we took a written test, which I finished with a perfect score in three minutes so Sargeant Minetti made me grade everyone elseâs. After that, I was a full ass security guard; I picked up my fake cop uniform, badge(!!!), tiny notebook, strapped a walkie to my belt, and was given my assignment. My beat was very very literally the most public facing one that existed; while most of my colleagues were posted at gates that might never get opened for the entire summer, I had âthe wholeass quarter mile of pavement abutting the chain link fence that separated the public from the ponies.â My responsibilities were simple:
1. tell people to move their rolling coolers out of the fire lane
2. take people with wasp stings to the nurse
3. every time a clerk at a betting window in my section accumulated more than $10,000 dollars in cash, I had to escort them for ½ of a mile through the incredibly dense crowd of drunk people, any of whom might be interested in stealing more than $10,000 dollars, and get the money safely into the giant vault.
I remember the very first run i made. The betting clerk looked at me, the 19 year old responsible for protecting both them and $10,000. I looked back at him through the mirrored aviators that Iâd bought at a gas station for 5 bucks because I thought it was very very funny and good fake cop cosplay. My walkie hissed ominously.
ââŚUh, so if someone tries to take the money, what are you going to do?â He asked.
âWell, I get paid 12 bucks an hour, so⌠nothing.â I responded. âHow about you?â
We quickly arrived at an understanding.
Two of the guards from my training group got fired that summer for bringing in their own weapons, and at least one of them had both a butterfly knife and at least one shuruken. Many more dropped out as they discovered that they would not actually be doing Die Hard shit. As for me, I did literally nothing to prevent crime all summer, but I also halfheartedly cleared a path through the crowd at the front of a very sad âSt. Patrickâs Day In Julyâ parade, which made me enough of a success story that they actually called me unprompted to ask if Iâd come back the next year⌠with one caveat.
See, the next year I returned as a weathered veteran with a spotless disciplinary record, so they gave me three hours of additional training to get a certification to become a peace officer. As a result, from ages 20-23 (when my license expired) I had the same legal powers of arrest as a police officer.
Me. They just gave me that.
In conclusion, if youâre a highly qualified team of heistmen looking to rob an entity that accumulates wealth by convincing drunk desperate people to give them their money and you pick a fucking casino when the racetrack is right there, youâre either thinking way too inside the box⌠or you have a healthy fear of shurukens I guess.
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