Complacency

By Jim Goding

Of many dangers to the assets and especially the liabilities of the company, the most insidious in the Surveillance and Security departments, especially, is that of complacency. For Security and Surveillance officers and supervisors, it is very easy to get into the endlessly repetitive routine of operations: escorting fills to the Pit and/or slots and other gaming areas, slots drops, checking various areas of the hotel/casino complex, patrols. One even gets to know the people one sees, including the less desirable types, after a while on the job, and the routine of it all tends to dull the senses, make one less alert, less ready to recognize outpoints and more ready to slide into sloppiness in procedures and tolerance of others’ errors and sloppiness.

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Consider just one of these items above in light of safety of the officers and corporate liability. If an officer, carrying money at a very predictable time, follows a route which puts him in reach of potential criminals (rather than the prescribed back-halls route), and he does get hit, it is very likely that the officer himself would be liable for the theft. Not only that, but the company insurance could very well balk at covering his injuries, because it was the officer himself who chose to travel the open route. Again, the officer could be suspected as an accomplice, because he did not follow procedure, but put himself in reach of the criminals. From a corporate liability viewpoint, the company could be at least partially liable, if efforts had not been made to correct this officer, for his injuries. And the corporate insurance could also balk at paying for the lost cash, for the same reason: lack of enforcement of existing preventive procedures. Now, it may be true, as claimed by spokesmen of several foreign powers, that we live in a fat and complacent society. We have certainly become, as shown by events since 2001, vulnerable to sneak attacks and terrorism, as a society. But that is no excuse for those of us in Security and Surveillance, to allow ourselves to become complacent in our jobs. We are, after all, responsible for the assets of the corporation as well as the safety and security of its employees and its patrons.

Copyright ©  2003 by Jim Goding. All rights reserved. Duplication in any form, electronic or otherwise, without the written permission of the author is forbidden, is a violation of the proprietary rights of the author and is actionable under law.