What’s that! A PLEDGE PIN ON YOUR UNIFORM!

They’ve finally gone and done it.

My employer is making all office staff wear uniforms for ‘security reasons’. We’re also getting 24/7 guards at all entrances and security badges which will have to be shown to enter or leave the property.

After September 11th, 2001, the FBI came and spoke to the District Managers of all the sites my employer owns. Because we can enter just about any building in just about and city with just a wave and a smile, the feds told us we were going to have to begin locking down our trucks, taking all “spare” keys from the drivers and distributing truck keys daily, and put up almost three quarters of a mile of 8ft fencing topped with security wire by the end of 2001. Then came the cameras, then came the reconfiguring of the lot making ingress/egress more difficult, etc, so I figured that this was just an extension of the rules.

But I was wrong.

Seeing as how I work nights, I don’t get to hear all the gossip and happenings from during the day (thankfully), but apparently, a goodly number of high dollar items have come up missing in the past couple weeks, both out of people’s desks and lockers, but also some company equipment.

For example, about four weeks back, someone drove a truck into the parking lot in front of the main building, walked into the drivers area, booted in a storage room door and stole both the gas grills management uses for the monthly cookouts. These weren’t no cheapie $150 units either. We feed 100-120 guys with these two grills and their replacements, which weren’t even as large as the ones that were stolen cost $600 each.

Needless to say, there has been a marked decline in the number of employees inviting each other to a BBQ as of late.

The security cameras were damn near useless as the thieves took the plates off their truck and wore masks. Add to the stolen grills the missing $400 digital cameras when the manager’s offices was broken into a week or so later and the problem I have every fall and winter with having to run the bums out at night, and management just decided to tighten the screws down more than a little bit.

Yes, before even all this I’ve asked to be ‘allowed’ to arm myself on company property and was given a resounding “NO!”, and I’m sure the guards won’t be armed either. We have a gun-bigot for a GM.

But back to the uniforms; I really don’t mind wearing them because they’re not really what I would call ‘uniforms’, that is just what our inept Personell/HR department is calling them. My boss is giving me $150 to go to the online ‘corporate store’ and pick out two weeks worth of shirts and other things to wear.

No paper hats, no polyester fast-food sweat slacks, no real requirements other than it have the company name prominently displayed on it.

So, kewl. I was going to take advantage of the up and coming ‘Back to School’ sales, but now I really don’t have to, more money for me!

The reason I’m writing this is that the meeting to explain the what and how had me staying an hour late and then my wonderful co-workers were asking their stupid questions (because they wanted to delay their having to actually start working) for another 90 minutes, which kept me from leaving anywhere near on time, so now, I am not only hungry but about to fall asleep.

Wish me luck on keeping my face out of the waffles and I’ll see y’all tomorrow.