Job 9: So tired...must sleep...

I work as a security guard for a few weeks, maybe a month or so. I spent some time at a bread company walking the grounds. There's lots of people out there trying to steal bread. Augie's I think was the name. That's the nice thing about living out east. People carry fresh bread baked daily. Not like the Subway fresh bread that's loaded with preservatives and is soft and flaccid. The bread out east is crusty and fresh, and turns rock hard after a day or so. You can get fresh kaiser rolls for your sandwiches, or fresh Italian or French bread with dinner. For some reason, in the midwest, the bread is loaded with preservatives and is stored in plastic bags until its as soft as dough. Augie's baked fresh bread daily, and I walked around the the large automated bakery preventing the hoards of bread thieves from ravaging the delicious bread. I was a night watchman which meant I worked from 11:00 pm to 7:00 am. There was a fifty fifty chance I'd fall asleep in my folding chair by the side entrance. I think being a security guard was quite possible the most boring job I have ever had. Between the boredom and my ability to sleep basically anywhere when I get tired, I don't think it was the best employment opportunity for me.

I guarded a software company somewhere out east on the Island for a while. I sat in a small booth protecting the entrance of the building. Periodically I would walk around the building checking doors and such. I sometimes would bring a cheap little acoustic guitar with me and eke out bad rock tunes as I sat in the guard booth. If you were lucky, you'd drive past the booth to see an extremely tired guard plucking out bad Deep Purple songs on a nylon string guitar. The pillar of safety and peace keeping.

The third and final assignment I had was working at the US Open. It was at night of course, so I never got to see any matches or tennis stars. I did sneak on to the courts and walk around on a few occassions. I worked with another guard at the open. He was an older guy, and we would sit around in the guard tower all night and talk. He would tell me bizarre and disturbing stories about Vietnam, stories about killing people with knives and other assorted instruments. I'm not too sure if he was shitting me or not, but he always succeeded in making me entirely wigged out. One evening, after a long night of disturbing war stories, I went and fell asleep in my car. I woke up to see my boss banging on my window with his night stick. This, unfortunately, quickly ended my brief career as a security guard.