Getting a job where you have to monitor how well people are working can be pretty sweet. After all, you're basically just noticing what other employees are doing wrong for the most part. But jobs like that can also come with uncovering a ton of shocking secrets...
Eye in the Sky
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“I worked as a ‘ghost passenger’ for an airline. Basically, I flew around and graded flight attendants’ performance. While still parked at the gate with the door open, one flight attendant began berating passengers who were using their smart phones, which was completely permitted at the gate. She threatened to have the person in front of me thrown off the plane if she didn’t put hers away. She also threatened me.
After we left the gate and were taxiing to the runway, I looked back to see her sitting in her jump seat. using her phone. I took a photo of it and included it in my report. She initially denied using the phone and claimed I was being unruly on the aircraft. After she saw the photo, she changed her tune.”
Just Sneaking Around
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“I do social engineering for financial institutions (banks, credit unions, etc). I went to a credit union in Texas which failed on a miserable basis for security. I walked in with a fake badge that stated I worked for a made up company and that I was there to an inspection of the building. I dressed in a polo and khaki pants with matching colors to my badge and walked in to the front desk.
The girl there was probably in college or just out of school. She immediately let me into the back room and I walked into offices and desks that were unoccupied, but located in rooms with other employees. I walked up to empty computers in use and plugged USB drives. Huge no no. I began typing random things into computers and taking pictures of myself at the computers. Employees would literally look at me and go back to their jobs without thinking anything of a guy taking selfies at their friends work desk.
Once I had been in every office, I went to the vice presidents office. I opened her desk and looked through files to find people’s personal information. I found tons. I went into the file room and took personal loan documents off the shelf and took pictures of myself accessing them. When I was done, I walked to the person who had contracted my company and laid out all the information I had found and all the things I had done. The guy just sighed. This scenario has happened a couple of different times. Most places fail somehow.”
Steal A Moment
“I worked as a secret shoplifter for large retail chain. I would basically test loss prevention and see what I could get out of a store. The total would be tallied up and taken off the store managers bonus. They had to be on their game.
One thing I used to do was steal copper electrical cable sold by the foot. I would drag it to the fence and spool it up in my car parked on the other side. This was fun to me and an obvious catch for the store. I went outside to the wire rack and there was the store manager receiving a certain pleasurable act from a cashier. They spotted me and quickly went back inside to leave me alone. I then went ahead and spooled out the wire as planned. Not one, but the entire inventory, to the point at which my car started to get lower under the weight.
I went in and bought something and went to the cashier I saw with the store manager. I asked her how long she had been there. S
‘For a couple of weeks now,’ she replied. ‘ts just part time until I go back to high school for my junior year.’ I then went back to the SM and identified myself and what I saw in private. The cashier was the daughter of a friend of his and is only 16. He was 37. I gave him two weeks to find another job or I would be back and blow it all up. He not only left in one week but left the state entirely. Hind sight I should have called the police but I didn’t. This was about twenty years ago.”
Hard To Watch
Trying to end the harmful treatment of endangered animals unfortunately means also having to witness it:
“I work as a researcher studying illegal wildlife trade. In markets, I have seen critically endangered animals being sold openly for pretty low prices. I’ve also seen plenty of animals dead or dying in these markets with no food or water in the baking sun. But worse than that, I have friends who have had to watch slow lorises having their teeth pulled out with nail clippers and not been able to do anything.”
(Source)
A Stitch In Crime
Criminals need some way to pass the time too:
“I worked for an Armored car service for a while as a under cover guard. When a place had a lot of money or if it was a risky area two plain clothes guards would arrive before the truck. I would scout the place and outside to make sure the uniform guys could get in and out safe. We wore a color of the day and the local cops knew who we were as did the uniformed guards. It was a pretty easy job and I only once waved off a pickup because of a bunch of Latin kings sitting on benches out front.
I hung out a while to see what was going on and hoping they would leave so we could make the pickup. As I sat on a bus bench across the road I watched one of the guys take out his needlepoint. I never would think that a gang member would tote his needlepoint to a stick up job.”
(Source)
There’s The Rub
Massages are supposed to be relaxing, but this one sure doesn’t sound like it was:
“I am a private investigator, contracted by Government to check massage shops to see if they’re soliciting. I usually get sent to shops which have had multiple complaints and an investigation is in its final stages and they need evidence to support their case.
