Smile, I'm not a messenger!
 

I work in a office building downtown, and whenever a new security guard is on duty I get major additude. I do have a bag over my shoulder (with my work clothes), but give me a break already. They act like such badasses. And then if they realize I work there, they get appologetic. I don't care one way or another what someone speculates that I do for a living, but it must really suck for couriers to get that nonsense every time they enter a building. I should get a big name tag that says "Smile, I'm not a messenger!" I guess I should be posting this on a security guard forum... :D

Security guards are all wannabe-cops that can't cut the mustard, that's why they all act like ******bags.

No guard has ever said anything to me when I walk in with my bag. I actually feel a little embarassed when I see a messenger in the building, what with my dress shirt, pants, and insulated lunch bag.

Where in downtown? The security guards in the offce I work at are pretty cool. Then again I started working there last winter so they knew I worked there.

401 S. Lasalle

The regular guards are either nice or indifferent. Some of them are actually great. It's the new guys and subs that give me a hard time. They get this stern voice and start quizzing me about my ID and where I'm going. I don't usually mind, it just happened this morning and I was a little tired and cranky.

there was a button campaign around 1997/98 (?), they were bright yellow with black type that said "i am not a thief"

my roommate at the time was a messenger, and living in a loft in river north we had quite a few over nearly everyday. there were a couple that also moved in downstairs from us.

there are lots of buildings here that have crappy messenger-only rules. like the "deliveries in rear" sort of thing, forcing messers down dark alleys to truck-intended loading docks. or the "no bags" rule, where you have to leave your bag (and all your crap) at the front desk with some crappy guard who could care less if it gets stolen. Or, there's my favorite, the "no tools" rule that some government office buildings have, where you have to leave your allen wrench at the front desk (so they can lose it for you).

It's almost worse knowing that I can skirt these rules since I'm not a messenger. I mean, what makes me any different? It's crappy that anyone has to put up with that.

Ira -

When I worked downtown at 900 N. Michigan, same deal. I'd bike to work in my cycling get-up and then walk in, messenger bag on back and the regular guards knew me but there was this one guy who always looked at me shiftily.

One day, expecting eventually that he'd try to give me grief, he started towards me as I made my way towards the elevators and started to say, "Hey, you...." and I just whipped out my building ID, put it right in front of his face in front of all these other people going to work and with a raised and annoyed voice said, "Yes? 28th floor, insert name of company here, got a problem?"

He didn't give me crap after that.

I never really understood why he was like that -- you had to get past three security desks and you had to take two elevators to get up to the top so when I went up and never came back, what did he think I was doing? Walking around at the upstairs security desk? Playing dice with the guards up there? What?

My office is in the Fed Bank Building, so every day my bag goes through the x-ray machine. Monday morning the guard hands me my bag back after running it through the machine and says with a smile "Have a good weekend, kid?". It was then that I realized I still had something stashed
in the stash pocket from the weekend camping trip. Yikes!

This used to happen to be at least a few times a week when I lived in Chicago and worked in NBC tower. I would get stopped and talked to harshly before I whipped out the magna-ID and got the apologetic, sort-of embarassed version of the same guard. The motivation behind it really depends on the person. I used to think it was all about power dynamics, but in a lot of cases these guys are really just doing their jobs. They didn't make the rules. I look like a messenger. Hence, these guys think I'm a messenger and want me to follow the rules that have been set up by the building's landlord for messengers. It's all about how the guards approach you. If they're rude and gruff and disrepectful, then f'im.
But remember, sometimes everyone has a bad day. And being a security guard kind of blows. Still, they should be courteous, because that it part of the job too. I don't know. It's a crappy situation all around. Crappy situation for the messengers, crappy situation for the guards, and crappy situation for me because I have to go to work in stupid office building and sit in a cube all day.

Viva la revolucion.

J

Yikes, indeed!

Just wait till some zealot with a mess bag suicide bombs a dunkin donut. It'll all be over, then.

