Then the morning security shift departed just as the after school teens began streaming into the mall bringing with them their parent’s credit cards and their own special set of security problems. Second shift security guards – poor devils – got to handle the teenagers and every other security issue until the mall closed for the night. It was no secret that second security shift resented the first and third shift employees. All three shifts worked from the same pay scale but second shift definitely had the toughest workload.
Teens and their social behaviors permeated second shift. Fights, romances, noise, angst, frivolity, pent-up energy, and all their backpack-iPod-cell phone-drug stash-makeup-small weaponry paraphernalia accompanied teens into the mall. On any given day they could be a happy group or an angry gang, a delight or a horror show. The teenage presence continued at varying levels until closing time every day of the week. Second shift saw the most shoplifting, but teens were mostly involved in petty theft, not the organized heists. Unfortunately, all shoplifting cases, regardless of value, were time-consuming. Each required security staff to question, potentially search, and then detain suspects until local authorities arrived to make an arrest.
The number of mall visitors swelled during second shift. The post-work crowd began arriving soon after five o’clock. Hoards of tired and hungry children were dragged through the mall by tired and hungry parents.
As mall-weary family groups and tired single shoppers departed to collapse at home, the last wave of mall visitors wandered in. Every evening at closing time, people came to meet friends, lovers or family members who worked at the mall. Occasionally on weekends, an inebriated adult male accompanied by an inebriated female escort would stagger in for some last minute shopping. They were easy to pick out, and likely to make three stops: First, the automatic teller machine where the man would make a series of withdrawals, handing the money over his shoulder to the lady standing behind him. The recipient of the cash was invariably younger, taller, and thinner than the gentleman and her accessories included lots of hair, heel height, long nails, makeup, and jewelry. Their second stop was the lingerie shop for a purchase placed in the smallest of shopping bags. The final stop was at one of the mall’s many jewelry stores where the woman would select – and the man would pay for – a necklace, bracelet, anklet or pair of earrings featuring at least one precious stone. Sometimes intervention by security was necessary when disagreements ensued, usually at the jewelry counter.
At closing time most mall patrons headed directly to the exits and their cars. Second shift guards herded any stragglers to the doors and checked all areas to assure that everyone – customers and merchants alike – had left the building before final lockup. Some nights it was an easy job. Other times, less so.
One tough task involved ushering out the homeless man known to security as Baby-Biker-Boy. Baby-Biker-Boy could spend an entire day on the same bench in the mall reading, humming, eating, and sleeping. He was unkempt and his behavior was unconventional but orderly. His sources for the extravagant, raggedy retro clothes he wore and the wide variety of books he read were a continuing mystery. One day he might be wearing a threadbare brown corduroy suit with a battered felt fedora and reading an antiquarian medical textbook. Another day he might be reading a children’s book about Rome and dressed as though he’d just left the set of the old Sonny and Cher Show. His mall visits were always more frequent and longer whenever outside temperatures were below freezing. At the end of the day, security would move Baby-Biker-Boy to an exit and offer to call the local shelter to come pick him up. Although they always made this offer, he never wanted to go to the shelter. So the guard stood at the door and watched Baby-Biker-Boy heft his heavy backpack onto a shoulder – a beat-up old baby doll protruding from the top – and ride off into the darkness on his rickety bicycle, giving the peace sign to everyone he passed.
Another more challenging closing-time nuisance for mall security reoccurred every spring. Incidents of high school kids hiding in the mall after closing blossomed like daffodils. The security staff referred to the hiding teens as “Easter eggs” since the occurrences picked up around Easter time. Sometimes teens hid in the mall on a dare. Sometimes a teenage couple (“egg and chick”) would decide it might be cool to spend the night. After years of these cases, security knew all the many hiding places kids used. The perennial challenge was some stealthy kid moving from place to place inside the mall, successfully avoiding the guards. When one of those was on the loose (“an Easter egg roll”), the situation got left for third shift security to handle. Few Easter eggs ever made it through the entire night. Security usually caught up with the hideaway in a bathroom, or at an exit when the kid decided in the middle of the night that he’d had enough and unknowingly trigged a silent door alarm.
