I work as a security guard for a winery. The winery also owns the hotel across the street, which always seems strange because it’s a pure production winery, not a tourist winery. Regardless, during my shifts, I am the sole security guard for both the hotel and the winery, but my guard shack and 95% of my job happens at the winery. One Saturday during the off-season, when the winery is completely dead, I get this phone call from the hotel receptionist.

Me: “Hello, what can I do for you?”

Receptionist: “Hi, I wanted to call and report a suspicious car in our parking lot.”

Me: “Okay, please describe the car and why it’s suspicious.”

Receptionist: “The car looks like [description] and it’s suspicious because it’s been parked there for two days without moving.”

Me: “Oooookay, does it belong to a guest?”

Receptionist: “Actually, yes, I think I saw the people in room number [something] get out of it.”

Me: “All right, are those guests still there?”

Receptionist: “Yes, they are, but the car has been there for a really long time. Do you think I should call the police?”

Me: “I think that’s a bad idea, since it sounds like the guests just haven’t gone anywhere while you were there, but let me talk to my supervisor so I know what he wants to do about this situation.”

I hang up as she continues trying to explain why it is so weird that the car hasn’t moved.

Getting my boss’s opinion is really just an excuse to loop my boss in on the exchange I had just had in case the receptionist tries to do something crazy like call a tow truck and act as if I supported the decision. After calling her a moron, my boss asks me to call her back and get more information.

When I call, it’s clearly still the receptionist’s voice, but now with a bad Spanish accent. She gives a different name.

I’m very confused but I roll with it.

Me: “Hi, I just wanted to follow up with [Receptionist] and gather some more info about her concerns. Could you put her on the phone, please?”

Receptionist: “I’m sorry, she went to the kitchen area; she could be anywhere right now, I don’t think I could find her.”

This is not a giant hotel complex. The entire hotel has about ten guest rooms in a two-story building plus a manor house area with a kitchen, a bar, and a few miscellaneous rooms. The idea that anyone could disappear in this place is absurd.

I’m 95% sure that I’m actually just talking to the receptionist but not quite at the point of calling her out.

Me: “All right, well, could you give me [details] for my incident report?”

Receptionist: “Oh, yes.”

She gives the exact same details to the point that my 95% surety increases to 98%. I try to contain my laughter at the absurdity of the situation.

Me: “Okay, thank you.”

I have rarely heard a voice more filled with abject despair and exasperation with the absurdity of the world than my boss listening to the details of my second exchange. For my part, I spent the next thirty minutes bursting into random bouts of uncontrollable giggles as I struggled to force the inanity of it all into a professional format in my incident report.

Related:
Very Bad Reception, Part 22
Very Bad Reception, Part 21
Very Bad Reception, Part 20
Very Bad Reception, Part 19

I work in security. I’m posted outside an office building with several state and federal government offices when one of the employees comes out.

Employee: “We have a transient in the lobby acting weird. Can you come check him out?”

I agree and proceed to the main lobby, turning on my body camera en route.

I get to the lobby and find a short Hispanic male, dressed in all camo clothing, wandering around talking to himself and holding one of the free magazines that most lobbies have available.

Me: “Sir, do you have an appointment? Or are you meeting someone?”

Man: “Nah, I’m just hanging out.”

Me: “Since you have no business on the property, you will need to exit both the lobby and the property.”

Man: *Snarling* “Fine, but I’m taking this!”

He shakes the magazine at me. I respond very calmly and neutrally.

Me: “You go right ahead and do that, sir.”

We start walking out and I’m about ten feet behind him making sure he leaves the property when he starts shouting.

Man: “WHAT DID YOU SAY?! YOU’RE THROWING ME OUT BECAUSE I’M BROWN?! YOU…”

He proceeds to spew about every four-letter word known to exist, along with a few I’ve never heard before. I stand there and let him exhaust himself, and then I point to my body camera on my chest.

Me: “Did you happen to notice this body camera, the one that’s been recording this whole time?”

He visibly deflates, and in a tone that reminds me of a three-year-old who was told no, they can’t have cookies, he yells:

Man: “F*** YOUR BODY CAMERA!”

