No One Should Be Forced To Put Up With This Garbage

When I worked in security in my early twenties, I got placed at a top-secret site. The guards there were all long-timers since it was a higher pay level due to the security clearance requirement. The site had two sections, and after I had been there for a couple of years, I got transferred to the second one around the corner. I joined my new shift and met my shift supervisor and the other patrol guard.

We were on a twelve-hour rotating shift. We worked twelve hours a day for a total of seven days in a fourteen-day period, and then we switched day/night. So, it was two weeks of days and then two weeks of nights, over and over. It was stressful, and sometimes your shift-mates were the only people you’d talk to for days at a time on nights.

Enter [Coworker]. [Coworker] had been working at that site for probably six years at that point. He was a white guy in his early forties.

[Coworker] was a bigot. If you could find a difference between two people, [Coworker] hated one of the options. He would go on hours-long rants about “foreigners stealing jobs” or “effing [Language]-speaking people,” etc., etc., etc.

Oddly enough, it was always said matter-of-factly, not with rage. He’d spout racist nonsense with people of that race in the room, or sexist BS in front of women, but it was not directed specifically at them. He created a toxic pall of negative energy around him, and no one could get him to shut up. And because the company was all old-guard-type people, he got ignored instead of being called out.

For instance: one Christmas Eve, I was on the night shift with my shift supervisor, a sweet lady who happens to be a [Language] speaker and a lesbian. I’m a young woman, not ex-military, and I also speak [Language]. We were sitting together before our shift started.

Supervisor: “[My Name], I can’t take [Coworker]’s rants tonight, not tonight of all nights.”

Me: “Me, neither. I’m not spending Christmas Eve listening to his BS.”

[Coworker] came in and we sat watching the TV, waiting for our patrol time to start.

Coworker: “I can’t believe our company is hiring so many [racial slur], [LGBT slur] [Language]-speaking women who’ve never been in the military. It’s—”

Supervisor & Me: “[Coworker]!”

I stopped and let her continue since she was our boss.

Supervisor: “No, no, I am not sitting here all night listening to you talk like that. If you can’t talk about the weather or sports, I don’t want to hear it. Okay?”

[Coworker] was stunned, and he didn’t say a single word for the rest of the night that wasn’t about work. It was glorious.

I had to work with [Coworker] for two years, until one day he was telling a racist joke to an employee (probably against their will) and the CEO was walking down the hall behind him. [CEO] was pissed. He went to our big boss.

CEO: “I want that guy gone — yesterday.”

Then, when he saw [Coworker] the next day because the company was trying to find him a new site the CEO went back to the big boss.

CEO: “When I said, ‘gone,’ I meant ‘gone.’ His access to the site is revoked. He’s not allowed here ever again.”

After that, it was a lot more peaceful on our shift.