Guardsmark – “Better paying security job but watch out for the nonsese.”

Pros

The job doesn't pay 100k, never will. It's not that kind of deal, you have to better yourself to advance your life.

The job is the easiest work you'll ever do. Stand there watch cameras, note anything wierd and call the boss. Be nice, smile, and wave. Piece of cake work for the most part.

They do pay 1-2 dollars more an hour than most companies, and they give you basic medical ins for free for their f/t peeps. That is a really square deal I have to admit.

Management doesn't enforce anything, so you can basically be an idiot as i've seen many fellow guards be with impunity. See next section for furthur info.

Overall for an easy job it pays the bills and is a good fall back job in this enviornment, its a company trying to watch margins and if you play along its ok.

Cons

As a security guard you don't make 100k, so being realistic for the job - they pay ok but there is little recognition and in the way of raises. I just saw a guy get a $25 bonus for doing somehting good. Wow thanks what a deal....not worth the gas/time to pick it up. That really should have been $200 or better, it used to be $55 from a year ago.

The managers are distant at times, and do some real chicken things. They say your overtime will be a certain amount...just to find your rate was $2 - $3 less an hour on your paycheck. You can't do anything about it b/c the offer was not in writing. Then no more overtime b/c you tell them to make it right cause thats bs to promise to pay me XX amount an hour to find they dicked you $40 bucks or so overall.

The uniforms make you look like a mormon bike-riding-do-gooder.

No hope for advancement, unless you really are a serious rubber stamping brown noser to the account manager. Even then it is no guarantee. I have seen someone who is the golden child get 40 hours a week by taking 8 hours away from another guy. How nice to be given 40 hours a week and then reduced to 32 arbitrarily, for no reason. Very fair to that guy, huh?

They hire the dumbest people, and don't discipline them. I've seen sleeping, ridculous hair-do's, reading, texting while skyping while facebooking at the same time. Usually those idiots are the ones who say the job isn't fair. Management avoids enforcing the rules so long as the revenue keeps coming in. Then again that is their primary focus so you can't in all fairness fault them for looking out for the most important things first and this stuff later/last. Annoying as that may be.

A lot of redundant paperwork, tests, forms, and things that no one reads, checks, verifys, or anything. Really a big time waster. They have a business model of the 1970s technologically - no soft copies, all hard paper, I surprised they don't use dot matrix printers or chisel the info on stones like the flintsone newspapers.

No direct deposit too from the previous paragraph.

Advice to Senior Management

Being a company where we only "observe and report" can make us less useful to the eyes of potential clients. It doesn't sound good to some people - it needs to be curtailed to sound more helpful.

You should note who the better people are and make them supervisors. You should upgrade your technologly and rules so the client isn't fed up with you. You should try to really hire better people, though that is harder to do in all fairness.

Other than that you are doing a good job overall. Very profitable machine if done right.