April 9th 2015

I got scheduled to come in later so I only have to be stuck here for eight hours. They put me directly in the Special Exhibition. They are so short today that they had Predator come in to do reliefs, and only one guard posted in the Exhibition. Me and the other three part timers came in around the same time and they put us straight to work. No complaints, feels good to be needed. The only downside is that Predator is here until (redacted) gets back.

People are running out of his side of the Exhibition. Probably a combination of his “friendly nature” AND his unnatural stench. I am trying to greet guests with a smile and he stalks them with dirty looks. Unless they are black, then and only then does he actually strike up a conversation with another human being. A pretty black girl, with a baby, came into the gallery and he immediately pounced on her with his “charm”. Until he noticed she was with another guy.

Well (redacted) warned me there would be a meeting when I got here today. Around 3PM I was told to go over to HR's new office. I of course took my sweet time getting over there. Altogether it took about 40 minutes getting there, the meeting, and getting back again. I love it how everyone greets you with a smile, at least Mismanagement does, when the shit’s going to hit the fan. Here I was thinking the meeting would be about Predator's blatant time sheet tampering, but instead it was another alleged complaint over something I never said.

According to the head of PR I made a joke about someone committing suicide in the Old Gallery. I know I have a sense of humor (or lack there-of depending on how you look at me), but I would never joke to a guest or a fellow staff member about anyone committing suicide. That’s really messed up. I can see what they were trying to do but it did not phase me. I stayed objective and told them the truth. HR brings up Tommy Gun's name out of the blue and Knucklehead says “well let me give him a call”. He has to slop all the way over to the new offices just to tell them the same thing I did. Then they call PR in to try and confirm her bullshit accusation. I tell her “I never said that, I don’t joke about that kind of thing.” Then says with conviction “It was you.” Trying not to laugh at the fact that she’s Mismanagement’s buddy. I reply “I’m not saying you didn’t hear someone say that, but it wasn’t me.” Then she starts making sense and says “Maybe it was the other guard.” She didn’t remember what day it was, she didn’t remember who exactly it was. She only knew that it was a white guy with parted hair. I don’t part my hair, last time I did that I looked like Fatty Arbuckle. Not a good look.

At the end of the meeting they were so disappointed that they didn’t get me on anything. Altogether I got to sit down for 30 minutes and owned the meeting. For the rest of the night I had nothing but a smile on my face. Even Predator looked disappointed at the fact that I still had my ID badge and greeted him with a smile. So to recap just in case you haven’t caught on to the pattern.

I have a meeting with The Equalizer about Predator's harassment and break times (or lack there of).

I get called into HR about Kelly.

I call The Equalizer and tell him about Predator stealing hours from me, says we’ll have a meeting with Knucklehead and me about it.

Get called into HR two weeks later about something I never said by a woman who is a friend of Predator's momma bear (Mismanagement).

Protecting Your Health

Where I work we are not allowed to psychically protect ourselves (because our boss is scared of lawsuits), but protecting your health is a must do. Especially if you work in a public place that could easily be considered a cesspool. This does not mean you have to make yourself O.C.D. but you do need to take some basic action to keep yourself from getting sick. You also have to keep yourself in good condition if you don’t want to be one big walking Charlie horse.

Before you come to work take some vitamin C, a Multi-vitamin, and a digestive vitamin aid. The digestive aid will help you poop when you eat cheap food from places you can actually afford. The other vitamins protect you from catching colds or other foreign illnesses.

Wash your hands before you eat or use hand sanitizer if there is no soap and water immediately available. This is especially important in the break room which is surprisingly the least cleaned part of the building. When it comes to taking bathroom breaks don’t let your Supervisor give you a hard time.

 If you really have to go then just go, you don’t need their permission to do a natural bodily function. A guard that use to work at the museum got a ruptured bladder because no one came to relieve her. On the plus side she did sue the shit out of them! Not that I would recommend doing this.

