The award for the shortest stint as an after hours security guard at the Aquarium of the Americas goes to this guy. Three days. That’s all I could handle before I promptly ‘noped’ the fuck out of there. You couldn’t pay me to go back. Not even as a visitor.
I’ve been working private security for about five years. That’s not that much in the grand scheme of things but it was enough experience to get the job at the aquarium. They were looking to hire a new guard as one of their older ones was retiring soon. I thought, how cool is this? A job where I get to wander about, checking the tanks and the fish cams all night. Just making sure local kids don’t sneak in or vandalize anything. And I get paid? Sign me up!
The interview was pretty normal and after a week they called me back. Job was mine after a week of training with the previous guard. Sounded pretty good. Decent pay. Not too much work. And I get a free pass, year round, to the Aquarium for myself and two guests for as long as I worked there. Everything was looking up.
The retiring guard was way older than I expected. I thought maybe fifty or sixty tops but he looked like he crawled out of a crypt after a couple hundred years, the whole time without a decent meal. Wrinkles and sagging jowls. Eyes with a bit of a cloud to them. And a cough that I swore was going to result in an organ slapping the cement floor every time he hacked. I’d be lying if I said at multiple points I wasn’t holding my phone, ready to dial 9-1-1. His name was Earl.
“Just follow this painted line. It’ll take you around the entire behind the curtain type areas,” he grumbled at me. “Stay on the line, do not divert.”
“Yes sir,” I responded with a nod.
“And stay off the shark catwalk,” he pointed at it as we walked by. “That’s for feeding them only. Not for people like you. Too much walking on it wears it out. Then some tourist will fall in the tank.”
“That’s actually happened?” I asked, eyes wide.
“Once a couple years ago. Sharks eat well here so nobody was hurt,” he dismissed and coughed for a full minute. “Don’t let tourists on it anymore. Just feeders.”
We passed through a couple of rooms full of tanks. Most had a bunch of writing on it that I didn’t really understand or was too tiny to read. He explained the gist of it though. Water tanks. Filters. Pipes that shot the water all over the facility, keeping it moving smoothly.
“It’s a closed system,” the old man told me. “Means we use city water, filter out the bad stuff, and add our own salts to it for the ocean fish. And we re filter it over and over again. It’s too complicated and not really that important for your job. Probably wouldn’t understand it anyway.”
“Right,” I answered, a little sarcastically at his implication that I was stupid.
We passed through another room full of little tanks with the tops on. Most of these had clipboards nearby on the wall with scheduled feeding times and notes. Sick tanks is what Earl called them. They put animals that were under quarantine in them until they got better. Then they put them back in the tanks. Earl also felt it necessary to remind me that this was also NOT my job.
I rolled my eyes as he said this, but only with his back turned. I don’t think the guy could handle an argument about my disrespect (and his lack of respect for me just because I was younger). He’d likely cough up a lung in the process.
As we were about to go into the next room I heard a loud splash from an obscenely large tank far off the yellow lined path. It caught my attention and my curiosity for more than a moment. I even attempted to step toward it to check it out.
“Leave it,” Earl warned. “None of your concern.”
“What is it? A shark?” I asked, my foot returning to the path but my eyes over towards the sound.
“If only it was so harmless,” Earl huffed. “Stay away from the sick tanks. Don’t wanna catch anything or worse; make the animals sicker than they are.”
“Right,” I nodded. I never thought about that and for a while I wondered what diseases or illnesses that animals could pass to humans or vice versa.
For the record, I do not count the week of training as days actually working there on my own. Earl was there constantly pushing me back into line if I showed even a modicum of curiosity in things outside my role as a guard. Stay on the line. Watch the screens. Keep your hands out of your pockets; it’s not professional.
And he got on me about really stupid things too.
No food on the premises. No talking on your cell phone during working hours. Ever. No listening to music inside or outside the security room. No singing either. Just focus on your job. Look out for suspicious peoples or the octopus trying to escape again. That last one is apparently a common occurrence every week or so. When I asked if I could pick it up and put it back in it’s tank Earl gave me a firm ‘no’ after nearly hacking up his spleen. Then he pointed at me and told me to do my assigned job for the eighth time that day.
I understand now why he was so adamant about all this crap.
