Strange or unusual guard shack experience?

[retiredTxfeeder]

I had a couple so I thought I'd start this thread. Being a feeder driver whose job was local, I probably had more contacts with the guards than the average person. There was one particular guard that seemed kind of strange, but he could do the job. Or so I thought. Feeder procedures at our yard were this: In or out bound, you gave the guard your tractor keys so he could cut your seals, apply your seals or look inside your empties to make sure they were empty. Came in the yard with 2 loads, gave the guard my keys and paperwork so he could cut my seals. Got on the phone and called my loads in. I noticed the guy didn't come back right away. Wait some more...and some more. I finally climb down from my tractor and walk back to find him. He tells me he lost my keys. WTF? How do you lose a set of keys doing that? He explained how he set the keys down on top of the door frame while he cut my seal, and they fell down inside of the trailer frame thru a hole. Are you kidding me? I was pist. People are backing up behind me in line. Luckily, I kept a spare set of keys on me in case I locked my keys inside the cab. Yeah, I know. Well, it happens. I took it around to the shop and the mechanic had to crawl up under he trailer and had to fish my keys out of the trailer innards with a long tool and a flashlight. Wait. it gets better. I leave the building a bit later, and through the luck of the draw, this same guy is the one who comes out. He seals my trailers and once again, doesn't come back right away. He comes back to the cab and says he can't find my keys. This time I go ballistic. How in the &$%@ can you lose my keys not once but twice in one night? He's wearing these cargo type pants with pockets in them. for some reason he put my keys in one of the obscure little pockets that you don't normally use. One of the other guards had to literally frisk him to find my keys. lol

 

[retiredTxfeeder]

One more. We had a revolving door of security guards. There was quite a bit of stuff for them to learn and a lot of time they just threw them out there. Came into the yard with an empty pup. A 28' drop frame with a roll up door. Back then we had hand signals we gave the guards. Thumbs up, a load and thumbs down, an empty. Empties, they never even got of the air conditioned shack. A guards first night. I gave her the thumbs down. I rolled up to the phone and am talking to dispatch when I hear something go BOING! and I feel my whole rig shudder. 10 seconds pass, and it does it again only this time it comes with a shaking followed by a boom! I hang the phone up and I see the guard come around the rear of the trailer towards me with a big set of bolt cutters they use to cut the seals off. She seams real proud of herself. I asked her what the heck did she do? She told me "I cut your seals off." I told her I didn't have any seals, it was an empty! I went around back of the trailer and she had cut the cables on both sides of the door that go up the door and into the trailer and coil around a system kind of like a garage door. If you cut these, the whole weight of the door is down. No way you can even pick it up. When she cut those cables, they were under such tension, they flew back inside the trailer. They probably have enough tension on them to take off a limb. She cut not only one, but both of them. The shop was not too pleased.

 

[silenze]

Only 2 centers in Wisconsin have guard shacks. The rest are too small. In Illinois they only come out of the shack if you honk to get a seal cut. At cach you never stop at the gate. They cut the seal in the unload.

 

[superballs63]

Only 2 centers in Wisconsin have guard shacks. The rest are too small. In Illinois they only come out of the shack if you honk to get a seal cut. At cach you never stop at the gate. They cut the seal in the unload.

People must think they cut ours on the unload too. Shifting in the yard is just more of a PITA when you have to cut seals of lazy drivers

 

[silenze]

Surprisingly there are no uniform standards for security at ups facilities.

 

[greengrenades]

I've had strange things happen on the road, but not really anything with security. I just get irritated by the new guards, you pull up and they just stare at you. The line that always cracks me up is when you are leaving out with a load, and they ask you if you need a cut..... no mother why would I need my seal cut if I'm heading out?!

 

[brett636]

The guard cutting the door cables is real indicative of the quality of guards we have at our facilities. lol.

