At a door supervisors network meeting attended by the now former Chairman of the SIA himself, and a couple of his top executives (none of whom, by the way, had any security experience or security background whatsoever, nor I doubt had ever done a days work in security in their lives), I asked the member of the SIA panel in charge of training a very simple and straightforward question: If the objective of the SIA was to implement professionalism in the industry, why is the exam to be a door supervisor so very simple, and the pass-grade so low that virtually anyone (who could speak English) could pass. Even with my limited intellect and understanding I can see that this is a complete contradiction. Surely, if you wanted to upgrade and professionalise the industry, if you wanted a higher calibre of professionals looking after the safety and well being of the public in high-risk, alcohol fuelled environments, you would make the the profession of door supervisor much tougher to get into? You would make the training more difficult and the exam passes much higher ? The SIA promised me a reply to my question but to date and well over a year later, I have not heard back from them, despite a number of emails directly to the Chairman himself.
To see and experience for myself the differences in style and content of training today, compared to training back in the 80’s and ‘90s., I recently attended a door supervisors training course run by Bob Knowles of the DSTO. The first door supervisor’s course I ever attended was many years ago with the Ealing Council, in west London. Run by the then Met Policeman Andy Walker, it was pioneering and one of the very first door supervisor courses in the UK for the industry. Even now, many years later, I remember the course and the venue, a nightclub cum theatre in Northfields, near Ealing Broadway. For a contract I had in the centre of London I then attended the Westminster course. After that, as a career doorman, I attended a number of other courses all over the UK, including Manchester and Macclesfield. Although some of the core skills were the same as taught on door supervisor’s courses now, the style of training back then was very different and, in my opinion, the training we did back then in terms of relevance and connection to the actual job on the doors was infinitely better. Back then we were taught about first aid, which I still absolutely believe should be a fundamental requirement of training for the door supervisor today. In my opinion, every door team, whether two-man or a team of twenty, should by law have a qualified first-aider on hand every night of operation. I have worked the doors for almost 20 years and without doubt, every time a customer physically injures himself he / she always come to the door staff to assist. ALWAYS. They don’t fight their way to the bar and ask a barman, or stop a glass collector, or wait around for the management, the first people they head for are the door staff. However, according to the SIA, door staff do not need to be qualified in first aid and therefore the very people appointed to look after the general public in times of danger or difficulty are not qualified to do the job!
Back in Ealing and Westminster we were also taught control and restraint techniques. I also personally and fervently believe all door supervisors (and close protection officers) should have some form of self-defence and control and restraint training. Although this is slowly changing, years after the formation of the SIA, the SIA currently does not see this as a requirement either.
Being a member of the British Bodyguard Association (www.the-bba.org.uk ) I speak to many, many close protection officers worldwide, and when I mention the fact that CPOs in the UK do not have to have any self defence training they literally roll about in laughter. As with close protection, I think all door supervisors should be able to defend themselves, for if they cannot and do not have the knowledge and power to defend themselves, how can they defend the people they are employed to protect. I agree that in most cases verbal communication can, and will, diffuse most potentially violent situations....but not all of them! Without even a basis of self-defence, doorstaff are clearly put in harms way, even though all SIA accredited courses clearly state if it escalates then door staff should call the police and not put themselves in danger. What a load of bollocks. In my opinion, this attitude of retreat when the going gets tough is what is fuelling this downward spiral of disrespect.
On all the courses back in the 80’s and early 90’s we were taught control and restraint techniques and they really did work when out working on the doors. We learned the basic skills, and then practised time and time again weekly within our team, and used them when we really needed to and when other things just didn’t work.
Security guards working at hospitals get taught these techniques, and so do many nursing staff, especially in psychiatric wards, so why can’t door supervisors ?
The SIA wants to get rid of the thugs and bullies in this industry sector, and yet it treats us all as though we were thugs and bullies by not having these techniques compulsorily taught as part of the training.
Even with its licensing, the new conditions of being a door supervisor and criminal records checks, it seems the SIA still does not trust its license-holders and continues to treat door supervisors as thugs and therefore won’t offer them proper training relevant to the job and to the current conditions just in case doorstaff then uses those skills unnecessarily.
But the biggest difference was the people who attended the door supervisor training I attended. Ten years ago I would say that 80% of those people attending a course looked as though they could handle difficult situations, violent and aggressive punters, real emergencies and could quell most potentially unpleasant aggressive situation with just their physical presence.
Now 80% of the candidates on the course looked as if they would run a mile at an angry voice or threat. There was a 55 year old frail-looking women, a couple of scrotes who were only there because the dole had sent them, numerous 18 year old timid looking university students needing a little extra cash, and an assortment of other characters who would never make it past the first giant ‘ruck’ or a group of scrotes intent in causing mayhem. Whilst I understood the doors are different, the environment in which door supervisors work is not, in fact it is a lot worse. I am sure that everyone would agree, there is now more violence on the streets that there has ever been; more stabbings, more conflict, more disrespect, more attitude. Why then are not door supervisors trained for this? Or do these people think it will never happen to them, that they can have a trouble free, stress free career on the door? Or perhaps they think that the police will always be there for them if things got a little too tough.
What then is the point in qualifying and licensing door staff if they have to then rely on the police ? Has the Chairman of the SIA ever been around the roughest pubs and clubs in Greater Manchester and chatted about the job to actual door staff? Has he ever worked the doors himself in these venues to completely understand the characters of people door staff have to deal with on a nightly basis ? Has he ever had to turn away a group of scrotes determined to reek havoc ? I understand completely that while originally researching the licensing system, the SIA spoke to and consulted with many well respected, well known and well regarded individuals in the industry, so why then did the SIA not introduce real and relevant training according to a real and relevant environment, and not an environment which the Chairman obviously knows nothing about ?
Another question I have tried asking the SIA, again without reply or comment is that if the SIA wants to professionalise the security industry and higher the standards of both security training and operations – which I, and everyone else in the industry totally agrees with - why is the SIA itself completely unprofessional? They never answer the phone, never reply to emails, take weeks and weeks to process applications (my application form took almost three months to arrive after an on-line request!!), lose a huge amount of documents and applications and treat most people with complete contempt. The SIA wants to get rid of arrogance and incompetence in the security industry, and yet it leads the way in arrogance and incompetence within the security industry.
Ask anyone what they think of the SIA, most would have the roughly same reply.
How can an organisation which runs an industry be so detested within that industry and continue running it ? If that happened in any other environment the organisation would be immediately closed and its heads brought to account. But not the SIA.
One day something really bad will happen on the doors, the result of which will show the lack of relevant training for the door supervisors. And sadly only then will society question the sanity of an organisation that accredits and approves door staff unable to deal with medical emergencies or unable to even restrain someone adequately.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Monday, 31 August 2009
Bring Back Respect ! - A Guide for Door Supervisors
INTRODUCTION
Firstly thanks for reading Bring Back Respect. As I have a fair few to send out, for speed and ease I am sending this firstly via e-mail in text format, but it will also shortly be available in a formatted pdf which I will put on my website for you to download. If you like what I have written, and agree with what I have said then PLEASE feel free to forward it onto any other door supervisors that might also be interested in this extremely relevant yet somewhat controversial subject; a topic which has been close to my heart and a concern of mine for many, many years. My goal is to have at least 10% of the industry workforce eventually reading this article, that means around 13,000 people.
