My roommates having scattered as well that September, I found another apartment, this time alone, and for the next several months, my life revolved around that security job at State Farm and my small second-floor rental unit in the home of a kindly, older widowed woman. I had my houseplants, my books, my stereo, and my job, and that was pretty much the extent of it.
My disposable income from the graveyard shift amounted to just barely subsistence level, but it kept me going. Most days I was sleeping, and during the nights I wasn’t working, I tried with some success to alter my circadian rhythm to match the odd hours of the graveyard shift by forcing myself to stay awake listening to the overnight jazz show broadcast on WGN radio out of Chicago.
I read a lot too, sometimes a book a day for a while there. I worked my way through everything by John Steinbeck, Bernard Malamud, Mark Harris, and Herman Melville, to name a few.
Having worked during college for a couple of summers as a security guard, I did have some experience, and I also had that management experience at the country club.
I wouldn’t have accepted the supervisory portion of the job, having no desire to supervise, if it hadn’t been for the rank that came with the job. Sergeant Saunders sounded good, and anyone who has watched the television series Combat! from the 1960s will recognize that name. Hell of a guy.
Then there was the sharp-looking uniform that came with the job, complete with chevron collar devices indicating I was a sergeant.
Yet another advantage was the twenty-five cents an hour pay differential that came with the supervisory position and for working graveyard. When you’re looking at a minimum wage of $2.10 an hour, as was the case in 1975, that extra twenty-five cents looks good. Not so attractive was the level of formality.
Bob Carter was the corporate security manager for Wackenhut Security at State Farm, and it was he who had hired me to be his graveyard shift sergeant.
Mr. Carter demanded a higher degree of formality than might have been expected from $2.10-an-hour security guards and insisted that I was to be addressed as Sergeant Saunders and the guards as officer so and so—for example, Officer Jackson or Officer Carcerino.
Although he didn’t go so far as to require us to salute each other, most of us, in the spirit of teamwork, mutual respect, and camaraderie, did that anyway. Even the Vietnam veteran on the force, Tom Higgins, was amused and got in on the fun of it from time to time.
For most of the officers, a typical midnight greeting went something like this:
“Good morning, Officer Carcerino.”
“Good morning, Sergeant Saunders.”
This was followed by salutes and some good-natured chuckles and headshaking among those present for the exchange.
Sergeant Saunders oversaw the nightly activities of seven security officers, who were a mix of college students from Illinois State University in nearby Normal, older adults working a second job, those just barely hanging on to what was clearly a last chance, and the aimless.
As for Officer Higgins, he had been an army medic working helicopter medevac missions during his 1971 tour in Vietnam and was attending ISU on the GI Bill.
Higgins was mostly quiet but sometimes got to talking about his experiences in the war, and after listening to his sobering stories, I was thankful not to have been a medic on a helicopter in Vietnam.
Although he might not have been the most talkative guy, Higgins still did fine work, meaning he always showed up, was awake most of the time, and tolerated the shenanigans of Sergeant Saunders quite well.
Fortunately, for those officers who were students, most of the posts around the State Farm complex were stationary, which meant those officers had no patrol duties and merely sat watching a specific area, such as a loading dock or computer center. Stationary duty stations made it possible to complete homework assignments or simply sit and read. Unfortunately, the stationary posts also made it likely, in fact probable, that certain guards would doze off.
There weren’t many things a guard could do to be fired from the Wackenhut State Farm security detail, but sleeping was one of them, and Carter had made it clear that any officer caught sleeping would be dismissed. That was something I had no intent whatsoever of enforcing and little concern of ever having to. After all, it’s graveyard shift, I’m the boss, and who but me would know?
Having been a security guard during many, many graveyard nights during past summers, I knew what the job was all about, and it was mostly about nothing. Sit, watch, walk around, wait for the shift to end. If a dangerous situation were to arise, then be sure to leave as quickly as possible. For me it was difficult to fall asleep, but if I had for a few minutes here and there, it wouldn’t have mattered.
At State Farm there would always be one guard who roved the complex, stopping at several dozen designated stations along the way as well as all of the stationary guard posts.
The rover was a coveted assignment because it was something to do other than sitting all night and provided some interaction with the few State Farm employees working in the data processing unit. It also provided access to the State Farm employee cafeteria, which, while not open, usually had some unlocked coolers, cabinets, and drawers where goodies might be found. That’s security for you.
At the conclusion of each shift, I was required to submit to Mr. Carter my nightly logbook and to provide an oral briefing on the graveyard shift activities. This too was surprisingly formal.
Having been up all night, my goal was to get the briefing over with as soon as possible, so I did in fact make it brief.
The truth was of course that other than all the saluting and formalities, nothing ever did happen worth noting, but the simplicity of my reports never seemed to please Mr. Carter. My mistake.
As time went by, Mr. Carter seemed increasingly concerned about the brevity of my reports and for some reason began asking if anyone was sleeping on duty. “Now, Sergeant Saunders, if anyone is caught sleeping, they’re gone,” he’d say.
Well, of course we had officers sleeping, but I would answer, “Nope, not that I’ve seen.”
“Are you sure? We can’t have anyone sleeping on duty.”
“No, no, we have a good group of officers, Mr. Carter. No problems there.”
As time went on, I sensed a growing desire on Mr. Carter’s part to impress upon upper management his overall attention to detail. Perhaps he was looking for a raise or a promotion, or perhaps he felt that if nothing ever happened, then why did State Farm need a security detail? He might very well have needed to justify his existence as head of security and ours as security guards.
I could understand that well enough, so without his saying anything more, I began making an extra effort to find unlocked doors, broken windows, a leaky ceiling, burned-out lights, or anything that could be reported, and I added those to my morning briefings. It was not easy.
Those folks at State Farm ran a nice, clean outfit and didn’t leave much around that was broken or left open. Sure, I’d find some cabinets open in the cafeteria, but no way was that getting reported. But other than that, the place was very secure for a building as large as it was.
My minimalist reports did, in fact, do nothing to assuage Mr. Carter’s growing apprehension, so he began a series of unannounced visits to the graveyard shift.
Carter would show up, usually between two and three in the morning, looking rather drawn and always serious. These visits would most often consist of a greeting, “Good morning, Sergeant Saunders,” followed by a request for a report on how the shift was going, followed by a look at the logbook and a request for confirmation that no guard had been observed sleeping. My report would almost always go something like this: