there are 2 lives for a smurf...security guard- i mean

There are 2 lives  for security smurfs- I mean guards.
1.  Outside Smurf. This is graveyard shifting at its worst. Let me paint this picture for you.  The Lieutenant or the Police Chief in their infinite wisdom hatched this genius plan. Let's hire  a bunch of fairly reliable people to come into work at 11pm. Meet  in the Briefing  room for 30 minutes then be given a wad of keys, allen keys and assorted instruments for unlocking doors, then get sent out  to various areas around a given (and  thus unnamed University campus) and lock them in a  building where  they must occupy their time for  say  6 and half hours- staying out of trouble and sight preferably until they are to start unlocking doors around 5am. They will then work for around 1 1/2 hours unlocking main doors to all the buildings in their zone. Walking around in the dark and twilight armed only with a wad of  keys and such, a "brick" (or rather a 900mhz radio from 1972 about the size on a long  piece of  clay weighing in about the same as that peice of ceramic and about as reliable)  and their wits. No nightstick, no flashlight above a  pen  light, no pepper spray, no mace, and no gun (definitely no guns). About 20  minutes before 7am, the outside smurfs  are expected to make their way back to the station to  turn in the wad of keys and such and clock out for the day. Thus we cover the life of the Outside Smurf or Unarmed Security Guard.

2. Inside Smurf.  This gaurd has multiple shifts he or  in the  extremely rare case she can  work. The Inside Smurf is  assigned to a designated spot on the Campus. We report to the Station but generally don't go to roll call. In fact, most  outside  smurfs don't even realize we inside smurfs exist. Now I will have to quit refering  to us as smurfs since  I porbably passed the legal limits  on smurfing for this post. There  are the  Library Guards, about 6 of us total 2 for day and 2 for evening and 1 for graveyard. Then  there is the UC (university central) Gaurd. The President's house is the president is not in residence Gaurd or the PHITPINRG or as the library guards refer to him, "the Pitpig." He actually is a floating guard who  gets assigned around to watching various properties owned by  the university. He only landed the  President's house which is in one of the more influential  neighborhoods in the  city I am not  naming for fear that the Smurf masters will hunt me down, because the Universities last 4 president's reject the  Southern Manor appeal of the Presidents house  and wanted something non-antebellum instead. The University Museum has its  own guards but as far as I know they aren't smurfs and get paid more than us and dress diferently. In short we don't  associate with  them.

There  is a subspecies of Smurfs here with us, who seldom get mentioned  but when it comes to the University cops they often get bunched in with  us. On official days this subspecies even get to dress like the rest of the smurfs. These are, of  course, the lowest of the  low  in just about  every aspect. I mean they are the University  ticket writers. Students,  faculty and just about everyone else hate them.  I hated them before I became a Smurf. They are underpaid, underworked, underqualified, underpleasant, underhumored, and sly as foxes when  its a car and it can be called into doubt  whether it's supposed to be there  or not.  You can hate  them, you can mock  them  but you do your  best to avoid them. They  lurk around every building, down every street and in some alleys. Yes  I have seen them in the alleys. Truth is they are just unfortunate not to matter enough to the University to even get  paid minimum wage- most of  them  don't even get paid part time. That is until a big event like FOOTBALL comes around. Then they get noticed.

The big equalizer in our line of work  is Sporting events like FOOTBALL. Though  basketball does get some attention but not as much as FOOTBALL. other events that rank are concerts, tractor pulls, truck shows and Wrassling.
yes  Wrassling, you can't live around here and call it wrestling. What  equalizes things for the most part- is that it  is a all hands  on deck activity. Gaurds, Ticket Writers and Cops stand shoulder to shoulder in dealing the waves of  human beings that flood the campus during these events. We don't get paid the same necessarily and we still aren't given guns but we get paid MORE. Even the  University Cops can't strut  much as the  Chief calls in the  locals and staties on  these events. You never know who you may  end up with to work with. It could be school  division, county, city, university or state police. The  only guys who will  not  work  with anyone are  the highway  patrol guys- everyone says  it's because  they are stuck up. But  who  cares, to  me the only  thing that matters is we  Smur- Security guards get a teeny weeny bit more authority  and TIME AND A HALF which  is better than what we usually get.