As many of you may well know Charlie Bronson and I have just recently agreed to co-write a book together titled Respect and Reputation. It should be a great book and I am really looking forward to getting started on it as there is probably nobody else more qualified to talk about gaining respect and building a reputation inside than Charlie. After more than 30 years in solitary confinement, Bronson has built himself an awesome reputation and has the notoriety of being one of the hardest prisoners in the UK With lots of fascinating true stories about some of the people he has served time with, his part of this fascinating book examines the truth about gaining real respect and building a serious reputation within the bleak and treacherous walls of Her Majesty's prison. My part of the book will examine this subject in detail on the 'outside' – not just on the doors but in life in general. I already have lots of great people on-board; some very well known 'faces' taking about building a reputation and gaining respect.
I have made this article Bring Back Respect only available via the internet as so many more door supervisors would be able to read it and for me this is much more significant; if just one person understands and agrees with my philosophy, values and principles and as a result changes their attitude and behaviour, then my task is complete.
I do not mince words and, rightly or wrongly, I am known for telling things as they are. What is the point in writing anything anyway if what you write isn't what you really mean ? And so, because this subject has pre-occupied my thoughts for quite a while and because I was appalled and dismayed when I recently attended a door supervisor training course, I have decided to write my personal guide to becoming a good door supervisor. This isn't about the mechanics of the job, but purely about building a reputation and bringing back respect into this once honourably and loyal industry.
VERY IMPORTANT: Respect MUST be partnered with reputation. You must strive for BOTH in order to be successful and professional. To have one and not the other is ineffectual and pathetic.
Oh, bye the way, before I continue I just want to let you know that whenever I use the term doorman / men I mean both door men and door women so female door supervisors please don't be emailing me complaining that I have not taken your gender into consideration – it is just easier to use just the one word instead of always having to write them both.
Also, for the record let me state that I don't advocate violence and I am certainly not preaching a violent path. I can hold my own in most situations but I have never been, nor will ever be a violent person, but I am saying that something desperately needs to be done to change the philosophy of door supervision and this downward spiral of disrespect, distrust and dishonour. And so some people may find some of my views unconventional and perhaps slightly controversial. I must just say that these are MY words and MY thoughts and while some of you will wholeheartedly agree with me, others will undoubtedly completely disagree. However, whatever your opinion I would really welcome your feedback so please email me below or message me on Facebook with your comments, it will be good to hear from you and it will be interesting to hear what you think.
Without sounding too apocalyptic, I believe the world is literally crashing in around us and society is undoubtedly changing into a much more violent and uncaring world where there is little or no respect for anyone, let alone authority. I am not particularly authoritarian or autocratic but I am of the 'old school' belief that in order to control you have to intimidate – not by being a bully or a thug, but by being tough and not allowing scumbags, scrotes and those intent to cause trouble to have the upper hand. Without exception every door supervisor with whom I have spoken over the past few years, especially since SIA licensing, have ALL said exactly the same thing; there is simply no more respect on the doors and a great many agree that many door supervisors are now treated like scum, by both customers and venue management, as well as by their employers. And I have to say I completely agree. However, how door supervisors are treated is not the subject of this particular article; that will be covered in another article at another time!
Lastly, I must thank my sponsors who are listed at the end; without their support and financial help it would have taken me a lot longer to put this article together. If you want to support me and to be added to my on-line sponsorship list please contact me; your listing is permanent and the more sponsors I have the more time I can spend sending this out.
ARE YOU MR OR MRS AVERAGE ?
As a door supervisor, is it important for you to be excellent? Do you want other door supervisors to look up to you, to regard you and respect you ? These are a few key questions you have to ask yourself, not only at the start of your career but all the time, each and every night you put on your jacket, clip on your badge and go to work. If the answers are no; if you are content to just fumble through night after night being Mr or Mrs Average, a Muppet or Jacket Filler then you should not read any further because you really are a pathetic waste of space and shouldn't be working the doors anyway. However I don't think there are many people that are really happy to be classed as a Muppet, nor do I think there are many people that go to work on an evening knowing they are just a Jacket Filler, filling in because there is no one better. But paradoxically most people would undeniably confirm that door supervision is now FULL of Muppets and Jacket Fillers; that there are now more of them working the doors than in the entire history of door supervision. So this can only lead to one real and lasting conclusion; Muppets and Jacket Fillers do not see themselves as Muppets and Jacket Fillers - they genuinely see themselves as being good doormen! So this therefore must mean that if you are a knob, and everyone knows you are a knob, when you look in the mirror and see nothing knob-like, you must either be blind (in which case you shouldn't be on the doors anyway) or have one hell of an ego and attitude, and having an ego and attitude is NOT a good way to gain respect. So the first KEY point in gaining respect is to take a long hard look at yourself and ask yourself honestly and truthfully, am I really a good door supervisor and if I am not, CAN I BE a good door supervisor ? This is a REALLY IMPORTANT step, take it and you will go onto great things, disregard it and you remain a cunt.
Let me be really honest with you; I was NOT a good doorman when I started. I was crap. I couldn't fight my way out of a paper bag, I wore jumpers under my shirt to make me look bigger and all I wanted to do was to shag as many pretty (and quite a number of the not-so-pretty too) women as I could. When I started I was only going stay a few months - a career as a 'bouncer' was definitely not for me; I had other grandiose plans for my life. The doors and The Ritzy was just going to be a few fun-filled months over the summer while I looked around for another job. Twenty or so years later I was still a doorman (unfortunately though, the shagging has long since stopped). So how did I move from being a naïve twat to a professional and respected doorman ? Simple. I was humbled by the team I was working with. Back in the early '80s the team that opened the new Ritzy nightclub was a strong, tough, hard team that pulled no punches and that didn't suffer fools gladly. And I was a fool, so either I learned quickly and proved myself, or I could have a real tough time. I decided to shut my big mouth, learn and follow my mentors and this is what YOU must do if you want to gain respect and reputation. You do NOT have to be an experienced door supervisor, nor at first do you even have to be a good door supervisor, but must you MUST be willing to learn and to follow others more experienced and, most importantly, to be modest and humble as you grow and develop. People will then see you as being “the quiet one, always willing to learn, who follows orders and is always there when the going gets tough”, rather than the ineffectual loud-mouthed braggart who knows nothing. It is OK to start off in this industry as a Mr or Mrs Average, or even a Mr or Mrs Below Average Knob, as long as you have the goals and desire to eventually be a great and respected doorman, but if you are not then fuck off and find another job.
Before the SIA clamped down hard on the industry it was definitely an honour to be a respected and regarded doorman, it was something to be proud of. Even if some 'bouncers' were undesirable, for the most part being a doorman meant you were part of an elite, loyal team that stood their ground and backed you up, regardless of the situation. The SIA has got rid of most 'old school' doormen but 'old school' didn't mean bully or thug but meant respect. The SIA got rid of respect.
