In the Gray Area

After leaving radio broadcasting for what I thought was for good, I accepted a job as a Security Officer with the Reno Hilton. It turned out to be a job fraught with both personal and professional pitfalls.

One personal pitfall I encountered was the verbal abuse of co-workers, whose self-confidence appeared to be lacking in many ways. Looking back I realize I let their lack of confidence affect my confidence in completing my duties.

Along with the job came a couple of other duties. Since I was still a state registered EMT at the time, I was given the position of medical officer when on duty. I also applied and was hired as a relief-dispatcher.

After having relieved a fellow officer in dispatch, I was walking back to my regularly assigned post at the employees entrance, through what was called the gray area, when I walked past another security officer. Without warning she verbally lashed out at me.

“You better stay the hell away from me!” she shouted.

My response was less than pleasant and less than professional. I told her to “eff-off,” and not necessarily in those words.

It was the first time all shift that I had personal contact with this officer. Earlier as I was dispatching I asked for a follow-up from her as she had been sent to meet another employee for a “key service,” which is to say she had to unlock a door to a restricted area and observe that employees activities.

She had been sent to on the “key service,” by the other officer I had jus’ relieved in the dispatch office. It was protocol to follow-up on officers when they had been out of radio contact for any length of time.

And after half-an-hour, I radioed her to check up on her and to remind her she needed to collect the employees badge number for her report. It was common for officers to forget to gather this information and they constantly had to call the employee-in-question to get their number.

I thought I was doing a nice thing by reminding her as she ended up having two numbers to gather.

Unfortunately, my supervisor, a sergeant, didn’t see it that way. I was written-up for being verbally abusive to my co-worker and this would be another nail in my coffin towards being fired from the job.