Security Slacks
Three years of not being able to see my sister means there are lots of things to talk about. Naturally, I brought up in our many chats so many things that I praise, things that I loathe, things that delights me and things that annoys me.
One particular grating-on-the-nerves stuff that I brought up was about our security guard in our condominium back in Binondo, Manila.
Let me tell you beforehand that first of all, I have never been a security guard, so I don’t know what are the exact guidelines of their work. Secondly, I don’t know when it is that what they are doing are beyond the limits of their work, or doing things they’re not supposed to be doing. But common sense pretty much dictates that some of the behaviour of our condo’s security guard are inappropriate, no, very inappropriate.
The first task that a security guard has to deliver is to keep the vicinity SECURE, and hence they have the title (and the name). And for that task alone, our condo’s security guard have already proved insufficient.
What exactly have they been doing? I wish I could type all of the stuff they are actually doing until the word limit of this blog (if such exist) have been reached. The real problem is, they’re doing nothing! At least, nothing of the sort of keeping tenants secured.
First of all, they were seen flirting with the elevator operator so many times. How can I prove this? Pretty simple. There are so many times I have witnessed a security guard (we’ll just call them guard henceforth) going inside elevator, press a destination, then not actually go to that destination once it is reached. Instead, they would initiate a small chat with the elevator operator. Sometimes the small chat become a series of big laughters and perhaps even trivia lessons given by guard to exemplify their male chauvanism. It’s all pretty embarrassing, because not only are their courtship style so high school (read: early puberty), but they’re actually also slacking off from work.
Next, the receptionist (who also happens to be another security guard) is also pretty dumb. They can’t tell apart visitors from tenants. If you are Chinese, they won’t require you to first make an intercom to a tenant you’re supposed to visit. But if you’re a Filipino, the intercom is mandatory. How stupid (and racist) is that? You mean to say it’s not possible for a Chinese suspicious character to suddenly enter the premise of the condominium? Last I recall, there are numerous amount of suspicious Chinese character existing in different parts of the world, perhaps even more than there are Filipino suspicious character. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is coming from a pure Chinese.
But not only is the receptionist dumb, they don’t even know how to modulate their voice, nor do they know how to follow orders. 7 years ago, when a tenant wants to bring his/her driver up, s/he can just request the receptionist to make an intercom to the driver. Now, it’s impossible, not because the receptionist will refuse to do so, but because they’ll agree to do it yet fail to do it. What the hell? I mean if you don’t want to do something, just say it! Of course, to verify this, I asked my driver (after waiting so long for him to come up) whether or not he was intercommed. He said no, and he was telling the truth.
Then, there’s this issue about the receptionist having terrible english. When I say terrible, I mean un-understandable terrible. I remember this time when I was intercommed about a delivery of a certain stuff. The conversation went on like this:
Guard: Sir, may delivery silin. (Translation: There’s a delivery of silin)
Me: Anong silin? (Translation: What silin?)(I was actually thinking he was referring to the roof, which I find kind of weird, because when has people ever delivered roof for a condominium?)
Guard: Yung gasul. (Translation: The gasul)
…which then made me realize they were actually referring to Shellane, the gasoline for your stove. This conversation made me want to bang my head against the wall. How could any administration with the right mind (which I doubt our building’s administration have) assigned a person with terrible english to be the receptionist of a building? It’s basically the same task as a call center agent (except receptionists are less paid), and from what I know, both occupations require that people have good communicating skills, at least in local language (Tagalog), as well as English.
Lastly, have you ever seen a security guard falling asleep during work?
Yep. Our security guard falls asleep during work. Which makes the security more lax.
Out of them all, I was most annoyed at security guards falling asleep. Not only that, but whenever they sleep, it’s so hard to wake them up. I remember being able to walk past them without waking them up. When they do this, they lose the confidence of having the tenants feel that their condominium is secure. Of all the things that a security guard could do, I think staying awake (and keeping watch) is most important. If a security guard, such as ours, falls asleep during work, he fails as a security guard.
My advice to people who live in my condominium (most especially to the administrators)? Fire the security guards; or instill discipline to them. Let them know what’s appropriate for their job and what’s not.
Or we can all just use a thousand padlocks in our house. I’m sure the security guards will never notice all those drillings that went by while installing the locks.