BEING THE BEST THAT YOU COULD BE
It is a fact that some people are born great. Some people stand out in a crowd, some people look good and some people can handle themselves with little or no training. Sadly the opposite is also very true, some people are definitely not great at all, disappear in a crowd, look pathetic and will run a mile at any confrontation. You cannot change your genes and you cannot change who you really are; sure you can change certain things about you, but not who you fundamentally are; yes, you can poke your arse with steroids and turn yourself from a 10 stone weakling into a 20 stone muscle-head, but if you are naturally afraid of confrontation having strength and muscles won't change a thing. Nor would learning a martial art; you may study for years and have great technique but on the streets in real-time really aggressive situations, even the most skilled martial artists can be quickly overwhelmed. It isn't the technique or the skill or the knowledge, it is WHO YOU ARE, and conversely who you are not. I have seen 20 stone mean looking meat heads cower scared shit-less in the toilets at a big kick-off, and 3rd / 4th Dan martial artists floored with a single punch from a seasoned street-fighter (re my good friend 'one punch' Neil from Wigan). The important thing is for you to identify exactly WHO YOU REALLY ARE. Go to a mirror and take a good long hard look at yourself and ask yourself “am I really a door supervisor? Do I really have what it takes, am I loyal and trustworthy, can I defend myself and others, would I stand up for my friends and colleagues no matter what?”, or did the 'dole' send you on a training course (otherwise your Benefit would have been suspended), and you would feel much more comfortable stacking shelves in the local supermarket. It doesn't matter who you are, what matters is that you are honest with yourself. It is OK not being a door supervisor, but it is NOT OK being a door supervisor when you should be doing something else, because not only does it put yourself at risk, it puts your customers and your team at risk, and this is definitely not good. But whoever you are and whatever you desire to be, the most important thing is to try to be the very best you can be, and if you are a door supervisor strive to be the very best door supervisor you can be – and accept nothing less.
GAINING A REPUTATION
I have worked the doors for almost 20 years. Sometimes continuously five or six nights a week, year in and year out, and at other times on and off in-between close protection assignments and running security training courses, both in the UK and worldwide. Without being boastful, I think I have developed a reputation as a good doorman. I have worked alongside naive newly trained novices as well as some of the hardest fucks on the planet and I have made a real effort to respect almost everyone I have worked with. And in return I think (and hope) I have commanded respect back. For you to be respected you must respect others first. Someone once said to me that they will only respect if they get respect but I believe this is fundamentally wrong and seriously flawed and is the start of a never ending spiral downwards – if you don't get respect you don't give respect, and because you don't give respect you don't get respect, and on and on it goes. On the doors (and in life) if you treat everyone as though they are cunts, are rude and obnoxious to people and have a bad attitude, it is 100% sure you will get exactly the same back. And of course the opposite is true; if you are polite, friendly, sympathetic, it is 100% sure you will also get the same in return. Sure, there will be a few times when this doesn't happen, and I shall deal with these shortly, but generally as the saying goes “you reap what you sow;” sow good thoughts and you get good thoughts back. Respect is ALL about sowing good thoughts so that people will have good thoughts about you in return.
How good you are is not about the number of people you have floored, what you say or how you brag, but entirely about what you do, your position and how you treat others around you. How many times have we seen a bully or an intimidator and thought 'what a cunt'. We may know their reputation but we certainly don't respect them for it, in fact it is very much the opposite; it is no good having an awesome reputation if nobody respects you. IMPORTANT, remember that reputation must ALWAYS go hand in hand with respect.
Apart from my initial job application for the Ritzy nightclub back in the early '80s, I have never applied for any other advertised door supervisor's position; every venue I have worked at since, quite literally from bikers bars to gangland clubs, I have either been asked, referred or recommended by someone in the industry. Once you eventually prove yourself as a 'professional' you will be asked to work anywhere and with any team, without ever having to apply for positions, fill out long-winded application forms or have tedious interviews with managers or HR who are generally a lot less experienced and infinitely less reputed than you are. However, even if you have a reputation it will be very hard to find work if you have little respect, and the work you do find would not be the best of jobs.
Even in the fairly provincial town of Norwich, where I now live and where I 'cut my teeth' on the doors, there are still a few 'old school' doormen who are known and recognised as real bullies. They are undoubtedly hard men and can fight a good fight, but nobody likes them and they find it hard to get work. Even after many years they still feel the need to intimidate and take the piss out of other less experienced team members, and most venue managers are wary of them and therefore reluctant to employ them. Even in the gym they strut around with attitude and arrogance. They certainly have a reputation in Norwich for being hard men, but they definitely have little or no respect.
Being asked to 'clean up' a venue is very different now than back in the '80s and '90s when we could sort out a venue with relative impunity, using whatever methods were necessary according to the environment and the requirements. Management actively looked for a tough team, especially if his or her venue needed a lot of work and back then managers really did expect you to do the business; his or her venue was only a safe venue if you could fight hard. Proving yourself as a doorman (there were very few door-women in the job during that time) also meant having to prove yourself with your fists on the ground in a fight. A doorman who couldn't fight was simply not a 'doorman' and looking back at all the teams I worked with, all over the UK, everyone was a good scraper, EVERYONE. Back then there was no place in a door-team for those who wouldn't, or couldn't, fight and no doorman would, or could survive the business for long if he couldn't fight; the violent environment, the management or other members of his team would quickly force him out. Now of course, it is totally different, a real fighter on most doors is probably now a rarity and someone you unchained in a real emergency, so therefore working on the doors now is an entirely different job with an entirely different crew. However, I still believe that gaining a reputation for being a professional door supervisor remains more or less the same and at the end of the day, when the shit really does hit the fan, I believe (and an awful lot of people would contradict me on this fact), that a good doorman also needs to be able to mix it, and needs to be able to stand along side his team 'til the bitter end, if necessary. And I think that is one real reason why there is so little respect on the doors now; doormen who can't scrap or won't scrap either run or hide, leaving their so called friends and colleagues in the shit. Again, you don't have to be the best fighter in the world, but you do have to be LOYAL, and NEVER GIVE UP.
HEROS ARE NOT A COWARDS
The past is the past and I don't wish to dwell too much on what life was like on the doors twenty, fifteen or even ten years ago; In my opinion and from my recent experience around the doors, many doormen today are not fighters, and I do honestly think that basically this is a GOOD thing. I think the word 'fight' is very different now than what it was. Back then you had a good scrap, whoever won, won, whoever lost, lost and that was the end of it. In all the years on the doors and in all the fights I have had – and I have had many - I think I only saw two or three blades. People never carried blades. Now it is a different world entirely and a good scrap could, quite literally, end your life. Sadly scrotes and scumbags are lazy cunts and cowardly, and would prefer to end things with a blade than to fight like men one to one. These are what people carrying blades are; cowedly cunts and yet the ironic and surprising thing is that these people actually look in the mirror and think they are tough. And therefore I do completely understand that door supervisors today are also scared, but being scared should not mean being a coward. The heros of the First and Second wars, The Falklands, Afghanistan, Iraq etc. were scared shitless, but they went into battle being heros and not a cowards.
What happens when you have told a group of scrotes that they are not coming into your venue and they refuse to listen to you. There is just the two of you on the doors and there are five or six scrotes all ready for a scrap. You know you are out numbered, you don't have much experience fighting, in fact you have probably never really had a real fight in your life and your partner even less, he only qualified as a doorman last week. What the fuck do you do ? A) Let the scrotes in and run like fuck ? B) Let the scrotes in and call the police ? C) or stand your ground ? (For those of you that have ticked A or B you can also fuck off home now). This article is NOT about how to pass your Level 2, it is about gaining a reputation AS A DOOR SUPERVISOR and the respect of your peers. What would I do ? I have been in this situation many, many times and, when I have exhausted all calm, polite options and avenues of cooperation, I have always stepped back, clenched my fists at my sides and screamed “there are two of us, six of you, come on you fuckers lets do it.” And wait. DO NOT MAKE THE FIRST MOVE, you must let them move first and so far I cannot think of one single time it has kicked off, each and every time they have left. Now this is a big, big risk and of course you could get fucked, but at the end of the day none of the scrotes actually knows who you are and nobody wants to end up in hospital. This is not text book door supervisor training shit, but about gaining a reputation and standing up to a team of scrotes and willing to have a shout with them. This is about not backing down and, regardless of the outcome, is all pretty good for your reputation. Running, hiding, calling the police, letting scrotes into your venue because you are scared of them...is NOT.
