Andrew - Don't Forget Your Security Badge

Don’t Forget Your Security Badge

            “What’s the deal with all this security?” 

            That just happens to be one of the questions I hear the most while at work.  I’ve been working for over the last fourteen years or so.  I’ve held different jobs in different cities but for the most part, I’ve been working in downtown Los Angeles.  My first job was in downtown LA as a file clerk.  This was a couple years before the terrorist attacks on September 9, 2011.  I would work there over the summers at the office my dad worked at and I got a chance to see what the workplace was like in a downtown office building.  It was definitely a pretty cool experience. 

            The attacks happened when I was in high school.  It was a school day and I found out about it on the way to school.  I remember thinking about my dad and his safety when I was at school looking at the downtown skyline.  What if something like this had happened in Los Angeles?  I wasn’t the only one thinking about this and sure enough, everything downtown changed.

            That summer I went back to work and the first thing I noticed was the heightened security.  Police were located on every street corner and security would check the inside of every trunk and vehicle going into a downtown parking garage.  In the nine months since the planes crashed into the towers, a full scale accessing system had been implemented in every high-rise in downtown LA.  I had a card made out for me that was programmed to my name.  I had to swipe it to get through the security turnstiles each time I walked into the elevator bay in the building I worked in.  It had a sensor that knew when I left so that it could not be copied so that two people could not use the same card.

            After doing a little research for this project, I came across a safety brief from the RAND Institute on Public Safety and Justice.  It turns out that according to the brief, the heightened security I experienced at work was laid out in the brief, which was introduced to the Building Owners and Managers Association of Los Angeles.  The brief reads, “We found that most buildings have changed security procedures since 9/11. Although a ‘security standard’ has not emerged, we expect stricter access controls of one type or another to be permanent additions to downtown high-rise buildings.”  In basic terms, the new goal was to know the identity of each person in the building at any given time. 

            While it was easy to know which authorized employees were in the building, the access card system left a big whole in that it didn’t take into account visitors and guests.  This is what brings me to the question I began this with.  To be admitted into a downtown high-rise without an authorized employee access card you have to have an appointment with a tenant of the building and you have to have proper identification.  The appointment has to be cleared with security ahead of time so that they are prepared when the visitor arrives.  This can really cause a headache.  It a client does not bring proper identification, then unless someone from the office can come down and verify their identity, the client will not be allowed up.  It’s been my job to make sure this doesn’t happen.  It’s important because no one wants to be treated like they are boarding an airplane when they are just simply arriving for business meeting.  For someone not accustomed to the security, it can feel intrusive and unnecessary; especially when it holds you up.

            Another aspect of my job has been to deliver documents to other offices around the Los Angeles and Orange County areas.  Often times I find myself dropping something off in Costa Mesa or Century City and I’m amazed at how lax their security is.  It makes me realize that the reason it’s so intense in downtown LA is because of its attractiveness to terrorist.  It is probably one of the most high profile targets on the west coast of the United States.  Other business areas have much shorter buildings with fewer workers and less of a potential impact if attacked by a threat.  Because of this, I completely understand the need to beef up security in the high profile location, but it does not mean that it makes me any more comfortable to know that I’m working in a high profile target.

            In 2006, President Bush offered new information on a foiled terrorist plot in 2002.  It was a plot by Al Qaeda to hijack a plane and fly it into the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.  It just so happens that that building is the US Bank Tower, which also happens to be the very same building I work in.  It’s a weird feeling working in the highest profile target on the west coast.  It’s also a weird feeling to know that on a day that you were at work, a group of people was planning on flying a plane into your building. 

            I remember when the color-coded terror levels were paid attention to with total hysteria.  I was working during my Christmas break from my freshman year in college and a lot of the roads in downtown were shut down and there was a pretty widespread panic that an attack would take place any time.  At the time, only taxis and limos were allowed to drop off or pick up people at LAX and a big concert at the Disney Theatre had to be cancelled.  It was a pretty crazy time and employers were pretty sensitive about employees’ fears and some offices opened later in the day or were even closed if the terror level was orange enough. 

            It was a time when people’s fears of being attacked allowed their everyday lives to be affected and disrupted.  We came to a point where we needed to feel safer so we put up with all the inconveniences of living in fear.  We accepted that in order to feel safer, we might need to feel intruded upon every now and again.  Companies began to pay higher rent fees to cover the added security and the price of working in downtown LA went up.  Parking costs became outrageous and all the while, wages started to go down and hours started to get cut. The economy took a big hit and now downtown LA is not nearly as full as it used to be.  In some high-rises entire floors are empty.  Downtown has surely taken a hit in terms of its high profile as a terror target.  Even though there are less people and subsequently less of a need to stay hyper vigilant, there is as much and, in most cases, more security than ever.

            Daniel Antonius wrote an interesting article for Security Magazine.  In his article he talks about the psychological after affects of a serious threat of a terrorist attack.  He says that some people can allow the fear of an attack affect the way a person approaches employment and social interaction.  From my personal perspective, I find that most of the people I talk to and work with in downtown feel the same way that I do about the likelihood of an attack.  We know and understand the possibility, but we’re indifferent now to the inevitability of it.  For a good while, everyone was on alert.  Now, the trunks of our cars are no longer searched, a tenant can vouch for a visitor in the event that they don’t have identification and concerts don’t get cancelled at the concert hall.  Life has settled down along with our fears.  We can’t control what happens.  We do need to work and downtown is where our jobs are located.

            This begs a question: how much do we truly trust our government?  According to a PEW Research Poll, over the last thirty years our nation had the highest trust in the government in the time year immediately following the attacks on the Twin Towers.  Since then, that trust has steadily declined to the point where it is at an all time low.  Are we becoming indifferent because we see the futility of being scared to live our lives in anticipation of an attack, or, are we tired of feeling like we are being lied to and taken advantage of and the best thing we can do is become indifferent to the lies?  Personally, I feel like it’s a case where people just have to get on with their lives.  We each have enough going on personally to consume our thoughts and needs.  My co-workers and I don’t really have time to worry about an attack.  We made our decisions to stay in downtown and get on with our lives.  If something happens…well then…shit.  What are we going to do about it?

            We do our best to keep safe and vigilant downtown.  Everyone knows that any day some asshole could really do some damage.  The buildings have massive drills and we all sacrifice our work time to walk the stairs down to the lobby once a year to see where we would evacuate (thankfully we are on the twenty-eighth floor and not the seventy-second).  Security has really tightened up since the attacks.  Long gone are the days of easy access from one building to another.  Now we get our authorization from security badges with our pictures on them.  Without them, we aren’t allowed to work.  If there’s one thing to say about working downtown after 9/11 it’s “don’t forget your security badge.”