Wish You Could Have Caught His Face On Camera

(I work as a security guard for a small car factory. It is widely known amongst the employees that the higher ups just straight up do not care about anything but the bottom line, so employees and safety regulations are often screwed over as a result. Our reports are never read by anyone but us and stored in big stacks in a drawer. Each report is filled with safety concerns, including how a major fire escape and fire truck entry point is constantly cluttered with heavy totes.)

Me: “Hey, I heard from IT that you guys locked our cameras in place.”

Boss: “Yes, we got complaints that they were moving too much.”

Me: *blank stare* “Uh… they’re kinda supposed to move. It’s our job to scan the property.”

Boss: “And for some reason, you guys had three cameras pointed at the walls. That’s hardly useful, isn’t it?”

Me: *more blank staring* “Sir, those three cameras were broken. We’ve been complaining about them for months.”

Boss: “It’s easier on all the security systems to keep them in place. That way you don’t have to move them around. Makes your job easier.”

(Bull-s***. It makes our job harder.)

Me: “But, sir—”

Boss: “They’re staying the way they are. That’s final.”

(I give up, knowing it is only a matter of time. Sure enough, two months later, there is a big fight out at the northeast gate with a drunk who wandered in, which ends with one of the night employees getting slammed across the face with a metal bar. And of course—)

Boss: “Why isn’t the ambulance going around?! You need to direct them!”

Me: “Sir, they can’t. The gate is blocked by totes.”

Boss: “What?! That gate is supposed to be kept clear at all times! Why aren’t you reporting this? Get on the cameras. Show me who that guy was! I want a face for the police when they get here.”

(I pull up the only camera in the vicinity that could have caught the fight. I watch blankly, struggling to hide my raised eyebrow as the boss registers that the one and only camera that could have pointed toward the fight is now pointed as far left as it could go, facing the parking lot.)

Me: “That’s the only camera that was in the right location to catch it, sir. We won’t be able to see the actual fight and catch the guy. Oh, and as for reporting the gate—”

(I reach over to a filing cabinet and pull out a half-foot tall stack of unread reports, setting them on the desk.)

Me: “This is just from this month, sir. The others are in those boxes in the closet.”

(The boss silently flips through them, seeing that on every sheet, the gate is written up as cluttered and blocked. While he does, I gather up my things, stand up, and head for the door.

Boss: Hey, where are you going? You need to fill out an incident report!

Me: Sir, with all due respect, no, I don’t. I quit. Good luck with the new guard.

(I walked out and he didn’t stop me. I’m now much more happily employed elsewhere. Here’s hoping that maybe he’s learned a thing or two from this whole thing.)