Since leaving the doors full-time a few years ago I have been asked many, many times to clean up a venues around the UK – admittedly normally in rather rough places where today's modern doorman struggle. It doesn't mean that modern doormen don't do a good job, it is just that the venue and local conditions demands a slightly different doorman than the SIA, training and the conditions for a license produce. Cleaning up a venue old school style is so much harder now than it ever used to be and, if I was really honest, I would struggle. Firstly I am too old but mainly I would struggle with the lack of respect afforded to today's door supervisor, I would struggle with the realities of violence on the streets and I would struggle with the laws and tough conditions imposed on today's door supervisor.
RESPECT
As mentioned earlier, you have to ask yourself one very simple question each and every time you go to work as a door supervisor; if you do not, or cannot respect others, how do you expect others to respect you? Being respectful and having respect is the absolute key to being a professional door supervisor, respect firstly for yourself, secondly respect for your team members, then respect for the management and your employers and lastly, and very importantly, respect for your customers. Without these fundamental areas of respect respect you are nothing, you are just a pathetic jacket-filler who should never be working where other people's safety is paramount. If you give respect to all of the above you will get respect from all of the above, and what an awesome thing this would then be. Lets look at these in more detail:
Self-respect. Although your mother may love you; if you are a wanker you are a wanker, simple. And I hate wankers; I hate wankers working on the door pretending to be door supervisors and I really hate the kind of wankers who think they are 'someone' and want to cause trouble. Although I fully understand that massive alcohol consumption and binge drinking has a great deal to do with 'violent Britain,' but surely if you have a core respect for other people this should remain strong - whether you are drunk or sober ? But aside from the influence of alcohol, there is little respect for others and, more importantly, for ourselves. Stone cold sober, scumbags and scrotes now have a core disrespect for door supervisors, they just don't care and long gone are the days when doormen had authority and control. I have recently come back from a couple of weeks in Bahrain where I was completely surprised with the atmosphere and night-time environment. Because alcohol is scarce there is no drunkenness, and because there is no drunkenness there is almost no violent crime. Walking through Manama, the capital of Bahrain, at 2am is actually a nice experience and completely and utterly safe; in England it is mayhem and disgusting. In Bahrain you would never see an 18 year old girl vomiting in the gutter with her bare arse in the air and her friends around her cheering and egging her on; in England its now fairly normal. How can we respect others if we don't have any respect for ourselves ? And if we don't care about ourselves, how can we care about others ? The first person you have to respect is yourself. Without self-respect you will never, ever gain the respect of others. Do you pride yourself in your appearance at work, and in the work you do. Do you care about your team and the others around you ? Are you genuinely interested in keeping your customers safe ? Can you honestly hold your head high and say to yourself 'I am bloody good at what I do?' This is self-respect, without it you are nothing, a nobody, a Muppet. A real professional has real self-respect and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Respect for customers. Let me give you my honest feelings based on my real and personal experiences as a customer at pubs and clubs around the UK, and I am sure that as door supervisors you would have experienced exactly the same thing. Many times I have been out with friends to clubs and pubs where the door staff have been self-important, rude, have blanked me and have been bad-mannered and foul mouthed. Now and then they have even tried to prove to me that they are hard by being arrogant and stare me out. I don't know whether they know or recognise me, or they just do this to everyone, but it seems as though they are trying to prove something; that they are hard and I am nothing. What do I think of these door supervisors ? Utter cunts. Do I respect them ? Do I fuck. Do they have a reputation ? Yes, of being cunts. Would I unhesitatingly floor them if they are aggressive to me ? Without a doubt. Quite simply, if you do not consider others and treat others with respect - whoever they are - then others will not respect you. Thankfully this doesn't happen often and many door supervisors I meet are great and I have a laugh and drink with most, but when it does happen I really do feel like punching their fucking tiny lights out and teaching them what respect is all about; not specifically respect for me, but respect for everyone. And if I feel like this, it is sure that most other people feel like this too.
Respect for your team. Many, many times, throughout my career as a doorman I have worked with other team members who are both cowards and cunts and instead of backing me up in tough situations, have hid or run off. These same people whom I have laughed with, drunk with and made fiends with. One so-called hard, tough giant of a doorman I worked with in Standish hid in the gents toilets while the mightiest of all rucks was going off inside. To this day I am at a complete loss as to what must have been going through his tiny mind sitting on the crapper as we fought. There are many door staff like this in many venues around the UK and sadly a lot more now than there ever used to be. I believe a door team should also be friends, because as friends you should always go that extra mile and help out more than you would a stranger; perhaps you might think twice about breaking up a fight between two strangers, but you wouldn't think twice about helping out if you recognised someone as a friend and I believe it should be like this on the doors. You respect your friends, so therefore you should respect your team. Without respecting your team you are on your own, and being on your own on the doors can be very dangerous.
Respect for employers. As we all know, some managers and employers are great, others not so good. Some will back the door staff no matter what the situation whereas others would sack a door supervisor at the blink of an eye. Some venue managers are egotistical knobs on a power trip, while others are friendly, caring and immensely respectful. During the past twenty or so years I have met them all ! However, no matter who they are, at the end of the day (rightly or wrongly) they are management and / or employers and whether we like it or not, we should respect their authority. If we respect them, they are more likely to respect us in return. The strength of a professional is to try and respect others regardless of whether they deserve our respect or not.
DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM
When I was on the doors if I stopped someone coming into my venue and they said to me 'do you know who I am' I normally replied with “yes, you are a cunt, now fuck off.” I have to truthfully admit that it wasn't always the best of replies, and I will be honest and own up by saying that it often caused me quite a few problems as surprisingly wannabe gangsters never really liked being called a cunt, but one pet hate of mine was people saying to me “do you know who I am.” If you wanted to piss me off, then that was the way to go.
Over the years I have met and have made friends with some real hard men. I am not talking about local gangsters who are big fish in their small pond, but real hard bastards who would take on just about anyone and in any situation, anywhere in the world. Mercenaries, bare-knuckle champions, Special Forces soldiers and of course, some really fucking hard doormen. And I mean “for fucks sake” hard! And yet very, very few had an attitude. They KNOW who they are and what they are capable off and didn't have to prove it with their arrogance and bad attitude. Cross them at your peril, but otherwise they look and act normally and generally have immense respect for those around them. I remember working at a pub on the outskirts of Manchester. It was full and we had a one in and one out policy, with a queue lined up waiting to come in. Walking down the queue I noticed a 'face' with a couple of friends. He was a local, known Macclesfield hard man queuing up to come into my venue! I recognised him immediately, said hello, shook his hand and ushered them in. He knew who he was, everyone around him knew who he was, but he was still willing to queue. He didn't walk pass the queue saying 'do you know who I am!' as many scrotes seem to do nor did people didn't think he was a knob for queuing either; he respected those around him and because of that, people around him respected him as well. And the fact that I recognised him and let him in then made him a friend, whom I later came to rely on in a rather difficult situation a few months later. Show respect and you get respect. Disrespect and you get that too. How many times have you heard of a so called local hard-man being floored by someone half his size? Wannabes saying “do you know who I am” will only ever be wannabes.
FIGHT, NOT FLIGHT
I have had hundreds of fights in my life and, like anything you do time and time again, you eventually get good at it, but there are many, many people who are much better fighters than me, but I got a good reputation because I always stood my ground, no matter how much the odds were against me, and I never ever backed down. And because I never once gave up or backed down and on many occasions battled real hard, I can honestly say that I have never once had a really severe beating. It was because of this fact alone and not the fact that I was some hard bastard (which I am certainly not), that got me work for the past 20 or so years. Go out on the doors with the belief “I will not be beaten” and you will survive.
