I worked for Allied Security after leaving another creepy Austin, Texas -based private security services provider contractor! There are so many people here looking for work, lots of University students (this campus is the largest in the US at present —lots of cheap labor not needing a LIVIING wage) and lots of high-techies out of work also most employers think they can treat you like scum anyway, especially ALL private security service contractor providers.
They prefer to hire retired military personnel because these guys aren't quite up on OSHA rules and regulations and Wage and Hour regulations as it applies to civilian life. They also prefer to hire WHITE males —the kind of looks that HITLER would have loved —under 25 years of age with boyish - looks, etc. Not only are they considered eye candy for clients of all sexual proclivities but they are usually too dumb to ask for a living wage when they are signed up.
Allied Security promised me vacation after a year and that they would provide sharp-looking uniforms to wear. That was a necessity since they write you up for looking lousy... I then proceeded to knock myself out to make sure that the client, a high-tech corporation that publically was very big on Equal Employment Opportunity had the very best I could give them.
I should have noticed when the site supervisor, an Air Force retiree told me tha the had women offiers here before but "they just didn't work out." This translates to "We have to hir YOU PEOPLE but we don't have to KEEP YOU PEOPLE!" This lets you know that if anybody is going to get backstabbed, it is going to be YOU PEOPLE representative. But because I needed a job badly, I had to take it.
I discovered that another security officer was alleged to be stealing soft drinks because of the lousy pay. He was also using thecomputer at the guard desk for unauthorized purposes and when he knew that I knew, the HELL began for me. He would program the computer to "crash" on me, etc. I didn't know at the time that the computer over at the other building could shut my terminal down and keep me locked out.
The officer on the morning shift was some of the under 25 white male "eye candy" and here I am a female of over 40. Of course I worked nights because I am NOT eye candy. The young guy didn't like me because he must have had mother issues and the guy on the middle shift who didn't care was afraid I was there to bust him so he spread rumors, etc. Apparently, some might have been believed.
I still came to work on time, did not misppropiate anything from the company, didn't report in sick on holidays and was too afraid of being fired to insist on my Jewish holidays off.in a word, I was the perfect officer. A little TOO perfect.
I was also curious as to why the client refused to renew the security services provider contract with Allied Security and it was just on a month to month basis. That instability should have meant more money for the security officers in such a tenuous situation but it didn't. We should have got new uniforms, but what I got was old and filthy and I had to use great care lest it fall apart in the laundry.
A Black guy on the morning shift, the assistant supervisor took an intesnse dislike to me. He did not like working with female officers. A Hispanic guy who worked the same shift with me in the other building (Lead officers worked in the other builoding) took a dislike to me. He made threatening calls and tried to break into my car. I interpreted it as harrassment and reported it to the site supervisor who told me "boys will be boys" (ha ha, nudge-nudge, wink-wink)
When I refused to resign, the young man came over in person with a pair of handcuffs and a large knife. I had seen him on the surveillance camera and was waiting in the dark at the head of the stairs in my building. I told him he had better get out of my building or I would call the cops. The guy whom I relived had passed him the handcuffs. What homeboy didn't know is that I had a peace officer license and had the training to take him out. Well, the Hispanic guy with the handcuffs was later fired because of a DEATH THREAT he had put in writing to a cleaning lady. Theincident with me DID NOT SEEM TO MATTER! That was just more "boys will be boys" fun.
Another young Hispanic guy was hired for that building and we both worked the night shift in sepearate buildings. He came into my building into a prohibited area and got in. I saw it on the printout and reported him. Nothing was done. After that, I learned that he kept his surveillance camera trained on my desk all night trying to catch me doing something against policy. This could also constitute "timing" someone when they go to the restroom and when they return which is ILLEGAL under OSHA and wage and hour regularions. Nothing was done. Someone else tried to bbreak into my car again, cut up the rubber lining around the door and kicked hell out of the side of my car. THAT I reported to the police but nothing was ever done about it.
The client then hired their own in-house security chief, a former employee of APS, a really hated, highly discriminatory, anti-woman company which had been bought by Securitas—a SWEDISH based security services providing megaconglomerate. Securitas had had the good sense to not want this looney-tune. APS had worked closely with Burns and Pinkerton to try and put the hurt on other security companies when it came to bid for contracts and none of them were above whatever it took to screw other companies out of the contract, even if it meant screwing over the client as well. That the employees would get screwed was a given. Securitas booted out a lot of the garbage but we got one as the in-house security guy.
He immediately put out bids and Pinkerton had come around promising the site supervisor and the Black guy who was his assistant lots of money to get Allied out of there. High-turnover of employees was teh way they decided to go.
I went to the Allied Security office to tell them what I had learned and what was going on. I was told to stay in my place and mind my own business. Also, that the client was VERYhappy with me.
(I had reported the other things that had happened to me, but they didn't care. You are supposed to have a person in each branch office to whom you can report EEOC concerns but nobody cared in this one. There were no women I (could talk to who worked there. They had all been fired, I guess or they were in sales and we security guys were all SCUM.)
Since i knew the dirty tricks that Burns/Pinkerton had played on a previous company I had worked for and put me and a few hundred other folks out of work, I sw teh end coming that these idiots refused to see. Or maybe THEY were taking money not to see. I started looking for a job. The Austin.com economy was starting its meltdown and other jobs were getting hard to find. I found out that we lost the account, as I had predicted, to Pinkerton. When I called the office to tell them, I asked about my vacaction pay. I was told that I was fired.
There was no other place to put me and to bring in my uniforms. Fired... Or laid off?
They were right. They specialized in guarding the type of places where no women were wanted... So I brought in my uniforms. I had about a year and a few months so I filed for unemployment.
You can bet I was surprised when the Workforce Commission told me that I had been FIRED and not laid off and they gave a cock and bull story about me not calling the in-house security guy when my computer crashed. I hadn't called him because it never happened. I requested an investigation and was found eligible for the unemployment insurance because they LIED about me to avoid having to pay the unemployment. I found out that all raises, benefits, etc. We could have got, Allied would not let us have. Even though the client wanted us to have the benefits like medical, dental, health, etc. Allied would not permit them to provide them for us even though it would have cost them NOTHING!
Maybe all the pennies they saved by screwing us out of our wages went to the manager of the branch office or maybe it went to corporate but I never saw it. It would have been cheaper for them to have given me my vacation pay than what they are going to have to pay in unemployment insurance premium increases.
Iaslo found out I was set up for failure because they gave me a raise —It was 25 cents, I think but for them it was TOO MUCH!
I worked for another two-bit place called IPS, International that does all of the security for Simon De Bartolo's Malls which lasted from September through December and that was another security rip-off place. How the officers were supplementing their income had to be believed and I wouldn't do it because I figured they would eventually get arrested and I didn't want to go to jail. Suffice it to say, the client and tenants were ripped off here too by alll of the efficiency focused on the scams and hustles instead of wher ethey needed to be.
Everytime I have tried to get a good job —Allied continues to blackball me. I need to write a book about the scams security companies are pulling. Anybody know a publisher?
Then I learned that they were giving references from HELL about me that weren't true and they had set up another Jewish employee for failure and fired him. Only Jewish employees were being abruptly terminated and singled out for special mistreatement I found out later. I don't know how they found out I was Jewish!
Helene
Austin, Texas
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