I worked security for a bit, for a company that would hire basically anyone with a pulse and, ideally, an SIA (Security Industry Authority) licence.
It was a very simple job in the VIP suite of the football grounds. I did that shift a lot. The door was on the ground floor, and all the booths and stuff were just up a small flight of steps. All that was involved was checking that everyone who came in had a ticket with “VIP” in large red letters on the top.
During the actual match, it was even easier. If the fire alarm started beeping, we had to run to the booth indicated on the alarm with a radio to check whether it was a false alarm or not, so something like a birthday cake with candles didn’t result in the big alarm going off and the stadium being evacuated. Plus, we directed people to toilets or the bar or whatever as required.
I was paired up with a new guy.
Me: “Have you ever been in this building before?”
New Guy: “No.”
Me: “You should go and look round so you know where things are before the punters start arriving.”
New Guy: “Okay.”
And he stood there.
Me: “They’ll be arriving soon.”
New Guy: “Okay.”
He stood there.
Me: “Go upstairs and look round now.”
New Guy: “Okay.”
And still, he stood there.
Me: “Stop messing about and just go up there now!”
He walked to the top of the steps and then straight back down again.
Me: “Okay. Where are the toilets?”
New Guy: “I don’t know.”
It took about fifteen minutes before I could get him to go upstairs, walk to the end of the corridor, check the numbers on the booths, check where the bar and the toilets were, find the fire escape, and learn all the other basic crap he needed to know. He came back looking all happy.
New Guy: “I wouldn’t have thought of checking all that out!”
Punters started arriving. [New Guy] started checking tickets. He was just waving absolutely anyone in without even looking. I spotted a regular I knew and asked if I could just show [New Guy] the ticket layout; apparently, the “check for ‘VIP’ in large red letters” instruction wasn’t clear enough. [New Guy] looked enlightened.
I nipped upstairs because one of the bar staff asked me to come check something, and I left [New Guy] checking tickets.
[New Guy] decided that this was now an exclusive secret club. He started making people pass their tickets round the door, checking every word on them, and glaring at the people in suspicion before allowing them in.
These people included the owner of the club.
I stopped [New Guy] and took over.
The game started. I had to go up to the bar area again. I gave [New Guy] the one job of checking the fire alarm: he literally just had to stand there with a radio, and if that box made a noise (it was pretty quiet), he was to follow the instructions of the people in the fire control room who would call him on the radio.
When I came back down, the alarm was beeping. [New Guy] was staring at it. The radio was screaming at him. He looked concerned.
He was doing nothing.
I grabbed the radio and legged it to the booth concerned. There was a candle; I asked them to put it out, and they did. I headed back down. [New Guy] was still standing there.
New Guy: “I wondered if that was what you meant by ‘making a noise,’ but I wasn’t sure, so I was going to wait until you got back to check.”
At the end of the shift, I got pressured into giving him a lift home because he’d missed the last bus. He spent the entire trip trying to persuade me to move to India and become a Christian missionary. I am not a Christian, which I had already explained.
He also didn’t know where he lived.