At one venue I went over a year without any incident at all, at another venue I fought two or three times a night, every night. At some point every single door supervisor, at every venue will have some form of violent confrontation, it is virtually guaranteed. And I truly think that this should happen to each and every door supervisor, whether male of female, young or old, within the first few weeks in the job. A real violent confrontation should be part of their training and their apprenticeship as how they react and behave will define a real professional, or a coward. As I mentioned, a door supervisor does not necessarily have to be the best fighter in the world, but he or she must never back down, no matter how tough or violent it gets. Backing down, just once, will destroy any reputation and any self respect you might have had. We all want to work with someone who would be behind us no matter what. “Yea, he is a good bloke and will always back you up” is definitely what we want people to say. And if you consistently prove this time and time again you earn yourself a very good reputation.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
Last, but not least, you will only get a good reputation as a door supervisor if you know the job backwards and inside out. Like any job, the more you know the better you become, and the better you become the more professional you are. Door Supervisor training should only be the beginning of a career on the doors; a professional should develop his / her career by constantly learning, developing, experiencing and attending other add-on training courses such as self-defence, control and restraint, first-aid, advanced conflict management, cuffing, etc. If you are serious about being a professional door supervisor then you should be serious about gaining knowledge about the industry. Knowledge is power and your job is to keep people safe.
Be a proud door supervisor, do the very best job you can, and lets Bring Back Respect to this once honourable industry.
Stay safe
Robin Barratt
Firstly thanks for reading Bring Back Respect. As I have a fair few to send out, for speed and ease I am sending this firstly via e-mail in text format, but it will also shortly be available in a formatted pdf which I will put on my website for you to download. If you like what I have written, and agree with what I have said then PLEASE feel free to forward it onto any other door supervisors that might also be interested in this extremely relevant yet somewhat controversial subject; a topic which has been close to my heart and a concern of mine for many, many years. My goal is to have at least 10% of the industry workforce eventually reading this article, that means around 13,000 people.
As many of you may well know Charlie Bronson and I have just recently agreed to co-write a book together titled Respect and Reputation. It should be a great book and I am really looking forward to getting started on it as there is probably nobody else more qualified to talk about gaining respect and building a reputation inside than Charlie. After more than 30 years in solitary confinement, Bronson has built himself an awesome reputation and has the notoriety of being one of the hardest prisoners in the UK With lots of fascinating true stories about some of the people he has served time with, his part of this fascinating book examines the truth about gaining real respect and building a serious reputation within the bleak and treacherous walls of Her Majesty's prison. My part of the book will examine this subject in detail on the 'outside' – not just on the doors but in life in general. I already have lots of great people on-board; some very well known 'faces' taking about building a reputation and gaining respect.
I have made this article Bring Back Respect only available via the internet as so many more door supervisors would be able to read it and for me this is much more significant; if just one person understands and agrees with my philosophy, values and principles and as a result changes their attitude and behaviour, then my task is complete.
I do not mince words and, rightly or wrongly, I am known for telling things as they are. What is the point in writing anything anyway if what you write isn't what you really mean ? And so, because this subject has pre-occupied my thoughts for quite a while and because I was appalled and dismayed when I recently attended a door supervisor training course, I have decided to write my personal guide to becoming a good door supervisor. This isn't about the mechanics of the job, but purely about building a reputation and bringing back respect into this once honourably and loyal industry.
VERY IMPORTANT: Respect MUST be partnered with reputation. You must strive for BOTH in order to be successful and professional. To have one and not the other is ineffectual and pathetic.
Oh, bye the way, before I continue I just want to let you know that whenever I use the term doorman / men I mean both door men and door women so female door supervisors please don't be emailing me complaining that I have not taken your gender into consideration – it is just easier to use just the one word instead of always having to write them both.
Also, for the record let me state that I don't advocate violence and I am certainly not preaching a violent path. I can hold my own in most situations but I have never been, nor will ever be a violent person, but I am saying that something desperately needs to be done to change the philosophy of door supervision and this downward spiral of disrespect, distrust and dishonour. And so some people may find some of my views unconventional and perhaps slightly controversial. I must just say that these are MY words and MY thoughts and while some of you will wholeheartedly agree with me, others will undoubtedly completely disagree. However, whatever your opinion I would really welcome your feedback so please email me below or message me on Facebook with your comments, it will be good to hear from you and it will be interesting to hear what you think.
Without sounding too apocalyptic, I believe the world is literally crashing in around us and society is undoubtedly changing into a much more violent and uncaring world where there is little or no respect for anyone, let alone authority. I am not particularly authoritarian or autocratic but I am of the 'old school' belief that in order to control you have to intimidate – not by being a bully or a thug, but by being tough and not allowing scumbags, scrotes and those intent to cause trouble to have the upper hand. Without exception every door supervisor with whom I have spoken over the past few years, especially since SIA licensing, have ALL said exactly the same thing; there is simply no more respect on the doors and a great many agree that many door supervisors are now treated like scum, by both customers and venue management, as well as by their employers. And I have to say I completely agree. However, how door supervisors are treated is not the subject of this particular article; that will be covered in another article at another time!
Lastly, I must thank my sponsors who are listed at the end; without their support and financial help it would have taken me a lot longer to put this article together. If you want to support me and to be added to my on-line sponsorship list please contact me; your listing is permanent and the more sponsors I have the more time I can spend sending this out.
ARE YOU MR OR MRS AVERAGE ?
As a door supervisor, is it important for you to be excellent? Do you want other door supervisors to look up to you, to regard you and respect you ? These are a few key questions you have to ask yourself, not only at the start of your career but all the time, each and every night you put on your jacket, clip on your badge and go to work. If the answers are no; if you are content to just fumble through night after night being Mr or Mrs Average, a Muppet or Jacket Filler then you should not read any further because you really are a pathetic waste of space and shouldn't be working the doors anyway. However I don't think there are many people that are really happy to be classed as a Muppet, nor do I think there are many people that go to work on an evening knowing they are just a Jacket Filler, filling in because there is no one better. But paradoxically most people would undeniably confirm that door supervision is now FULL of Muppets and Jacket Fillers; that there are now more of them working the doors than in the entire history of door supervision. So this can only lead to one real and lasting conclusion; Muppets and Jacket Fillers do not see themselves as Muppets and Jacket Fillers - they genuinely see themselves as being good doormen! So this therefore must mean that if you are a knob, and everyone knows you are a knob, when you look in the mirror and see nothing knob-like, you must either be blind (in which case you shouldn't be on the doors anyway) or have one hell of an ego and attitude, and having an ego and attitude is NOT a good way to gain respect. So the first KEY point in gaining respect is to take a long hard look at yourself and ask yourself honestly and truthfully, am I really a good door supervisor and if I am not, CAN I BE a good door supervisor ? This is a REALLY IMPORTANT step, take it and you will go onto great things, disregard it and you remain a cunt.