I understand it's a job which is why with the regular guards, they got to know me and I tend to be friendly with people with crappy jobs. I know it's crap. I used to know the women who used to clean up the offices late at night, we'd shoot the crap and I'd learn some Polish or Romanian or Russian. Good times.

But this one guy, he was just generally surly to everyone. He was a movie character. What was odd was that he'd seen me talk to the other guards before too. It was like he had short-term memory or something, as if it was the first time he'd seen me.

I work in the Dirksen federal building (219 S. Dearborn), and (fortunately) can park my bike in the basement parking lot, but have to pass two check points. The guards recognize me but I still have to show ID for the eye in the sky. My impression is that they could care less about me, considering that they have to deal with federal prisoners, ensure the safety of building workers (i.e., judges and me), make sure the Ice Mountain delivery guy really has water and not fertilizer in his truck, and corral the scampering herd of media types. They are certainly not the "Armed and Dangerous" variety of guards. So I have much respect for them, but then again, I don't have to put my junk through an X-Ray machine everyday.

The irony is that while the guards recognize me as non-messenger, when I get beers after work at Cal's (monkey, I think I've seen you there before--I asked you if you owned the Gios that I saw locked up near the double door a couple weeks before that. I know, random.), I have been mistaken as a messenger. So the "smile, I'm not a messenger" button may be a necessary accessory for the times when my possenger status is not oozing from every stich of my reload.

Hey Oytie! Ya, I've seen you at Cal's often. You should come out tomorrow night.

Don't blame the security guards. They are just doing what they are told (for $7/hr, I might add). I'm sure that they don't give two flying flips if a sweaty courier with a bike is on a elevator next to some stiffs in nice, expensive suits. But, when building management gets enough complaints from said high-rent paying suits, then the rules come down.

He who pays the piper, picks the tune.

I say we beat the piper with U-locks.

'zactly. there's this one guard at my building who sees me everyday. we're cool. but he asks to see my access card whenever his boss is around. that cracks me up. post 9/11 is a trippy place.

i concur

Hi, monkey. If your reference to tomorrow night is to (a) Cal's, yeah I'll probably be there, creating yet another butt wedge in yet another stool (b) to the Kinzie Korridor Sprints, maybe I'll be there, but I'm down my commuter and a bunch of parts right now, but if I do show up, due to (a), I may not pass the doping test.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ghlight=dunkin :eek:

Security guards are a real mixed bag... At my work there are a few real jerks. They just seem to cause trouble everywhere they go, hassling people they know for IDs, enforcing random rules at random times, etc. Those are the people with no skills who's family said, "Hey, you are a real jerk, and you have no regard for people's feelings. You'd make a GREAT security guard!"

Then there are the cool ones, who know its a job, and who follow the spirit of it all, instead of just the minutea. When I walk in first thing in the morning this one guy always has the door open for me by the time I get there, with a "Yo Sam, how's it hangin'?" But its not that he's lax, if random folk come up, he finds out what they need, and won't let unauthorized people pass, its just that once he knows someone, he knows em, and shouts friendly stuff at them when he sees them. And its not the pay or hours thing either, because he works the crappy super early and super late shifts, and gets paid the same as everyone else. He just happens to not be a jerk.

Oh well, I like the idea of the "Smile, I'm Not A Messenger!" button, its totally ironi-chic. I bet some messengers would wear them if you made them.

peace,
sam

When I was a messenger I used to get called "sir" all the time by the guards who automatically assumed I was a dude. They were much nicer once they found out that I was female. Then they started hitting on me.

I have yet to be bothered by security guards in the building I work in (granted I've worked here for almost 5 years). I even u-lock my bike in fn front of the building so they can see it (or keep an eye on it). Considering it's owned by the Bechtel folks, you'd think they'd bother me every chance they can. But they haven't.

calling shants...

Holler...anyone still feeling this? I'm in the market for a RELoad, and this would be an excellent accoutrement, since, well, I'm not.

Got a friend who'll lend me his group's buttonmaker.