While on my current run the guards that were employed at my destination were two of the laziest guards I have ever come across. If you were the only truck at the gate they wouldn't come out to cut your seals until another truck or two pulled up so they could take care of everyone at once. I would pull up to the phones, inbound, and sit there staring at them at the guardshack waiting for them to come out. Eventually one of them would open the door and yell out "You need cut?!?!?" "No, I am just sitting here because I like the view!" was my preferred response, but I was afraid they would take me seriously so I just told them yes I need cut. As I said before they would then proceed to go back into the guard shack and talk amongst themselves until another truck or two pulled up so they didn't find themselves running in and out of the guard shack as much as if that's a lot of work. When they finally came up one guard would take my seals and keys while the other guard went behind me to cut whatever seals I needed cut. While waiting the same guard would complain to me that I need to throw away one of my seal copies because if I turn in both yellow and white copies to him he had to write a report on both copies. I could care less and always handed them whatever copies of my seal controls that came with the trailer. Had a couple instances where a war of words was exchanged when I continued to hand him all copies of the seal control. Someone eventually wised up and changed security companies so these guards no longer work there, but my guess is they were the bottom dollar company willing to do the work and it sure showed!

 

[BigBeef42]

Bottom dollar for sure.

Last week my guards had pizza everyday. The guys get Heat, AC, and pizza. GTFO

Sent using Ink and Canvas

 

[soberups]

It didn't happen to me, but when we first installed a metal detector in the guard shack I got to witness one hell of an argument between the guard and a black female employee with massive breasts who kept setting the metal detector off with her underwire bra. The guard made the mistake of trying to to use his wand on her, and she responded by going into full-throttle Mad Black Woman Mode and tearing him a new one. Weak skinny white boy vs. Mad Black Woman= no contest. That poor guard learned his lesson and never bothered her again. It was great theater and totally worth the time I had to spend standing there waiting to go home.

 

[joeboodog]

I love it when we have a new guard. They sure are surprised when my knees set the metal detector off.

 

[Wally]

It didn't happen to me, but when we first installed a metal detector in the guard shack I got to witness one hell of an argument between the guard and a black female employee with massive breasts who kept setting the metal detector off with her underwire bra. The guard made the mistake of trying to to use his wand on her, and she responded by going into full-throttle Mad Black Woman Mode and tearing him a new one. Weak skinny white boy vs. Mad Black Woman= no contest. That poor guard learned his lesson and never bothered her again. It was great theater and totally worth the time I had to spend standing there waiting to go home.

Anybody else start laughing when they read "massive"?...Massive!

 

[pickup]

Nothing unusual comes to mind other than the usual: Just like the Original Poster, RetiredTxFeeder, I inbound and outbound trailers and need seals applied and seals cut. When we go to the rail yards we have one extra piece of paper work called a seal card. It contains trailer number , destination, and seal number on the back. This card is given to the rail yard personnel.

Often the seal number written on the card is illegible(guard wrote it down), and often they forget to write the prefix of the trailer ,i.e. UPSU, UMXU. This is common and instead of correcting the guards(most don't understand english) , I walk to the back and look at the seal number as well as adding the Prefix.

Sometimes the guards put the rail seal (which is a thick bolt )on the wrong door which means the other door can be opened without breaking the seal. Some rail yards have cameras that can see if a seal is on the back in the proper place. One time I had to go back to the hub and get it properly sealed. Thankfully , there was still time to get that container loaded. Now I carry an extra bolt seal(which the guards won't give to me, but they aint always in their shack when I pull up and when I check to see if the guards are in the shack and they are not , I grab a bolt seal if I need to replenish my supply) .

Once had a guard who would use the opportunity of interaction to be an evangelist. He was fired, not for proselytizing, but for not writing down correct seal numbers . Apparently this was a problem when the trailers made it to the other hubs and the problem was traced back to him. Now, sad or good to say, seal numbers are no longer even matched between seal control documents and seals, or to put it another way, the guards at the receiving end don't even look to see if the seal # on the paperwork and the seal # on the actual seal even match.