Let me be really honest with you; I was NOT a good doorman when I started. I was crap. I couldn't fight my way out of a paper bag, I wore jumpers under my shirt to make me look bigger and all I wanted to do was to shag as many pretty (and quite a number of the not-so-pretty too) women as I could. When I started I was only going stay a few months - a career as a 'bouncer' was definitely not for me; I had other grandiose plans for my life. The doors and The Ritzy was just going to be a few fun-filled months over the summer while I looked around for another job. Twenty or so years later I was still a doorman (unfortunately though, the shagging has long since stopped). So how did I move from being a naïve twat to a professional and respected doorman ? Simple. I was humbled by the team I was working with. Back in the early '80s the team that opened the new Ritzy nightclub was a strong, tough, hard team that pulled no punches and that didn't suffer fools gladly. And I was a fool, so either I learned quickly and proved myself, or I could have a real tough time. I decided to shut my big mouth, learn and follow my mentors and this is what YOU must do if you want to gain respect and reputation. You do NOT have to be an experienced door supervisor, nor at first do you even have to be a good door supervisor, but must you MUST be willing to learn and to follow others more experienced and, most importantly, to be modest and humble as you grow and develop. People will then see you as being “the quiet one, always willing to learn, who follows orders and is always there when the going gets tough”, rather than the ineffectual loud-mouthed braggart who knows nothing. It is OK to start off in this industry as a Mr or Mrs Average, or even a Mr or Mrs Below Average Knob, as long as you have the goals and desire to eventually be a great and respected doorman, but if you are not then fuck off and find another job.
Before the SIA clamped down hard on the industry it was definitely an honour to be a respected and regarded doorman, it was something to be proud of. Even if some 'bouncers' were undesirable, for the most part being a doorman meant you were part of an elite, loyal team that stood their ground and backed you up, regardless of the situation. The SIA has got rid of most 'old school' doormen but 'old school' didn't mean bully or thug but meant respect. The SIA got rid of respect.
BEING THE BEST THAT YOU COULD BE
It is a fact that some people are born great. Some people stand out in a crowd, some people look good and some people can handle themselves with little or no training. Sadly the opposite is also very true, some people are definitely not great at all, disappear in a crowd, look pathetic and will run a mile at any confrontation. You cannot change your genes and you cannot change who you really are; sure you can change certain things about you, but not who you fundamentally are; yes, you can poke your arse with steroids and turn yourself from a 10 stone weakling into a 20 stone muscle-head, but if you are naturally afraid of confrontation having strength and muscles won't change a thing. Nor would learning a martial art; you may study for years and have great technique but on the streets in real-time really aggressive situations, even the most skilled martial artists can be quickly overwhelmed. It isn't the technique or the skill or the knowledge, it is WHO YOU ARE, and conversely who you are not. I have seen 20 stone mean looking meat heads cower scared shit-less in the toilets at a big kick-off, and 3rd / 4th Dan martial artists floored with a single punch from a seasoned street-fighter (re my good friend 'one punch' Neil from Wigan). The important thing is for you to identify exactly WHO YOU REALLY ARE. Go to a mirror and take a good long hard look at yourself and ask yourself “am I really a door supervisor? Do I really have what it takes, am I loyal and trustworthy, can I defend myself and others, would I stand up for my friends and colleagues no matter what?”, or did the 'dole' send you on a training course (otherwise your Benefit would have been suspended), and you would feel much more comfortable stacking shelves in the local supermarket. It doesn't matter who you are, what matters is that you are honest with yourself. It is OK not being a door supervisor, but it is NOT OK being a door supervisor when you should be doing something else, because not only does it put yourself at risk, it puts your customers and your team at risk, and this is definitely not good. But whoever you are and whatever you desire to be, the most important thing is to try to be the very best you can be, and if you are a door supervisor strive to be the very best door supervisor you can be – and accept nothing less.
GAINING A REPUTATION
I have worked the doors for almost 20 years. Sometimes continuously five or six nights a week, year in and year out, and at other times on and off in-between close protection assignments and running security training courses, both in the UK and worldwide. Without being boastful, I think I have developed a reputation as a good doorman. I have worked alongside naive newly trained novices as well as some of the hardest fucks on the planet and I have made a real effort to respect almost everyone I have worked with. And in return I think (and hope) I have commanded respect back. For you to be respected you must respect others first. Someone once said to me that they will only respect if they get respect but I believe this is fundamentally wrong and seriously flawed and is the start of a never ending spiral downwards – if you don't get respect you don't give respect, and because you don't give respect you don't get respect, and on and on it goes. On the doors (and in life) if you treat everyone as though they are cunts, are rude and obnoxious to people and have a bad attitude, it is 100% sure you will get exactly the same back. And of course the opposite is true; if you are polite, friendly, sympathetic, it is 100% sure you will also get the same in return. Sure, there will be a few times when this doesn't happen, and I shall deal with these shortly, but generally as the saying goes “you reap what you sow;” sow good thoughts and you get good thoughts back. Respect is ALL about sowing good thoughts so that people will have good thoughts about you in return.
How good you are is not about the number of people you have floored, what you say or how you brag, but entirely about what you do, your position and how you treat others around you. How many times have we seen a bully or an intimidator and thought 'what a cunt'. We may know their reputation but we certainly don't respect them for it, in fact it is very much the opposite; it is no good having an awesome reputation if nobody respects you. IMPORTANT, remember that reputation must ALWAYS go hand in hand with respect.
Apart from my initial job application for the Ritzy nightclub back in the early '80s, I have never applied for any other advertised door supervisor's position; every venue I have worked at since, quite literally from bikers bars to gangland clubs, I have either been asked, referred or recommended by someone in the industry. Once you eventually prove yourself as a 'professional' you will be asked to work anywhere and with any team, without ever having to apply for positions, fill out long-winded application forms or have tedious interviews with managers or HR who are generally a lot less experienced and infinitely less reputed than you are. However, even if you have a reputation it will be very hard to find work if you have little respect, and the work you do find would not be the best of jobs.
Even in the fairly provincial town of Norwich, where I now live and where I 'cut my teeth' on the doors, there are still a few 'old school' doormen who are known and recognised as real bullies. They are undoubtedly hard men and can fight a good fight, but nobody likes them and they find it hard to get work. Even after many years they still feel the need to intimidate and take the piss out of other less experienced team members, and most venue managers are wary of them and therefore reluctant to employ them. Even in the gym they strut around with attitude and arrogance. They certainly have a reputation in Norwich for being hard men, but they definitely have little or no respect.
Being asked to 'clean up' a venue is very different now than back in the '80s and '90s when we could sort out a venue with relative impunity, using whatever methods were necessary according to the environment and the requirements. Management actively looked for a tough team, especially if his or her venue needed a lot of work and back then managers really did expect you to do the business; his or her venue was only a safe venue if you could fight hard. Proving yourself as a doorman (there were very few door-women in the job during that time) also meant having to prove yourself with your fists on the ground in a fight. A doorman who couldn't fight was simply not a 'doorman' and looking back at all the teams I worked with, all over the UK, everyone was a good scraper, EVERYONE. Back then there was no place in a door-team for those who wouldn't, or couldn't, fight and no doorman would, or could survive the business for long if he couldn't fight; the violent environment, the management or other members of his team would quickly force him out. Now of course, it is totally different, a real fighter on most doors is probably now a rarity and someone you unchained in a real emergency, so therefore working on the doors now is an entirely different job with an entirely different crew. However, I still believe that gaining a reputation for being a professional door supervisor remains more or less the same and at the end of the day, when the shit really does hit the fan, I believe (and an awful lot of people would contradict me on this fact), that a good doorman also needs to be able to mix it, and needs to be able to stand along side his team 'til the bitter end, if necessary. And I think that is one real reason why there is so little respect on the doors now; doormen who can't scrap or won't scrap either run or hide, leaving their so called friends and colleagues in the shit. Again, you don't have to be the best fighter in the world, but you do have to be LOYAL, and NEVER GIVE UP.
