Hi! My Name is Edward Richardson » Work

The Hottest Day of the Summer

Edward — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:08:55 +0000

Today, I was hard at work at the airport. I had just removed a large bottle of honey from a gentleman’s bag after strong protest from him. As he collected the items I allowed him to keep, the whole place went black. My first thought was, “secure the area!” he might try to steal his honey back. Luckily, that wasnt the case. However, this was the start of hours of working without power. Within a minute, the backup generaters powered on and we had to figure out what to do with the passengers currently being processed. This is because the x ray machines and metal detectors didnt work! It didnt take long to discover that one machine was functional in the carry on section, and none in the checked bag section. This meant that EVERY checked bag had to be hand searched! Clearly it was going to be a long day. Added problems were: the water in bathrooms didnt work, the stores couldnt make food and lighting was limited.
The biggest problem however, was the lack of air conditioning. We worked for hours in a poorly ventilated room dealing with irate passengers. Due to the humidity in the air, the ground quickly went wet, then dirty, then slippery! People were sliding everywhere. In the carry on section where people have to take off thier shoes for security, many were reluctant because thier bare feet were forced to walk on the wet dirty ground.
I was sweating bullets having to work twice as hard to keep things moving in so much heat, my shirt was soaked. When I got home, I realised my underwear was too. This definately was the hottest day of the year for me!

Here is the newspaper report on it: click here
(why did they only mention the customs people, and not how it was airport security that saved the airport from delays?)

Yum!

Edward — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:14:49 +0000

First day at work deserves watermelon!

Acting The Part

Edward — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:37:22 +0000

Security!!

The Good Luck Roach

Edward — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:55:32 +0000

So this morning a roach decided to make a trampoline out of my face. At about 6:45am I was leaving the bathroom, tired as ever with a freshly washed face. Only to feel a stupid roach land on it!

This is the same day of my final test for this security course. I didn’t study the night before… I didn’t feel I needed to. I pretty much proved it with my 95% score! I’m sure it was the highest in the class. As Mr. Smith said, “Impressive!”. From the moment my pen hit the paper I answered each question without hesitation, finishing my 75 minute test in 20 minutes.
Easy.

I’m pretty smart after all.

Edward — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:24:42 +0000

We had another test today. Lets just say I got the highest in the class!

We covered technology in airport security. So we talked about AMD and HHMD (metal detectors for u regular people). We also practiced doing pat downs and bag searches. I found it sort of intimidating, trying to do the right thing. But I had it down.

Tomorrow is a half day for us. We could have been taking the final exam but Karen and Santil-lah decided they were not ready, so out of the kindness of our hearts we voted to have the test on Friday.

That now means that I have to go all the way to the airport for an hour and fifteen minute test. Oh well

Diet still going great

If I Tell You, I’ll Have To Kill You

Edward — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:03:24 +0000

Finally, I can say that and somewhat mean it. Today at training we learned all about firearms, explosives and banned items. It was pretty cool being able to see what goes into searching luggage, planes and people. I’m pretty excited to get going with it. One of the best parts was when we learned the regular items that can be used to make a bomb. Mr. Smith made us swear not to share this information.

Just for the record, I now have the names of everyone.
The french born dude is Daniel, the older lady is Karen (she has a 19 and a 21 year old and she is 47), and the crazy guy beside me is Curtis (he also has a 19 and 21 year old AND he’s a grandfather as of December last year.. not expected at all).

This morning’s test went well. I was the only one that didn’t have to go to the book for answers. Yes, I am proud.

Tomorrow is another test, I merely glanced at the notes. We are also doing a practice bag search too, so that should be interesting.

Diet still going good. :)

I support the fight against Terrorism.

Edward — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:57:58 +0000

Today was my first day training to be a… well actually I don’t even know the job title. But I know its all about airport security.

I am undergoing a one week course, basically, if I pass the final exam, I will be offered a job.

