Quote of the Day: E. M. Cioran

"Life inspires more dread than death - it is life which is the great unknown."


It is official. The security guards at my building are now completely worthless.

Here is a representative exchange I had once with the creepy little toad-like individual I pass every morning:

"Hey, I forgot my key card. Can you let me up?" (I have to use it at three different places to get in every morning so forgetting it was a dumb move on my part.)

"What floor? What name?" After I told him he said, "Can't find it. Can't let you up."

"Come on, isn't walking by here every day for a year and a half good enough."

"We have rules. We take security very seriously here. Sorry."

"Maybe you're spelling it wrong." It turned out he was.

"Do you want me to let you in upstairs?" he asked as he keyed me up the elevator. Since I wanted to do more than stand in front of a locked door for two hours until everyone else showed up, I told him I did.

On the way up, he said, "So are you some kind of corporate bigwig?"

"Not really."

"I used to be like you. I had it all but I finally had to give it up to get out of the rat race. All that money's not worth it. You make good money, don't you?" (By the way, I have serious doubts about his corporate raider past because he can't be more than twenty years old and he was looking at the floor the whole time to avoid making eye-contact.)

"It pays the bills." Luckily we arrived at my floor before he could grill me any further about my personal finances.

So I've always thought they were strange human beings whom we put up with because they were good at their job. I no longer think that after last week.

The woman at the little store downstairs saw a *well-dressed woman carrying one of the purses for sale out of the store without paying for it. When she caught her at the Tully's across the lobby and found it full of other merchandise she doubted her claim that "she forgot" she was carrying it so she decided to detain her. She yelled for help to the security guard who was talking on the phone ten yards away but who did nothing so she was finally forced to let the thief go when her husband came and wrestled her away with what sounded pretty close to what I would describe as physical force. The security showed up a few minutes later and said he had been too busy earlier but that if it was important she should fill out a report.

*I think she was a klepto who steals for the thrill because her husband seemed very used to dealing with the situation and they could obviously afford to pay for a stupid purse. I wonder if security didn't intervene because they looked like corporate bigwigs.