I worked for these people last in 1999 and I will admit it was one of the most unforgetable experiences of my life! The information might be a little dated but I understand from people who still work there, including a guy from one of their other offices, that things have not changed very much.
It seemed like a good idea. There were two guys who went into business and at the time, they were paying more than any other private security contractor in Austin, Texas. They also impressed me as being very well-organized, GOOD businessmen who knew their stuff and emphasized training. I admired and respected them both.
At the time, several of us Hispanics, African Americans and Native Americans had been working for Excutive Security Systems, Inc. Who had been running hell out of us and only paying $5.00 an hour. We also had to put up with this bigot from hell named Tim W. Who was pulling guns on people, showing up drunk to work and destroying private property on the parking lot. Statewide was paying $7.50 and hour and I didn't have to be a patrol truck driver or do anything except guard high-risk properties at which I would be armed and I would actually get to use my commission card and my extensive training.
Executive Security had given me A WHOLE 15 CENTS AN HOUR RAISE after TWO years (The office manager used to say that we were just field N*s!) so I knew they were getting ready to FIRE me or otherwise screw me over until I had to leave. (Read other consumer complaints entries concerning Excecutive Security Systems, Inc.in Austin, Texas). These two guys were in a suite of offices of of William Cannon in Austin, TX and they had better employment policies, better uniforms and at least they weren't expecting us to play tag with the cops from three different cities with patrol vehicles that did not have the state-required liability insurance (Thank G*d we never got caught!) that were all crapped out by idiots who thought that these little standard shift 4 cyl. Pickups were COP CARS and did not meet safety inspections... And I had at least of patrol checks to make nightly... (And the poor client is led to believe in many cases that their property is the ONLY one that the patrol driver has on which to LAVISH undivided attention — to that, I say get a STANDING GUARD, stupid!)
Things seemed good at Statewide Patrol. I thought these two guys were in their thirties and well-established. They were both married to very beautiful ladies. One had been in the military for a while and the other one was married to a very smart lady who was either a CPA or an accountant. I think she kept the books. One was from Houston, TX and streetsmart. They had a wonderful Hispanic office manager who worked minor miracles of scheduling, security client relations, ACTUALLY INSURING THAT CLIENTS GOT WHAT THEY PAID FOR and that the GUARDS WERE TREATED RIGHT WITH DIGNITY AND RESPECT! This was a great place to be! MY KIND OF PLACE!
I was the person who came in and saved the accounts that the company was about ready to lose but they did NOT care! In fact, they were pretty damned ungrateful...
The office manager died abruptly. They said it was an allergic reaction to a fire ant bite. He was 30 something so he lived a long time with fire ant allergy in Texas.
After his funeral, to which many of us were NOT invited and I caught HELL for having a Perpetual Mass said by the Catholic Church for him here and I sent his mother a beautiful religious medal.in exchange, I got an invitation to some tacky sort of postmortum "Money Tree" Party at the house where he used to live. I really liked and respected him. But one of DA BOYS acted like he was shocked and somewhat aback that I was able to find addresses for his family. That was easy for me.
Turns out these were two guys were just in their twenties when they started this company and they were ridiculing me and other people who worked so hard for them behind our backs... I was amazed when I heard it but since nobody had seen me (they later got surveillance cameras on all exits and entrances to prevent any further eavesdropping!)
They supposedly had a deal worked out with a wholesale car lot where you could buy a used police car through them and they would take it out of your check. Accoridng to the guy who managed the lot, he never got the money and quite a few of those cars were repossessed. He won't do business with them again.
They had some slimey-looking insurance hawker come in and they tried to force us all to sign up for the company-provided insurance which was way too much for me considering what they were paying me. A guy in his late twenties or early thirties I know did sign up and he needed it. He was a simple fellow, reliable, truthful and he lived in a small motor home, the kind that your grandfather would travel in. He had two hearing aids and needed the health insurance. I relieved him of duty at what used to be a nursing home which was being remodelled for state offices in a rough part of town. He said that he had needed to get treated for a medical problem, only to find out that his insurance premiums that had been taken out of his check had NOT been paid. I hated to see him screwed over like that but I had not gotten the insurance because I didn't like all the derisive laughter and subtle winks and sneers on the part of DA BOYS and the insurance sleaze salesman.
Then the new office managers were two white guys who resembled some deputies I had seen in various area law enforcement agencies and I wondered if there wasn't something being investigated because why else would they come to work for a contract private security company when they could get better benefits and pay by staying at the county. One of them told me some things about "da boys" who ran "our" company which really concerned me. But since it was hearsay and I really didn't know him that well, I just ignored it. I should have listened! They were being investigated by somebody it seems but the investigation was abruptly called off.
I remember one pay day at the William Cannon office when we were going to be paid but we had to stay outside while Austin police tossed the office looking for a computer diskette or something... Took a while. I didn't care. Just give me my check.
I was told that I was going on salary because under certain federal laws, they did not have to pay overtime unless they made so much money a month. WHO IS GOING TO FIND OUT WHEN THEY REACH THAT THRESHOLD? I decided to go to Wages and Hours where I found out that some people in the San Antonio office had already filed a complaint and that before I could file one, the company had gone BANKRUPT! Nobody who had been yentzed out of their overtime pay was going to get anything anywhere else. They had filed for BANKRUPTCY TWICE over money they owed the IRS.
Well, it appeared to be REORGANIZATION to me and lots of businesses do it and it is NO BIG DEAL. Or was it? So far, so good witih me. I was still having a great time! I could hardly wait to go to work.
