Paranoia

Does anyone know that song by The Kinks called “Destroyer” with the lyric “paranoia will destroy ya”? Well we do not deal with transvestites, although this is an art museum, but there can be a serious air of paranoia. At least where I work there is.

In an art gallery you have a lot of time on your hands. If you do not keep your mind strong you will feel like you suspect stuff that is not actually happening. It is not like that everywhere, but where I work it is a matter of who is in charge.

Some guards have worked here so long that the constant policy changes have severely messed with their heads. For example I had some fun with (redacted). We were in the special exhibition and talking about one of the vases. He said “this one looks like an old bomb.” Honestly it did, because the vases were Japanese and it looked like it was recycled.

While we were both staring at the vase a woman walked into the exhibition. (Redacted) did not see her and she appeared just as he made his comment. She looked shocked and perturbed so I just nodded in agreement before walking away. (Redacted) got spooked and tried to make conversation with her.

Him and (redacted) always run toward trouble when they think they will get into it over an innocent little mistake. With the way this place is managed that might just be the case. The point is people like that think they are getting fired. It is nowhere near as bad as Mismanagement’s camera flash thing she was doing for a while. Trying to make us think she was taking pictures of us.

You do sometimes catch another guard out of the corner of your eye. They definitely are checking in on you around here. Of course there is a big difference between spying and awkward encounter. Once you get a feel for a place (not just security, this applies anywhere) you will become more comfortable with this mild paranoia.

You can never be cool with workplace paranoia, but you can spot the signs and laugh at yourself if you give into it too deeply. Hell maybe it will give you enough material to write a blog…