It's time for another lousy Austin, Texas Private contract security services provider usacomplaints.com!
I went to work for these people myself in September, 1999. Because of the extensive training and experience I had in private and corporate and patrol and high-risk, high-crime hazard armed security, they promised me the sun, moon and stars and because of my specialized training, they promoted me to Custom Protective Officer right away. That is as high as a "guard" can go with Wackenhut. They also have uniformed or upscale guards as well, the "grunts"...
Now that I look back on it, I was only hired as a facilities because the rumors on Y2K terrorist activities, computer crashes and wild-eyed militia types and the Klan and who knows who and what were going to go beserker and kill and loot and pillage and all the rest of the horrible stuff that never came true! Well, I enjoyed waiting for 01/01/01 because I got a nice, fat bonus just for showing up at work. I also learned how to use a computer and surf the net from professionals.
The high tech economy was on not too a firm foundation in 2001 and the melt down was beginning in Austin anyway... The place where I was assigned was lost to Guardsmark (a very discriminatory company in their hiring procedures by the way —at least the Austin branch office was, I think they might have changed since 2001 —IF they are still in business!) and there was no permanent place to put me! None at all. They were rather selective like that about women and certain minorities...
They assigned me to working an IBM high tech PARTY which turned into a drunken brawl which ended up with me having a chair thrown at me, an alcoholic beverage dumped on me and some yuppie a*hole spitting at me. I reacted the way a cop would. I was reported by some of these yuppies who thought I should smile when spit on and cursed and threatened. My boss showed up and even though they harrassed him i was blamed because one unarmed security officer couldn't handle 100 extremely drunk and possibly drugged ibm male and female yuppie employers. (I hope they were included in the big night of the long knives lay-offs). I could and should have filed assault on them but chose not to do so because my husband was still working there.
I had to take a tremendous salary cut in pay and prestige. The hell with the prestige, however. They put me in a place where there was a woman in charge who was an Upscale Security Officer and she and her wife were antique collectors. This meant she had to have a lot of overtime to afford her habit and overtime means that there has to be a shortage of officers. This means setting up the officer beneath you so they no longer work there and then you take over theri shift. A sweet deal. I was sent there because of the high turnover and they hoped I would quit.
Well, turns out she had a whole lot of hustles going on there as well. The main one was to wake up truck drivers who would show up to deliver loads of computer monitors to our warehouse. When you would knock on the door, the truck driver would accuse you of scraping up his truck and call the police and get the hapless security officer arrested for criminal mischief and threaten to sue the company and get an insuraance check which he would split with the supervisor. They looked into it after I left. The truck driver would then call the supervisor on his cell phone after the officer left by whichever means and then she would show up and get the overtime for the remainder of the shift. Sweet deal. They tried with me but I knew both of the cops who showed up and I had attended a class their captain had taught. No arrest and no report. The supervisor showed up anyway and ordered me to leave. I didn't know that she hadn't the authority to send me home OR fire me and the operations manager just HAPPENED to be OUT OF TOWN so I left.
I later found out that this constituted quitting without notice! And i would never, ever again be rehired by wackenhut corporation (guard division) anywhere in the world during my entire lifetime! And when the company from denmark bought them, the lifetime ban was continued!
But what happened to me was nothing considering what happened to my husband! He gave them nine and one-half years of his life. I saw him coming home and had to soak his feet because he had walked all night and his socks were bloody because his boots had rubbed his feet. His legs swelled and he hurt and moaned all night because his muscles were so sore.
HE NEVER REFUSED A SINGLE ASSIGNMENT—EVEN IF IT MEANT NO SLEEP! (And if you accepted an assignment like that and accidentally or inadvertently nodded off, they WOULD FIRE YOU ON THE SPOT EVEN THOUGH THEY KNEW THE CIRCUMSTANCES!)
(To Be Continued)
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