Then I got hurt on the job. I followed OSHA procedure to the letter and I called my supervisor. A couple of other security officers were at my post at the time because they were told to wait there in case anybody did not call or show for duty and then they were to report there immediately. They saw that it was a legitimate injury. An insect had been attracted by the lights on the car lot and had bit me in and about my eye and my supervisor nearly threw up when he saw it. He rushed me to the ER and even though the incident occurred on company time, the company did not pay my hospital bill which was very cheap because I got treated in time to avoid any loss of sight.
I called Social Security Administration office in town and learned although I was getting Social Security taken out of my check, it wasn't being paid to them so I had to call in and they had to pay it. Another guy I worked with was having his paycheck garnished for an old student loan and we found out that although it was being taken out of his check, the money had not been paid to the student loan corporation. We just thought it was a mistake, after all, bookkeeping mistakes happen and after that faux pax they started paying the money to the student loan company. I could tell though that there started to be a few cracks behind the fakey smiles.
These guys were really good at making you feel like you were a part of something, part of the team and vital to the mission and they had the kind of posts that had a lot of action where the private security officer with my kind of training DREAMS of working!
They were snickering and congratulating themselves that they had filed for bankruptcy without the (expletive deleteds) finding out. I did but I held my punches. I even went down to the Bankruptcy Court and looked up both cases and checked out the case files in person.
Well, I was back at work as soon as possible because I liked my post so much. I figured it was just one of those business decisions that businesses make.
I recall the "sniper" incident at the Taco Cabana at Pleasant Valley and Rievrside in which our field supervisor (a man) was hiding in the women's restroom! There was military -style cartridges left behind that Austin police found. I don't know who the shells were meant for and I guess I forgot to be scared. Turns out the "Gang fights" outside were being staged there so that crooked employees could sneak the meat in the resaturant out of the drive through window while everybody was preoccupied with the "fights.". Somebody had to know. Somebody had to be related to someone. Especially when the Texas Syndicate members came up and said they were with us. That's cool but if the restaurant is paying the TS gang to guard their place, they don't need me there too...
I was moved to a construction site in the scalding, hot sun with no restroom access or potable water. One of the worst places i have ever guarded pretty close to what a hot hell must be like. I was then invited by the contractor and others in the neighborhood to come back for the PARTY/FIESTA when the facility was completed.
There had been rumblings in the Statewide Patrol Office that they had to get rid of these "old looking " guards and start replacing them with cute little white boys with NO previous security experience who were then promoted over us old looking guards to try and catch us doing something wrong — and apparently they could make it up.
I showed up to my construction site the night of the Fiesta and one of the first things I did was to save the life of a Hispanic man who had gone into a near-diabetic coma. And After I stablized him while I called 911 on the cell phone, I ran and escorted the ambulance to get him aboard.
Then I get a call from one of DA BOYZ that my uniform "looks like s*t and I need to get out of there" and go work a dark, quiet apartment complex. This meant I would not get to hear the mariachis and enjoy the refreshments and use my Spanish language ability. IT SEEMS THAT THE CUTE LITTLE WHITE BOYS ARE TAKING MY PLACE.
My uniform had been starched to military perfection, my boots had a mirror finish, usmc spit shine on them —and it was increasingly obvious to me that da boy had not even seen me at all, he wanted his little white boys (about 18,19, 20 years old) to come in and take over and get the credit for all of my hard work.
I left but I wasn't very happy about it.
I began to hear stories that certain persons inelgible for security jobs had been hired at Statewide Patrol and that the State Bureau of Private Security had fined Statewide Patrol big time for this and a few other "violations." It was not something I wanted to believe.
I gave those guys some very loyal service and did the best that I could for them and it seemed like to me I was being railroaded out.
There was also the case of guy from Chicago and the Chicago cop who came looking for him right to the Statewide Patrol office about two years later. The same guy had orders when we were learning how to use impact weapons that he was supposed to "take me out."
We were assigned to work a rap concert in Zaragosa Park and I was given a ride in but the people I went in with left me behind and I neaerly got shot by a street gang from a 1965 Chevy Impala with dull primer paint on it. Was this more job-related than I knew? The people who were working the concert were the guys who wore the "black out suits" like SWAT and later ended up being arrested on something to do with computers that ended up missing somewhere... I think one of DA BOYZ gave him those orders.
There was the case where we got handcuffing techniques training but no certificate of completion was issued for us.
I started looking for another job and I wondered why it was so difficult to get another job and then I learned that DA BOYZ had been telling people that I was a 10-96 "a dangerous psychiatric case" and hinted at other things like the immature punk he turned out to be.
I resigned because I got tired of being treated like a Stupid Mexican peon. It was PAST time to go. So I did.
To this day, i get job references from hell.
About a year ago, several of us were back in Texas visiting family and I was at Jimmy Johns' Sandwich Shop on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.in Austin, Texas. I saw ONE OF DA BOYZ briefing a little white boy who was in his Statewide uniform at the Taco Cabana across the street. I waved at HIM and you would have thought I threw a pot of hot water on him! He couldn't get away from me fast enough.
GUILTY CONSCIENCE I SUPPOSE. BECAUSE HE LIED ABOUT ME! Perhaps it was the incident at MUSTANG RIDGE (TEXAS) POLICE DEPARTMENT that cost DA BOYZ their reserve officer jobs there as well as the Chief of police who ended up at Jonestown, Texas. I later learned that DA BOY attempted to blackball me with every possible employer in Texas.
They are still in business but I won't be working there again and neither will the lady who worked for them who lost her house because of their pay rates... She lived in Round Rock...
I still have some great memories of the posts I worked and the great times I had but I put in hour after hour after hour of overtime and made enormous sacrifices of time from my life for that company and was NOT appreciated.
It was Statewide Patrol, the last "real" security company I worked for that convinced me to get the hell out of this business FOR GOOD! It is just no damned good!
0 comments