Are security officers really the issue?

o.k. so I was on a social website for professionals, in there I was looking at a site where they were talking about the lack of professionalism of security guards. One of the big questions was whether this lack extended all the way throughout the industry or if it was only limited to certain areas. Now I have a bit of experience in this area and I got to thinking, the real problem is that you expect them to act professional, but you refuse to treat them like they were professionals. You call them names, you pay them poor wages, you refuse to give them the training or tools they need to do their job, you work them like you would work no other employee and then you demand them to be professional as well. That is why a lot of people who MIGHT have been great assets who have considered being in the industry aren’t. These things are why there is a high turnover rate and this is why you can only get people to work for you that are less than the best or at least less motivated than most. Think about it! What kind of conditions do the security officers, that you know, work in? I know of one job near me where the security officer sits in a “Room” up to 12 hours a day. The room is little more than a closet measuring about 6 feet by 4 feet. The walls are all painted a dirty yellow and the only items in there are a radio clock, a grey institutional desk and a camera monitor that is hooked to cameras that do not actually work. The standards of operation dictate when to turn the monitor on and off, and even though the monitor has NO use whatsoever the officer is still expected to follow those procedures. The officer is tasked with preventing any trespassers but at the same time the company insists that certain doors to the outside not only must remain unlocked but they have to be propped open to allow air flow through the building to keep people from suffering heatstroke or worse. And ALL those doors are outside of the view of the officer in his room. Sometimes the officer is required to maintain the premises and the machinery of the business when other employees are unavailable basically then doing the job of those other employees AND his own job simultaneously while still getting paid little more than minimum wage. Right down the hall from his room is a bulletin board where the company lists the starting wages and positions that are open in the company. Every wage on that list is higher than anything the officer can look forward to but because he is contracted with the business and not a direct employee he is ineligible for any of those positions. So he is stuck in a job that pays 10 cents over minimum wage even though he has already proven that he CAN do any of the jobs at the business, because he DOES do ALL of the jobs, simultaneously, whenever the regulars are gone.) All of that and yet when the business cannot seem to keep any regular officers on the post they complain that “no one wants to earn their paychecks anymore.” I kid you not this was actually said to me one day as someone in the business offices was complaining about the lack of decent help. I told her to consider all the information I just presented here but she refused to hear it. There is no respect for the officers there, only spite. So maybe now I can ask you, if those are the conditions that a security officer faces, What do you think the answer is to the question about the lack of professionalism of security guards?