Also we get the illusion we cops are all on the same team.

There was this guy...

When I first took this crazy job there was this guy working there as a guard, he was like the only guard who was actually going to school and majoring in criminal science or some kind of policing action. The best things about this guy were that he never took the job seriously enough to become the assholes that a lot of guards and cops become. Also he was always level headed and had a good sense of humor, especially to the irony of our situation.
What's more he was my friend. Unfortunately for me I was coming as he was going. I knew him about 4 weeks  in the year before I got the inside job in the stacks. Then he graduated and went out for something like the FBI.
He knew I could write, so one night right before roll call, he turns to me and says these fateful words.
"Hey, when you write the book about all this could you leave my name out of it and promise me that you will call it MY LIFE AS A SMURF?"
"Smurf?"
"Yeah, that is what we are, there is Papa smurf coming in to say his few and i mean very few words of wisdom. Junior smurf who will assume that because papa Smurf has little to say that he can fill in all the gaps, but we will mostly ignore him. We wear blue shirts like the smurfs and black pants.... we for all intents and purposes they might as well be white."
"No caps.."
"Don't interrupt."
"Sorry."
"And" and he raises a very important finger. "And!"
Junior Smurf thinks that this guy wants to ask a question. "WAIT UNTIL ROLL CALL AND BRIEFING" Junior Smurf says -which isn't what we actually call it anyway.
This Guy ignores him and gestures to the self-appointed head guard.
"We have our own Smurfette."
Gracey dutifully blushes and ducks a curtsey, I think shes in love with This Guy. And he's right, we only have at this point one woman crazy enough to be a Guard and an unarmed one at that.
"So what are you going to call the book?" This Guy asks.
"If I write it?"
"When you write it?"
"My life as a smurf."
"And what will you call me?"
"I was thinking of something that rhymes with Woodchuck..."
We all laugh except for Junior Smurf whose name rhymes with woodchuck....

more on sweeping

students at universities resent interruptions. Interruptions are inevitable, the ones that get violent about are interruptions to partying and sex. Snugglers aside and as Hervy would say "Mooky" makers the student who studies a lot is the other one we have to run out of the stacks at night. We guards call these students the study-alls and no I have no idea who came up with the term but it is sacredly passed down from one guard to the next for years and years. I suspect it probably meant something like the student who studies all the time and glares at you when you find them squirreled away in the stacks and then have to herd them out in front of you otherwise they will double back and try to hide and believe me they do. How many times have we had to go back into the stacks at 1 am to find a student who has double backed on us.
Too many times, about 4 times a week on average. Then they get downright hateful (probably cause they are embarrassed at getting caught) and all but stomp their way out of the library since they get a personal escort to the door. When I went to the University you couldn't get me to stay in the library more than a hour so this is a new experience for me.

The last obstacle we sweep for are not even students. its the one thing that eternally plagues all cops and security guards everywhere there is shelter- homeless people. The "Library Hobos" as Sergei calls them or "Book hobos" as Hervy calls them are homeless guys who come in to use the computers (with free internet) in the public areas and get ideas of staying while they are here. They find places to hide/sleep and stash that even the architects of the labyrinthine library never conceived.
We keep an eye on all our homeless and older than average patron and track their movements as best as we can, but every once in a while we have to go root these guys out of broom closets, book elevators or the 40 plus offices scattered throughout the building. Some of the guards have quit over the anxiety this causes since these guys are often filthy and often violent. The procedure is to locate, observe and radio backup (from the University cops) who may or may not show up- largely depends on who is the watch lieutenant that night on how high a priority they consider it to be. So inevitably one of us guards (who if you recall are unarmed) has to sit and watch the homeless person until a cop- usually the screw up cop on the force is sent to handle it. All in all a mess most of the time.
So Hervy and Sergei and the beefier guards will handle the extraction if they believe they can get away with it. And what really gets me about this is that it isn't the Lieutenant they are worried about, it is the Library Admins that do not need to catch wind of it. When they do we get these memos for weeks about the incident plus they call the chief who then has to call us and bitch up a storm for the benefit of the University so that the University Admins thinks he gives a fuck about his job.