The two-person overnight mall security crew arrived by 11 p.m., just as the second shift was packing up to leave. At that time of the night, the mall was empty and the lights were dimmed. There were rules about not sleeping on the job and getting caught could result in immediate dismissal. Drinking, gambling, or bringing guests into the mall were also against the rules. The temptations were greatest for overnight shift employees. After all, who was looking when the mall was closed? But the third shift sometimes forgot that the departing second shift workers were watching as shifts changed, and third shift workers had been observed bringing pillows into the security office. Disgruntled second shift employees would periodically snitch on the activities of the third shift security team when things got out of hand. Like the time a third shift guard arrived with a case of beer and a hooker. Or when the poker table, Jack Daniels and cigars were set up before second shift was even out the door.
The event that stirred Brad Mather’s peptic ulcer that hot Monday morning in mid-August didn’t come his way from a disgruntled second shift security team. No, this Monday’s bad news began with a phone call from mall manager Ted Greene who described to Brad some strange scenes discovered by the morning security shift at his mall.
Vendors in the food court reported pilfering from their food storage facilities, scattered cups, soda spills and footprints through the mess; but no serious theft or damage. There were several large puddles of water on the floor around the central fountain. So far no leaks had been detected that would have caused the standing water. Also, the two quiet young security guards who had been hired last spring to work third shift were not on duty when the first shift staff arrived.
Ted told Brad that he was still taking reports and finishing a complete rundown on the facility, but there appeared to be no signs of a break-in or other foul play.
“I’ve been calling the home numbers of the two missing guards, but there’s no answer,” the mall manager told Brad. “I figure I’ll send someone to their apartments before I report them missing. I’d sure feel foolish if it turns out they’re at home asleep in their own beds.”
“Good idea.” Brad had the phone to his ear and his eyes closed tight as he listened. He was rubbing his face and hoping this all turned out to be nothing, but his stomach was telling him not to get his hopes up.
“Oh, and one more thing,” the mall manager was saying. “I still need to take a look at last night’s security tapes. I’ll let you know if anything shows up.”
Brad felt a sharp stab in his gut with the mention of the security tapes. “OK, keep me posted and call me before you take any action.” As he hung up, Brad was certain that whatever this was, it was unlikely to turn out well.
An hour later, the mall manager telephoned Brad with bad news. The evidence uncovered on the security tapes was tabloid worthy. A few years into the future and the video would have been choice fodder for YouTube.
The images on the tapes clearly showed the third shift security guards cavorting through the mall like boys at play. The sound featured wild laughter, snickering, fits of giggles and unintelligible conversation. Their adventures began shortly before 2 a.m. The security tape from the food court revealed the two men rolling ov
er the counter at Tammy’s Tacos, eating handfuls of chips and washing them down with soda slurped directly from the soda machines. As they proceeded to raid the cold-rooms of three other food court stalls, their actions began to resemble a couple of frolicking puppies, deep into trouble while their owners were away.
After leaving the food court, the time-stamped security tape from the mall’s central atrium documented the guards’ abrupt stop at the edge of the indoor fountain. The looks on their faces reflected a sense of discovery as though they had forgotten the fountain was there. They glanced at each other and whooped loudly in unison. Without exchanging a word the two guards quickly proceeded to remove food stained uniforms, shoes, socks, shirts, and the remainder of their clothing. They leaped into the shallow water of the fountain and splashed about as though they were in a community kiddy pool. Naked, thin and pale, the guards looked even younger than the ages on the paperwork in their personnel files.