Icy Hot and braces for your knee and/or ankle, as well as a heating pad, are must have items. Your muscles WILL get sore over time with the hard floors of a museum. The time of year, with the weather, also factors into how ache you will be. I don't really promote drug use or alcohol consumption in the work place, but if you have a long day to work... Pop that Oxy responsibly and don't mix it with alcohol.

When you're not at work make sure to drink lots of water to drown out all of the caffeine you will pump into your system. Don't drink more than a gallon per day, you don't want to flood your kidneys. In the winter make use of a heating pad to keep your joints and back muscles from tensing too much. 

April 5th 2015

It’s Easter Sunday and guess where I am? Yep! Fuck my life. Since it’s Easter the only people here are Asian tourists and heathen art school students. Otherwise it’s going to be a slow day up here on the 4^th Floor. I am at the half-way point of the day and there has been 53 people up here so far. These are obviously the diehard art fanatics. Everyone with a life is at home with their families. I know I’m not obviously, but everyone’s out of town anyway.

Mismanagement and the assistant director are here today. It’s fucking Easter! Go home! Mismanagement always says she’s cool with God, but I don’t believe it. She’s the devil’s own. I know Predator will be here tonight. Now that’s a guy with no life. 

April 4th 2015

April 4^th 2015: Yesterday was Bear’s final day. Mismanagement and Knucklehead actually got him bagels and coffee as a farewell present. From what I am told they were not happy about shelling out the money for that. Bear dissevers a full catering service and a few kegs of beer. He was a valued guard and he is a valued friend.

Today we are short handed, but luckily I am posted in R+G+G by myself for the first time in ages. It iss almost like the good ol’ days of when I first started working here. Except now I know better and understand the grim reality of this fucked up museum. I have not seen Kelly in a while. I am hoping she was let go after I sent that e-mail to the Assistant Director. You know as a preemptive “please don’t sue us” thing like they did after Matt Fry almost got Boles killed. Then again probably not; she’s either on vacation or working different days.

What’s kind of odd was this morning Sarah said “good morning”, even though she didn’t have to. Mismanagement said good morning too. What the fuck? It probably has something to do with that loan I signed up for. These bitches smell money? They would be the two types to try sucking up (literally) when smelling cash. Mismanagment’s a hustler and Sarah’s a future starving artist. 

Today, over the radio, (redacted) announced that (the old Director) was in the building. Like it was still significant. He hasn’t been the Director for almost two years. None of us really need to give a shit if he’s here or not. At the end of the day Predator collected the equipment. He was wearing a blazer that looked a size too small for his fat frame. Whenever he’s wearing a blazer it’s never a good sign. It means he’s hiding his B.O. The jacket wasn’t doing a very good job of that. Tommy Gun said he survived by keeping his distance. I think Predator has a gay crush on me because he never keeps his distance. 

April 2nd 2015

Today is my first day in the new special exhibition. The majority of the pieces are items already owned by the museum, but a couple of them are just on loan from private collectors. The exhibit is not a paid one like usual. In fact it’s so boring I don’t think you could pay for people to enter it!

Like what is usually the case some tours have been set up to make the numbers look good. Not quite sure why they want us to even keep a count if it’s not a paid exhibit. That isn’t however the biggest flaw in logic with this place.

The exhibit only takes up about a third of the overall gallery space, but requires two guards. Here’s why. The Special Exhibition can be adjusted in formation with it’s removable walls. Really it’s a big horseshoe, but with the right wall placement it can be separated into rooms.

The flaw with THIS particular exhibit is the fact they added a separation for something that only takes up a third of the space. It’s like they did this so that Knucklehead would NEED to put two guards in an area that could easily be covered by one. This could be to combat Predator's need for making guards go home early.

Whether that ignorant bastard will try that again anytime soon remains to be seen considering we are short. Even if Tommy Gun was here we would have just enough people to cover everything… barely. Now would be the best time to quit. That would really make their assholes pucker.

