A day in the life of a Security Guard

I have been working as a Security Guard for the last 10 years. During these years, many people asked me what is involved my job as a Security Guard on a day by day basis.

Here is a snapshot of my typical day as a Security Guard.

Beginning the shift – Reviewing shift notes

At the beginning of every shift, I will review the shift notes of the Security Guard who was on duty before me. This will give me a good idea of what issues happened before my shift and any pending issues to be closed to be watched for etc.

The rounds

After taking over the shift and after the review of the previous shift’s notes, I will start my rounds. The round or the beat involves walking through all the areas I am responsible for. During these walks I will be looking for suspicious activity (or materials or people). If anything is found out of the ordinary I will contact the appropriate authorities to take the required next steps.

Once my first round is completed, I will come back to my desk. Sometimes I will read a book while keeping an eye on the surveillance videos.

Within the next hour I will start my next round or the beat. Some of my previous jobs needed to do the beat only in every two hours.

Surveillance Video Monitoring 

As I just indicated, most of my time while I am at my desk is spent by watching TV screens showing the snaps from various video cameras located in critical locations within and outside the building. I will look for any suspicious activity, loitering, vandalism etc. If such incidents are noticed, I will notify others through my Walkie-talkie. I will also quickly walk to the location to appraise the situation myself.

Incident Prevention

Even though rare, sometimes I had to diffuse a situation. In certain situations I had to remove a disruptive individual from the premises. Often times after the first warning, if the individual is not responding properly to my directions, I will call the police to take control of the situation.

Incident Reporting

Towards the end of my duty for a day, I will note down any issues as an incident report for the next Security Guard who is going to take over the duties from me. My report will include the time, where the incident occurred (location) and the first person account of the incident and reason I had to intervene and take action. I will also indicate if authorities (say Police) were notified and the outcome of such notification such as if arrests were made or not. [For more information about how to write effective security guard incident reports, you can visit the linked page]