Suddenly one of the guards stopped splashing and looked down in the water at his feet. He waded back to the pile of clothes and extracted his white tube socks, then splashed over and gave one sock to his companion. Holding the sock in one hand, he started scooping something out of the water and putting it in the sock – the Make a Wish change from the floor of the fountain.
Over the next fifteen minutes of tape the naked guards worked furiously to fill their socks with the wet coins. When all four socks were full to bursting, the guards got dressed quickly and together let themselves out through the security exit. The tape from outside the exit door showed the young men talking and laughing as they walked away into the night with a bulging sock hanging from each fist. Their demeanor resembled teens completing a successful shopping trip. Nothing about their mannerisms, gestures or actions suggested any sense of self-consciousness, responsibility or stealth.
By the end of the business day Brad ordered the tapes overnighted to headquarters via Fed Ex. He instructed Ted to show the tapes to no one and to make no copies. He also suggested to Ted that his job security as the mall’s manager would be best assured by keeping quiet about the events of the day.
The mall manager had guessed right. The missing guards were at home sleeping off whatever intoxicant they had drunk, smoked, sniffed or ingested. The socks full of change were easily recovered. Later that day the two young men were asked to sign papers resigning their jobs in exchange for keeping quiet about what they had done. Although there were discussions about pressing charges, it would have only resulted in bad publicity for the mall and The Easton Company.
Before going home for the evening, Brad took a walk down the hall to the office of Bill Briggs, the company’s security director. He shut the door and shared with Bill the details of the security guards’ overnight romp.
“It’s hard to know whether to scream or laugh,” Bill said to Brad. “I keep waiting for you to say April Fools or something. We screen, we train, we think we’ve made good hires and then we have something like this. I’ll book the training room for tomorrow at noon and we’ll watch the tapes together behind closed doors.”
“Right,” Brad laughed for the first time all day. “Will you bring the popcorn or shall I?”
In his role as corporate security director, Bill placed one last late day call to the mall manager to reinforce the “lips sealed” status on the entire fiasco. The instructions were clear: code of silence on this for anyone with any knowledge of the facts. Bill also instructed Ted to place follow-up calls to the fired guards at home that evening to emphasize the consequences of discussing with anyone (even family) what had happened the previous night. If they talked at all, they would find themselves quickly charged with a number of crimes and looking for bail money. Bill wanted those boys scared good and quiet – no bragging about their escapade over beers in the local bar.
What Bill didn’t realize, but the mall manger had his suspicions about, was that the guards had virtually no recollection of their own adventure. Whatever substance they had employed to reach their childlike euphoric state had left them with little memory of what they had done. Wisely, the full details had not been shared with them – only that their shameful behavior had included stealing money from the fountain, abandoning their posts, and causing damage in the mall. Bill and Ted agreed that if luck prevailed, they just might successfully bury this one.
Say It Out Loud
Kate Cooper and her husband Matt were in the habit of taking long walks around the lake in the park adjoining their neighborhood. During those after dinner walks, they talked through the events of the day, discussed work, the children, friends, family, and current events.
One August evening on a walk that started at twilight, Kate said out loud to her husband something she had been thinking about for the past few days.
When Matt asked, “How was work?”
She answered, “I think they’re going to sell the company.” It had been on her mind since the end of last week and now she thought how strange it was to finally voice the idea.
“What?” Matt abruptly stopped walking and turned to look her in the face, as though she were some crazy woman instead of his wife of twenty-five years. “What are you talking about?”
“Keep walking,” Kate instructed and took Matt’s arm to encourage his forward motion. “It’s just a feeling I have. Well, not just a feeling. It’s based on some things I’ve been observing at work recently. It’s not just what’s going on – it’s what’s not going on.”
“Like?”