So I have made it through the whole day in the special ex without losing my sanity. Writing has saved me yet again. Just another hour and a quarter to go. Predator came through the special ex on his let’s-see-if-I-can-catch-people-doing-something-while-I’m-suppose-to-be-in-the-Monitor-Room tour. (Redacted) had his cellphone plugged in and told him that if Predator ever came through I would warn him. I shouted “Good evening Mr. (Predator)” and (redacted) got the signal. Now whose the one using formality as a weapon? Me mother fucker! :D

The Threat of Terrorism

If you have seen the news lately (and if you haven’t I don’t blame you) then you know I.S.I.S. has their panties in a twist over the death of Mohammed Emwazi aka “Jihad John”. If you work in security then your Supervisor has without a doubt made some kind of speech about how you will all have to be on high alert. Where I work they waste no time doing that sort of thing, especially since my Supervisor (former Manager) can now use the deaths of 130+ people as an excuse for past mistakes.

“I’ve been posted at the same gallery for four months now”, “well because of recent events I won’t be able to rotate guards as often”. “I lost the key to the old entrance, placed blame on the staff, and got a Supervisor fired.” “We better over play the threat of terrorism.” That is basically the current climate at my art museum, hopefully your superiors aren’t using something this serious as a crutch.

Whatever the circumstances; and wherever you are in the country, you need to be alert. In our modern overly politically correct nation if someone suggest profiling you might call them a racist. On the contrary if a Middle Eastern man walks into your place of work, looking like he’s pregnant and sweating nervously, then damn it you better start! Let’s put the faux offensiveness aside and start being concerned with not getting killed.

Be alert and aware of your surroundings. Know where all of the emergency exits are. Make a plan with your fellow co-workers, even if they don’t take it seriously. Most importantly get the guests out through the nearest emergency exit and survive to tell the reporters about how unprepared your idiot superiors were. 

Well I mean five or so years after the fallout, kind of like how people bitched about cancer causing dust after 9/11. It's the American way it seems...

March 28th, 2015

March 28 2015: All kinds of activity so far today. First up Mismanagement had us go on tour of the new marble special exhibit. The curator, (the sweet British lady), said “This statue is the plaster mold for the bronze statue for the grave of the family in (redacted) Cemetery.” How hard is that to understand for someone actually listening? Mismanagement, being Captain repeat-every-fucking-thing-because-I’m-ignorant, asked (sweet British lady) to say it again. So the Curator repeated herself; then it turned into a five minute debate over who was buried at the plot of the cemetery. “Jesus Christ!” (redacted) exclaimed and quite right. Next up was pointed out the confusion between what could and could not be touched. There are some sample pieces of marble that can be touched, and other pieces that cannot be touched. There are only signs saying “please touch”. Like (sweet British lady) said, this stuff will be here for long after we are dead. Let ‘em touch it! I Eskimo kissed one of the statues while pretending to look for something. She thought it was funny. The Curator, not the statue. I’m not that far gone.

Today (redacted) is posted at H.H. He’s never been trained on H.H.. D.J. was the unfortunate soul sent to relieve him at 11AM. I say “unfortunate” because (redacted) didn’t know about the emergency exit aka “side door”. When the door closes the push bar locks behind you, unless you lock the bar in place with the Alan wrench provided on the key ring. This prevents the door from locking behind you. Or you can opt to use the door stop. (Redacted) didn’t know about either of these things and locked D.J. out of H.H., she had the keys (all 20 something of them) but there’s no key to unlock the push bar from the other side.

D.J. called for assistance over the radio so naturally Monitor Room called for (redacted) to let her in. This is futile nine-times-out-of-ten because he “doesn’t hear” his radio calls. 10 minutes later D.J. again calls for assistance. (Redacted) is still A.W.O.L. so Monitor Room calls (redacted) (posted in R+G+G) to go let D.J. into the building. Five minutes later she gets on the radio for a third time to request assistance. (Redacted's, second one not father time) radio was malfunctioning. After 20 minutes of being in the emergency exit D.J. was finally freed from her mini prison. As she relieved Captain Redacted at Old Entrance she had a thousand yard stare on her face. Either trauma or just the way she copes with the day. Probably both.