Thursday, September 20, 2007

The Start...

On a slow night I was standing out front and this guy who was somewhere in his early 20's asked me a simple question. "Why'd you start doing this for a job?"

He's a young guy and he's about to start working at a different place in the neighborhood. He's stocky and he seems to have a good head on his shoulders. Although in my personal opinion, he's still way too "green" to be working as a serious doorman. I'd probably hire him as a floater but I'd never hire him to work the front door. He just seems to be the type of person to let a lot of things slip by him for a pretty face.

So I stood there for a moment and thought about his question. Why did I start doing this type of work? Then it hit me as simple as the day is long. I hated the world.

Pretty simple. I literally hated every person I met until they proved otherwise. I had recently went through some major life changes and it was the easiest way for me to deal with reality. I drank a lot and I had moved to some place that no one knew who I was and I didn't care about anyone.

I wanted a job that could give me the ability to be somewhat free and do what I wanted. I wanted to be able to let out the aggressions that I had and not have to regret the outcome. The work did just that. It was the perfect cover for the aggression that I had pent up. What other type of job is there where you get paid to protect and man handle people without a proper education or license?

So it all started almost 10 years ago in a little strip club in the middle of nowhere. Well, the work started then not the aggression. The aggression started about 6 years ago but the cause of the aggression began before that.

I will say that aggression is a good thing to have when your in this type of business. If you don't have that little mean streak in you then you won't stick with it for very long. You'll probably end up like all the other jocks from college that just do the work because it's quick and easy money while your in college.

So I looked at the guy and said it plainly, "I hated everyone. I started doing this because I didn't care about anyone and I wanted people to know that. You do it long enough and you'll be in the same place."

He just stood there and looked at me. He was trying to think of something to say but it just wasn't coming to him. "Really?"

"Yep. Depending on how serious you take the job, in a few years you'll want to become a cop or you'll just keep doing it so you can still be the dick that saves the day."

People change with time. I see myself changing but I'm still not sure which way that's going. I got my first security job over 10 years ago in a bar that had live music. Then I moved on to the strip club a few years after that and became a bouncer. A few years after that I hated the world and became a very angry person within limits.

Those limits were the rules that are common with all doorstaff at every place I've ever worked. You remove people however you have to without hurting them unless they try to hurt you first. Calm, steady and resolute.

At times I tried to find reasons for people to want to hurt me. I didn't care. I just did my job and if it meant that someone got tossed on the ground then they got tossed to the ground. Words tend to effect drunk people more than you'd think. Sometimes they effect them more than actions. Yet, if you put together the right words and actions then it was guaranteed to be a spectacle. Spectacles earn notice and notice earns praise and respect from the right people. Praise and respect brought on more things that were of interest to me.

One thing that I forgot during all this that I had learned a long time ago was this. Never do something so good that you can't be moved away from it. When you do a job to the point that you can't be moved into a different position then you have one way out.

You quit.

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