“Suddenly the pieces are fitting together. First – out of the blue last week – a decision was made to delay plans for benefits open enrollment for a month. Larry Baxter has been sequestered in his office for weeks. He seems to be working on more projects than I’ve ever seen him tackle. It looks like lots of spreadsheets and data collection. Every now and then he asks one of us for some obscure fact or bit of information. The staff keeps asking him if there’s anything we can help with, but he just looks at us angrily and says no. That’s not like him. Normally, he’d be delegating that kind of project work to T.J. or me or one of the other managers. Instead, he’s in his office looking frantic, surrounded by stacks of papers and files.”
“Yeah, well, but we both know the man’s an odd duck, Kate,” Matt responded.
“But a shrewd one. Not someone to get stuck with doing work he hates when he has a huge staff to delegate to. It’s not normal.”
“Haven’t you seen this behavior before?”
“Yes, when we’re getting ready to acquire another company. But on those projects Larry brought in his top four directors to help, swearing us to secrecy. It looks like the same type of activity, but he’s holding it close.”
“Maybe you’re no longer in the loop. Maybe he’s stopped trusting you for some reason.”
“Could be. But if so, he’s stopped trusting all of us. None of us have said anything to each other except to whisper the occasional ‘What’s going on?’ when some question Larry is asking seems out of character.”
“You’re starting to sound like T.J., the corporate conspiracy theorist.”
“Yeah, well. Given today’s events, it may turn out that T.J.’s predictions weren’t so crazy after all.”
“What happened today?”
“You know the wellness fair we’ve been working on for two months? The one that’s scheduled for the first week in September?”
“Yeah.”
“Larry cancelled it. The space was booked, the staff had lined up dozens of vendors and community organizations and health care specialists for the booths. We had fitness demos scheduled and hired a seated massage therapist who was willing to give us her time at half her normal rate. Marcie even managed to snag a national wellness speaker for the luncheon. The guy normally charges $3,000 for an hour presentation, but because he’s a good friend of Bing Sullivan, he offered to speak for free.”
“Did Larry say why he was canceling it?”
“No. That’s the weird part. He walked in my office
today and asked me a question about our 401(k) plan funds. After I gave him the answer, he turned to go. Then he turned back and said, ‘Oh yeah. By the way. You need to postpone the wellness fair.’ When I asked why, he said it conflicted with some other events on the corporate calendar and we could look into possibly rescheduling it next year. When I asked what events he was referring to, he never gave me a specific answer. Just said Jeffrey Elkins told him to cancel it. Which is strange, since we had initially cleared the dates with both corporate activities and with Gloria, Jeffrey Elkins’ secretary who keeps the master schedule. When I called Gloria this afternoon to ask what had been added to the corporate calendar on the eighth of September, she said she wasn’t aware of anything other than the wellness fair.”
“I see. That’s odd and depressing. But Kate, stranger things have happened before.”
“So you keep reminding me.”
“Isn’t this just more in the continuing saga of A Day in the Life of Corporate America?” Matt teased. “Remember the time Larry asked you to postpone your knee surgery because they were hiring a new chief operating officer? And how many times has he asked if you could cancel a vacation to accommodate the latest crisis?”
“I know. But I’ve always known why I was being asked to do something, whether I agreed with it or not. That’s the reason I’ve been keeping my thoughts to myself these past few days. I guess what happened late this afternoon was the event that made me think this is something bigger.”
“What happened?”
“You know how Larry only goes out of town on vacation for two weeks each year? The beach weeks in August?”
“Yeah. When you all celebrate not having him in your hair by playing loud music and throwing wild parties,” Matt teased again.
“Oh very funny. That would be the day. Anyway, Larry always books a house at the beach for his extended family during the same two weeks every summer, when Jeffrey takes his August vacation. He’s supposed to leave this Friday. On his way out this afternoon, Larry stopped by my office door and said, ‘By the way – I won’t be leaving for vacation on Friday.’ When I asked why, he said he was hoping to join his family for the second week. Matt, the man never misses his two weeks at the beach. It’s one of the few things he keeps sacred on his calendar.”
Pink Slips and Parting Gifts Page 9