 

[pickup]

Nothing unusual comes to mind other than the usual: Just like the Original Poster, RetiredTxFeeder, I inbound and outbound trailers and need seals applied and seals cut. When we go to the rail yards we have one extra piece of paper work called a seal card. It contains trailer number , destination, and seal number on the back. This card is given to the rail yard personnel .

Often the seal number written on the card is illegible(guard wrote it down), and often they forget to write the prefix of the trailer ,i.e. UPSU, UMXU. This is common and instead of correcting the guards(most don't understand english) , I walk to the back and look at the seal number as well as adding the Prefix.

Sometimes the guards put the rail seal (which is a thick bolt )on the wrong door which means the other door can be opened without breaking the seal. Some rail yards have cameras that can see if a seal is on the back in the proper place. One time I had to go back to the hub and get it properly sealed. Thankfully , there was still time to get that container loaded. Now I carry an extra bolt seal(which the guards won't give to me, but they aint always in their shack when I pull up and when I check to see if the guards are in the shack and they are not , I grab a bolt seal if I need to replenish my supply) .

Once had a guard who would use the opportunity of interaction to be an evangelist. He was fired, not for proselytizing, but for not writing down correct seal numbers . Apparently this was a problem when the trailers made it to the other hubs and the problem was traced back to him. Now, sad or good to say, seal numbers are no longer even matched between seal control documents and seals.

 

[MaceFremonti]

At my hub our guards are supposed to put the rail bolts when we outbound. 75% of the time you can't even get them to come out of their office. It's even worse when your outbound time is in the morning right when all the package guys roll out. There will be multiple feeders waiting for the bolts to be put on blocking all the outbound lanes. All the package guys get stuck waiting while us feeder guys have to go get the guards.

When they do come out they just grab the bolt and lock it in. They don't care about the paperwork. Dispatch has gotten to the point where they don't care if we put the bolt on ourselves so that's what I do now. I do all the paperwork and drop the yellow copy in the box on the way out.

Inbounding is usually a clusterf*ck too. The guards will either not come out when you need seals cut or come out and cut your through load seals off without even walking up to the tractor.

During peak last year I was bringing in a set of through loads that were headed to the Eastern Shore. I purposely used the inbound lane the farthest from the guard shack. I didn't signal that I needed a cut nor did I excessively lay on the horn to get their attention. Set my brakes, flashers etc, turned the tractor off and rolled my window down. In less than 10 seconds the bay number came up on my IVIS. I started the tractor, tapped my horn and just as I released the hand brake I hear yelling coming from somewhere behind me. In my passenger side mirror I see two security guys, both with bolt cutters in hand, hop out from between my two trailers!

WTF?!?!?!?

I shut it down and got out of the tractor.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

"Cut seal. Yes?"

"No, no. NO cut seal!"

"Yes. We cut seal."

I look at my front trailer. They had cut the seal AND the chain.

"We cut back now."

"No. Don't cut the back seal!"

"No cut?"

"No cut."

Dispatch supe was not too happy about having to come down out of his nice, warm office in the middle of December to verify and reseal a trailer which then had to go to the shop to have the safety chain replaced.

To this day our guards still don't secure keys from drivers and still just start cutting any seal they see.

 

[Richard Harrow]

I screw with those guys every chance I get. If they're going to collect $9.50 an hour to prolong my day, they had better be ready to earn it.

 

[What'dyabringmetoday???]

It was a dark and stormy night...

 

[joeboodog]

It was a dark and stormy night...

Suddenly a shot rang out.

 

[Indecisi0n]

Guy at the guard stand puts his hands in my pockets looking for stuff. I don't mind.

 

[BSWALKS]

Guy at the guard stand puts his hands in my pockets looking for stuff. I don't mind.

Did you cut holes in the lining of your pockets first?

 

[Future]

This about sums up my buildings security.