Today we spent time talking about the company as a whole, the organizations involved in aviation security and touched on terrorism. There are so many abbreviations and facts to learn, I’m not sure how I’m going to get it all in m head for our quiz tomorrow morning. I have quite a crew of people training along side me. I don’t remember all the names but I’ll do my best.

Our instructor, Mr. Smith asked us to introduce ourselves. We went around the table in a clockwise order.

First Santil-lah. 19 Year old female, seems very quiet and not very interested. She seems like the type that will sit there and text all day if she could. My first impression that she was iffy was her choice of clothing, a bright blue shirt with clouds and rainbow colored peace signs above text that read “live together”. She didn’t contribute to any conversation. When we introducing herself she copped out of talking by saying her name and then saying “and I don’t want to talk because I have a cold”. That quickly got shot down with Mr Smith saying, “well in this job you may feel sick but you still have to talk”. He then, asked her if there is anything she can tell us about herself and she had NOTHING. She just shrugged it off. I think her days are numbered.

Next, Norman. The only white dude. He’s 28 and just starting is Bachelors of Visual Arts in manhatten. He was the most dressed one there, wearing a dark button up shirt and nice pants. He seems pretty cool and normal. We’ve already ‘connected’ after a stupid comment from another person in the room. I’ll go on about that some more later.

After Norman there was Eugene. I went to school with him at Warwick Academy, so it was nice to see a familiar face. He is doing substitute teaching right now which is pretty cool. He’s had on a polo shirt with some weird crest on it, jeans, some nice black shoes and a long braided pony tail type thing, which is a change from the short cut he used to have. I thought he was on the edge of the smart casual that I was advised to wear.

The next dude.. I forgot his name already. I think it was Gerald, either way he was wearing black dress pants, pointy shoes and an almost neon green polo. His hair was really black too. He’s a french born african who’s step father is from Bermuda and Biological father lives in brooklyn, or something like that. Naturally he is a french speaker. He seems like a pretty smart guy and it’s backed up by the fact that he’s studying actuarial science in Jamaica. So far this 21 year old has provided a good contribution to the class. He seems to have his mind in the right place

Unlike the next lady, Who’s name I also forgot. Karen? Either way, she’s the oldest of the bunch. If you couldn’t get it from her ‘ethnic’ all over print black and white pants, then you would get it from the way she refers to Mr. Smith as ‘baby’. She has been working in the aviation industry for about 7 years. You would think she was a step above the rest of us but she really doesn’t seem to know much. Not to mention her brain is on another planet. Some of her suggestions and answers are just.. ghetto. It was annoying having to listen to her try to prove that a threat and a vulnerability are the exact same thing. Thank goodness, most of my day was sitting with a space between us.

That was because the next person, who’s name I never had the chance to get, was so late. We started at 9am, he arrived at about 1:30pm wearing a white t-shirt, baggy jeans and red shoes. His cologne was strong too. I don’t know anything about him other than he sat next to me, and was late.

Then there was me… Khaki pants, blue polo and on top of things :)

Finally there was another name I forgot. He wore khaki’s and a black polo, and had one eye that was 1/4 of the way open, all you can see was the white in his eye. It was… different. However, he was the big mouth of the group.. always knew everything and had lots to say. For example, the regiment needs to train kids to shoot guns better so that the gangsters hit their target.

He really had me laughing when he said that the probability of a bus bombing making the front page of the paper compared to an aircraft bombing is determined by the amount of papers in rotation of the area. When he said that, I moved my eyes towards Norman, we both made eye contact and we couldn’t help to break the silence and laugh. What a stupid statement.

Today I also made my way to Sharika’s to celebrate Lexi’s graduation from Tree Tops. We also got to meet a stray kitten that Sharika’s friend found on the golf course.

By the way, my diet is still going great. No meat, I even made my sister get me a veggie burger instead of the burgers they were making.

Anyhow, I have 39 pages of abbreviations, definitions and random facts to learn for my test tomorrow. Wish me luck.

little kitty before being shipped to the SPCA