So, I go to one place, everything seems normal except for being asked to strip bare for an oil massage. Eventually I am asked to flip over, therapist without asking just starts rubbing some “gel” on my ‘parts’. At this point, I am obligated to refuse and finish the session. I ask her to stop but halfway through the sentence I am hit with the most intense pain. Turns out, she was new and was unaware that alcohol gel is not the same as massage oil.
Long story short, manager was convicted of coercing staff on the basis of their visas being revoked if they didn’t comply. And I had to stand in court and tell the events of that day.”
(Source)
Black And White
Race as just as big an issue in store security as it is in our country overall:
“Pretty late to the party, but I was an undercover “Assets Protection Specialist” at Target for a year in my early twenties. The main taboo thing I noticed- and one of the reasons I wound up hating it and ultimately quitting- is the whole security industry is racist as fuck. Everyone from the uniformed guards at the door to the police that did the arrests. We had policies in place to prevent targeting minorities, but it didn’t do anything.
Nearly every time we called the police to arrest a black person, they would at minimum get tackled. Even if they weren’t resisting. We had one white guy who was addicted to heroin that we had caught stealing video games several times, and had even punched my boss, and he was arrested so gently you would’ve thought he was made of porcelain.”
(Source)
Magical Arrest
The drama and adventure from tabletop card games came to life at one comic book store:
“I used to own a game store where we buy and sell Magic: The Gathering cards in Maryland. There was a big tournament in Pittsburgh the weekend before where someone’s collection was stolen, worth a few thousand dollars.
That day, we were visited by someone we’d never seen in the store before looking to sell a collection, a collection matching the description of the stolen collection. I told them that we were interested but needed to set up a longer time to sit down and look through the collection. We set up a time for the next Tuesday and they went on their way. We then called the police in Pittsburgh who connected us with the detective. He worked with our local county police and they set up a sting.
There were three cops in the store pretending to play (One actually knew how and is now a regular) and two more cars outside. When the guy came into the store, I did exactly what I would have done with a regular collection. Rung it up, negotiated and paid the guy for the collection. Once the money exchanged hands, the cops busted him. Collection was returned to the kid in Pittsburgh and the guy ended up with some plea deal involving probation.”
(Source)
Water You Doing?
Just because you’re at a fancy restaurant doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get a fancy waiter:
“Was secret shopping at a high end restaurant, around $100 per plate. The busser came over and re-filled my water glass (that I had already drank out of) and over filled it, so he poured part back in the pitcher from my glass and proceeded to re-fill everyone else at the table from the same pitcher. I really wanted to throw a fit, but could only include it in my report. Ewww.”
(Source)
Car Troubles
Everybody has bad mechanic stories, but one guy got back at the auto shop that messed with him:
“I once took my vehicle to an independent shop for routine maintenance. I said I was dropping it off for as long as it might take as I was “going to take a long trip the following month.” I sat across the street in a diner eating soup and drinking coffee. I got a call that my vehicle needed about $4500 worth of work an hour and a half later. It never left the parking spot. I told them I didn’t want anything done, they said it was half apart already. F— YOU FIRESTONE. I am an assistant service manager at a dealership. That Firestone was turned into a parking lot.”
(Source)
Not A Heroine
It’s incredibly hard to watch someone throw their dignity away. It’s even harder when you can’t look away or interfere because of your job:
“I’m a TV Producer. I was working on a popular documentary a while ago. We were following a woman who was addicted to heroin and had resorted to prostitution in order to make money to support her habits. One day, a friend of hers got thrown into jail. She decided she needed to work really hard to bail them out. So she called her friend who owned a crack-house that he let girls like her turn tricks in at about $10 a pop. I witnessed this girl share needles with many people and watched as john after john came into the house and disappeared into the bedroom with her for a little bit.”
(Source)
Live Wire
It’s one (terrible) thing to hook up with the main that brutally injured your child in private. It’s a completely other thing to do it while you know you’re wired by the police:
“I was running a wire. We were looking to arrest a guy who beat a two year old so bad she had broken femurs. We wired up mom and had her go to the boyfriend’s house and try and get him to confess. Mom started out great, led the boyfriend along and………. Started to blow him. He then f—ed her. The man who beat her daughter so bad she was LifeFlighted. She. F—ed. Him. On. Wire. I was punching my dashboard and wishing I could arrest her as well. It was awful.”
(Source)