Then, he stomped off the property and down the road, where I saw him proceed to “fake trip” in front of a business and make a big show of it.

I was a truck driver making a collection from a unit on an estate. The entrance has an “in” and an “out” with a gatehouse in between. I pull up alongside the window and hand over my paperwork. The guy looks at it for a while.

Guy: “What are you delivering?”

Me: “I’m not. I’m collecting.”

Guy: “What are you collecting?”

Me: “I have no idea; the paperwork says one pallet.”

He makes a phone call and someone says that he should speak to dispatch. Eventually, he sorts it out and then produces a clipboard.

Guy: “What’s your name?”

I tell him.

Guy: “Registration number?”

I tell him.

Guy: “What company are you?”

I point to the name on the driver’s door right in front of him. It’s also printed on the paperwork I gave him.

Guy: “Where are you from?” 

Now I am getting a little irritated by the interrogation, but I do accept that it’s not his fault. 

Me: “Do you mean originally, today, or my last call?”

He looks at me, clearly thinking I’m a smarta**e, so I make something up for him to write on his form.

When I get to dispatch, they load the pallet on with a forklift and then give me a multi-page printout to sign. It clearly lists all the various items on the pallet. This happens from time to time, so I write “UNCHECKED” and sign.

Guy: “You can’t do that.”

I point out that I will have to strip the pallet to check that every item is on there.

Guy: “I checked it; you can take my word for it.” 

I mutter something about “Company Policy” and ask if he wants to take the pallet off again.

Twenty minutes and a couple of phone calls later, I set off, complete with the pallet. I stop at the gatehouse and the same guy comes over to the window on this side.

Guy: “What’s your name?”

I just drove off. I never went there again.

I work for the TSA. Most of you don’t like that very much. I am terribly sorry for the things that cause our negative reputation. I know it’s well deserved. I really am sorry.

I personally need the health insurance very badly and appreciated the $22-per-hour starting wages — which have gone up since then — pretty well.

One of my coworkers is patting down a Native woman. The woman has two long braided lengths of hair. My coworker grabs the braids and makes a “giddyap” motion like one would do with reins on a horse and says, “Hu-ha! Giddyap, cowboy!”

They put the coworker on bin running for a few months and made her take a sensitivity class.

I still feel bad about this.

Around the time I was around nineteen or twenty years old, I used to work in a small security job. We were basically a third-party company hired for different events such as concerts, festivals, soccer games, etc., AKA “Rent-A-Cops”. Despite being looked down on for being a younger female compared to the rest of my team, I was always placed at the entrances for the artists to check credentials because I was one of the few who would actually do my job and stop people from going where they were not supposed to go.

This includes the artists of the venue I’m working at, and I’ve had complaints — mostly from rappers or athletes — for not letting them on stage or having the audacity to stop them, period. This is mainly because I have anxiety and I would rather get in trouble for doing what I’m SUPPOSED to do rather than get in trouble for doing something I DIDN’T do. I also don’t keep up with WHO the artists are; I just listen to their music, and it’s not like the security company provides us with pictures to show us who certain people are. To be honest, they shouldn’t have to when credentials exist for a reason!

The main artist of the concert I’m working at has a band name dedicated to imagining a mythical beast. He usually comes in and out through my entrance surrounded by his personal security, and while I am a HUGE fan of the band, I’ve never seen the band’s music videos, so I’m not familiar with his appearance and I hardly see his face since he’s crowded by people.

At one point, one of his security managers walks in and out of the entrance I’m at like he’s looking for something before turning to me.

Manager: “Hey, have you seen [Name]?”

Me: “Um… I don’t know. The shorter guy in the green shirt?”

He gives me a very strange look.

Manager: “No… the tall guy in the red shirt.”

Me: “…”

Manager: “Super tall. Blonde? You know… [Name]!”

I just blink owlishly, trying to figure out why I should know who he’s talking about.

Manager: “THE SINGER?!”

Me: “Oh! Uh, no, he hasn’t been through here.”

He just stared at me for a second longer before leaving with a shake of his head. I, too, was pretty disappointed in myself for not even knowing the singer’s name.