Floor sweeping

Floor sweeping is what Hervy my partner calls it. What it sounds like is something the janitors would do, but us it feels cooler than it actually is. We go in opposite directions from the elevators and walk briskly through the stacks checking for human life- yeah I like saying that instead of what Hervy chuckles and says "warm bodies." What that means is all kinds of peeps end up in the stacks and it is our illustrious job to pick them up and sweep them off the floor and escort them to the elevators and off the floor. It's like herding cattle, you run off the masses and then hunt for strays, rope them in and funnel them down the stairways.

The most common stack denizen at 11pm at night is the "Chinese kid," he usually is not Chinese but could be any one of a number of races from the Asian continent. What identifies him, to us. Is he is usually asleep in a couch or cubicle and looks like he has been there all day. Notice I said he and not her. They are always boys although there are occasionally girls in tow. The Chinese guys (yeah we have no idea except they look oriental and could be anything) are always the same 50 or so regulars that litter the six floors of the University stacks. You find them in corners and nooks, just about anyplace where there is enough space for them to put their heads down.
Hervy says that as far as he knows the Chinese Kids basically live in the stacks and only leave to go back to the dorm to shower, or go to class.

The next common denizen is the couples. they pretend to be study partners but we know what they are. At first I wanted to catch them in the act but let me tell you it gets messy and smelly. Sex and heavy petting sounds good in the abstract but when you have to extract them from one another and sort out hastily discarded clothing, condoms and sweaty bodies it gets marginally disgusting. But when you catch the smell generated by these activities that is when you are glad to let them know you are coming and not the other way around...

A beginning

My Life as a Smurf.

            “The people come and go, this way and that; all passing through my panoramic view of the world. My job is forced voyeurism, non-participant always expectant. I sit within hearing of this world’s footfalls of the pedestrian traffic, the clicking heels on the marble amidst the rustle of clothing in friction. I am yet isolated to their nervous smiles from the women as they notice me and the stares of the men who happen to look in my direction. They don’t want me here but are secretly grateful I am.

            Almost no one talks to me except for civility’s sake or for directions to classes, study rooms, bathrooms and elevators. Most simply offer a polite nod, a forced smile or some stupid attempt to show off that they don’t fear me. They fear what I represent. Observing this they skirt my area, not knowing what to say. I let them slip by not knowing how to reply to what they would say. They are almost always surprised to see this sign of acceptance and intelligence as I am dumbfounded by their lack thereof.”

                                                                                                Michael van Dudekof

                                                                                                Library Security Guard.

            We sit there at the desk in the entrance hall of the monumental main floor of the university library. We are the boys in blue, the unarmed security guards, with our clip on ties and big name tags that identify us as such. We sit and observe all the day long only holding conversations among ourselves, our radio bricks on our belts popping with occasional static. A pen in a pallid blue uniform shirt nestled next to a notepad that contains our police call cheat sheet. We have police belts for our radio and small regulation flashlights instead of the billy club flashlights the real cops are expected to have. A pager for the circulation desk rests beside the flashlight. Our black pants scratchy and our black sneakers dull.          

            The desk is our shield against the students and homeless vagrants who come wandering in and out. Its broad wood surface contains a couple of newspapers, a report book, and a telephone that is supposed to be kept inside a locked drawer in the desk.

The library staff hate the desk, one day they will get rid of it and probably make us stand but for now we guards can hide behind its wall from this weird world.

            Today is Thursday, nothing special, save that it is the end of the week for us, the last night that the library stays open all night. Tonight is when we get the freaks and weirdo’s jumping out of every one of the racks. Tonight is when the desperate lovers want to make mooky in the study cubicles and the perverts go hunting late night sleepers and bring optical zoom lens cameras to catch a quickie of the women’s dorm across the way. I am with the pervs on that last one sometimes it is quite entertaining to remind the young woman that striping in front of dorm windows without blinds is unwise. We flash our torches at them and they shriek when it dawns on them where we are.

            What gets me is that the library admins hate us but cannot live without us. They give us no respect and take every opportunity to boss us around and tell us what we are not supposed to do all day long. Night-shift is the only time for us to relax into our jobs and not have to look over our shoulders. Night shift we get call our own shots and go where we like- not that we don’t anyway but we don’t have to look like we aren’t trying on the late shift.