HEROS ARE NOT A COWARDS
The past is the past and I don't wish to dwell too much on what life was like on the doors twenty, fifteen or even ten years ago; In my opinion and from my recent experience around the doors, many doormen today are not fighters, and I do honestly think that basically this is a GOOD thing. I think the word 'fight' is very different now than what it was. Back then you had a good scrap, whoever won, won, whoever lost, lost and that was the end of it. In all the years on the doors and in all the fights I have had – and I have had many - I think I only saw two or three blades. People never carried blades. Now it is a different world entirely and a good scrap could, quite literally, end your life. Sadly scrotes and scumbags are lazy cunts and cowardly, and would prefer to end things with a blade than to fight like men one to one. These are what people carrying blades are; cowedly cunts and yet the ironic and surprising thing is that these people actually look in the mirror and think they are tough. And therefore I do completely understand that door supervisors today are also scared, but being scared should not mean being a coward. The heros of the First and Second wars, The Falklands, Afghanistan, Iraq etc. were scared shitless, but they went into battle being heros and not a cowards.
What happens when you have told a group of scrotes that they are not coming into your venue and they refuse to listen to you. There is just the two of you on the doors and there are five or six scrotes all ready for a scrap. You know you are out numbered, you don't have much experience fighting, in fact you have probably never really had a real fight in your life and your partner even less, he only qualified as a doorman last week. What the fuck do you do ? A) Let the scrotes in and run like fuck ? B) Let the scrotes in and call the police ? C) or stand your ground ? (For those of you that have ticked A or B you can also fuck off home now). This article is NOT about how to pass your Level 2, it is about gaining a reputation AS A DOOR SUPERVISOR and the respect of your peers. What would I do ? I have been in this situation many, many times and, when I have exhausted all calm, polite options and avenues of cooperation, I have always stepped back, clenched my fists at my sides and screamed “there are two of us, six of you, come on you fuckers lets do it.” And wait. DO NOT MAKE THE FIRST MOVE, you must let them move first and so far I cannot think of one single time it has kicked off, each and every time they have left. Now this is a big, big risk and of course you could get fucked, but at the end of the day none of the scrotes actually knows who you are and nobody wants to end up in hospital. This is not text book door supervisor training shit, but about gaining a reputation and standing up to a team of scrotes and willing to have a shout with them. This is about not backing down and, regardless of the outcome, is all pretty good for your reputation. Running, hiding, calling the police, letting scrotes into your venue because you are scared of them...is NOT.
Since leaving the doors full-time a few years ago I have been asked many, many times to clean up a venues around the UK – admittedly normally in rather rough places where today's modern doorman struggle. It doesn't mean that modern doormen don't do a good job, it is just that the venue and local conditions demands a slightly different doorman than the SIA, training and the conditions for a license produce. Cleaning up a venue old school style is so much harder now than it ever used to be and, if I was really honest, I would struggle. Firstly I am too old but mainly I would struggle with the lack of respect afforded to today's door supervisor, I would struggle with the realities of violence on the streets and I would struggle with the laws and tough conditions imposed on today's door supervisor.
RESPECT
As mentioned earlier, you have to ask yourself one very simple question each and every time you go to work as a door supervisor; if you do not, or cannot respect others, how do you expect others to respect you? Being respectful and having respect is the absolute key to being a professional door supervisor, respect firstly for yourself, secondly respect for your team members, then respect for the management and your employers and lastly, and very importantly, respect for your customers. Without these fundamental areas of respect respect you are nothing, you are just a pathetic jacket-filler who should never be working where other people's safety is paramount. If you give respect to all of the above you will get respect from all of the above, and what an awesome thing this would then be. Lets look at these in more detail:
Self-respect. Although your mother may love you; if you are a wanker you are a wanker, simple. And I hate wankers; I hate wankers working on the door pretending to be door supervisors and I really hate the kind of wankers who think they are 'someone' and want to cause trouble. Although I fully understand that massive alcohol consumption and binge drinking has a great deal to do with 'violent Britain,' but surely if you have a core respect for other people this should remain strong - whether you are drunk or sober ? But aside from the influence of alcohol, there is little respect for others and, more importantly, for ourselves. Stone cold sober, scumbags and scrotes now have a core disrespect for door supervisors, they just don't care and long gone are the days when doormen had authority and control. I have recently come back from a couple of weeks in Bahrain where I was completely surprised with the atmosphere and night-time environment. Because alcohol is scarce there is no drunkenness, and because there is no drunkenness there is almost no violent crime. Walking through Manama, the capital of Bahrain, at 2am is actually a nice experience and completely and utterly safe; in England it is mayhem and disgusting. In Bahrain you would never see an 18 year old girl vomiting in the gutter with her bare arse in the air and her friends around her cheering and egging her on; in England its now fairly normal. How can we respect others if we don't have any respect for ourselves ? And if we don't care about ourselves, how can we care about others ? The first person you have to respect is yourself. Without self-respect you will never, ever gain the respect of others. Do you pride yourself in your appearance at work, and in the work you do. Do you care about your team and the others around you ? Are you genuinely interested in keeping your customers safe ? Can you honestly hold your head high and say to yourself 'I am bloody good at what I do?' This is self-respect, without it you are nothing, a nobody, a Muppet. A real professional has real self-respect and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Respect for customers. Let me give you my honest feelings based on my real and personal experiences as a customer at pubs and clubs around the UK, and I am sure that as door supervisors you would have experienced exactly the same thing. Many times I have been out with friends to clubs and pubs where the door staff have been self-important, rude, have blanked me and have been bad-mannered and foul mouthed. Now and then they have even tried to prove to me that they are hard by being arrogant and stare me out. I don't know whether they know or recognise me, or they just do this to everyone, but it seems as though they are trying to prove something; that they are hard and I am nothing. What do I think of these door supervisors ? Utter cunts. Do I respect them ? Do I fuck. Do they have a reputation ? Yes, of being cunts. Would I unhesitatingly floor them if they are aggressive to me ? Without a doubt. Quite simply, if you do not consider others and treat others with respect - whoever they are - then others will not respect you. Thankfully this doesn't happen often and many door supervisors I meet are great and I have a laugh and drink with most, but when it does happen I really do feel like punching their fucking tiny lights out and teaching them what respect is all about; not specifically respect for me, but respect for everyone. And if I feel like this, it is sure that most other people feel like this too.
Respect for your team. Many, many times, throughout my career as a doorman I have worked with other team members who are both cowards and cunts and instead of backing me up in tough situations, have hid or run off. These same people whom I have laughed with, drunk with and made fiends with. One so-called hard, tough giant of a doorman I worked with in Standish hid in the gents toilets while the mightiest of all rucks was going off inside. To this day I am at a complete loss as to what must have been going through his tiny mind sitting on the crapper as we fought. There are many door staff like this in many venues around the UK and sadly a lot more now than there ever used to be. I believe a door team should also be friends, because as friends you should always go that extra mile and help out more than you would a stranger; perhaps you might think twice about breaking up a fight between two strangers, but you wouldn't think twice about helping out if you recognised someone as a friend and I believe it should be like this on the doors. You respect your friends, so therefore you should respect your team. Without respecting your team you are on your own, and being on your own on the doors can be very dangerous.
Respect for employers. As we all know, some managers and employers are great, others not so good. Some will back the door staff no matter what the situation whereas others would sack a door supervisor at the blink of an eye. Some venue managers are egotistical knobs on a power trip, while others are friendly, caring and immensely respectful. During the past twenty or so years I have met them all ! However, no matter who they are, at the end of the day (rightly or wrongly) they are management and / or employers and whether we like it or not, we should respect their authority. If we respect them, they are more likely to respect us in return. The strength of a professional is to try and respect others regardless of whether they deserve our respect or not.
DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM
When I was on the doors if I stopped someone coming into my venue and they said to me 'do you know who I am' I normally replied with “yes, you are a cunt, now fuck off.” I have to truthfully admit that it wasn't always the best of replies, and I will be honest and own up by saying that it often caused me quite a few problems as surprisingly wannabe gangsters never really liked being called a cunt, but one pet hate of mine was people saying to me “do you know who I am.” If you wanted to piss me off, then that was the way to go.
Over the years I have met and have made friends with some real hard men. I am not talking about local gangsters who are big fish in their small pond, but real hard bastards who would take on just about anyone and in any situation, anywhere in the world. Mercenaries, bare-knuckle champions, Special Forces soldiers and of course, some really fucking hard doormen. And I mean “for fucks sake” hard! And yet very, very few had an attitude. They KNOW who they are and what they are capable off and didn't have to prove it with their arrogance and bad attitude. Cross them at your peril, but otherwise they look and act normally and generally have immense respect for those around them. I remember working at a pub on the outskirts of Manchester. It was full and we had a one in and one out policy, with a queue lined up waiting to come in. Walking down the queue I noticed a 'face' with a couple of friends. He was a local, known Macclesfield hard man queuing up to come into my venue! I recognised him immediately, said hello, shook his hand and ushered them in. He knew who he was, everyone around him knew who he was, but he was still willing to queue. He didn't walk pass the queue saying 'do you know who I am!' as many scrotes seem to do nor did people didn't think he was a knob for queuing either; he respected those around him and because of that, people around him respected him as well. And the fact that I recognised him and let him in then made him a friend, whom I later came to rely on in a rather difficult situation a few months later. Show respect and you get respect. Disrespect and you get that too. How many times have you heard of a so called local hard-man being floored by someone half his size? Wannabes saying “do you know who I am” will only ever be wannabes.
FIGHT, NOT FLIGHT
I have had hundreds of fights in my life and, like anything you do time and time again, you eventually get good at it, but there are many, many people who are much better fighters than me, but I got a good reputation because I always stood my ground, no matter how much the odds were against me, and I never ever backed down. And because I never once gave up or backed down and on many occasions battled real hard, I can honestly say that I have never once had a really severe beating. It was because of this fact alone and not the fact that I was some hard bastard (which I am certainly not), that got me work for the past 20 or so years. Go out on the doors with the belief “I will not be beaten” and you will survive.
At one venue I went over a year without any incident at all, at another venue I fought two or three times a night, every night. At some point every single door supervisor, at every venue will have some form of violent confrontation, it is virtually guaranteed. And I truly think that this should happen to each and every door supervisor, whether male of female, young or old, within the first few weeks in the job. A real violent confrontation should be part of their training and their apprenticeship as how they react and behave will define a real professional, or a coward. As I mentioned, a door supervisor does not necessarily have to be the best fighter in the world, but he or she must never back down, no matter how tough or violent it gets. Backing down, just once, will destroy any reputation and any self respect you might have had. We all want to work with someone who would be behind us no matter what. “Yea, he is a good bloke and will always back you up” is definitely what we want people to say. And if you consistently prove this time and time again you earn yourself a very good reputation.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
Last, but not least, you will only get a good reputation as a door supervisor if you know the job backwards and inside out. Like any job, the more you know the better you become, and the better you become the more professional you are. Door Supervisor training should only be the beginning of a career on the doors; a professional should develop his / her career by constantly learning, developing, experiencing and attending other add-on training courses such as self-defence, control and restraint, first-aid, advanced conflict management, cuffing, etc. If you are serious about being a professional door supervisor then you should be serious about gaining knowledge about the industry. Knowledge is power and your job is to keep people safe.
Be a proud door supervisor, do the very best job you can, and lets Bring Back Respect to this once honourable industry.
Stay safe
Robin Barratt
Should bodyguards be trained in unarmed combat ?
This is a question that those with no training will obviously say “no, unarmed combat training is irrelevant for the modern CPO”, and that those who have extensive unarmed combat training will unreservedly say “of course!!”. When I told a good friend of mine, a former US Presidential bodyguard, that currently government approved training courses for bodyguards in the UK does not require its students to have any self-defense training whatsoever, he almost fell of his chair laughing; he just could not believe that the British government still considers that bodyguards don't need to be able to protect their client physically if the situation ever arose, especially in this age of terrorism and violence.
I have to say at this early stage of the discussion that I completely and wholeheartedly agreed with him - I absolutely believe BGs (and door supervisors, but this is another discussion, another time) should be experts in unarmed combat. I cannot and will never understand the irrational philosophy of some people working in this sector; I believe that if you cannot disarm, disable and defend then you should not be looking after the safety of others. Period. And if you cannot protect yourself, how on earth can you ever protect someone else ?
But, using the arguments put to me over the years, I have decided to argue to case on the side of the government and the thousands of licensed CPOs working in the industry both in the UK and worldwide who have no unarmed combat training and still go out to work everyday thinking they can protect their client.
The first and most prevalent argument was that if a CPO plans his operation carefully and properly, looking at and countering every single risk, then there would never be any need for any physical confrontation and therefore why should a CPO train for something they he or she will probably never, ever need ? I agree, of course all operations should be planned meticulously and carefully, looking at every possible eventuality, but this is an argument mainly made by the inexperienced and novice, because seasoned operatives will absolutely know it is never possible to counter every single eventuality, because you cannot ever fully plan against something that cannot be understood, and another person/s thoughts, feelings, impulses or actions can never be completely understood. The fundamental objective for a CPO is to make things extremely difficult, if not impossible for an attacker. But even with immense resources and capabilities, even the best security has been breached; Presidents have been assassinated and businessmen kidnapped. And people have been attacked on impulse, with no prior planning from the attacker. It happens. Fact. So what would an untrained CPO do if someone did jump over the barrier with a knife and ran towards his or her film-star client at an film premier...run away ? Of course most CPOs would say they would try to stop them, but most would neither have the ability or facility to be able to, because they have never been trained to. As mentioned in a previous article, at a recent close protection training course I asked a class of students who thinks they can look after themselves, and everyone put up their hand. I then asked who has actually had unarmed combat training ? Only one person put up their hand. At another class I asked the same question and again everyone put up their hand, I then took a fake knife out and attacked two or three students, no one could defend themselves...actually no one even made any attempt to, and this type of bodyguard training is fully endorsed by the Security Industry Authority and the British Government. Sadly this will only be made public when someone famous is either injured or killed in an attack when the bodyguards had failed to protect them because they have not been trained to.
I have also heard arguments saying that the UK and the USA are still at complete opposites when it comes to violence and the use of weapons and firearms. And again I completely agree; people in the US have a constitutional right to bare arms, they are much more widely available than here in the UK and most people in the US have legal and registered firearms, but again this is completely irrelevant to the role of the CPO. People get shot and stabbed in the UK each and every day, so therefore regardless of the frequency of use or the fact that more people in the US have guns than in the UK, the actual risk of a weapon being used against your client is exactly the same. The risk is still there and so training in disarming techniques should be part of every bodyguard training programme, where ever you live.
I also heard one CPO argue that putting someone down in an attack could result in a prosecution of the bodyguard and my reply was simple...firstly don't be a bodyguard if you think that you might get arrested for doing your job, secondly an untrained, unskilled bodyguard is actually likely to do more damage and could possibly go too far in order to compensate for their lack of skills in countering an attack than someone skilled and trained. To disarm and disable in a controlled and efficient manner, or to kick the shit out of an attacker in an untrained and uncontrolled manner, I am not a legal expert but I am sure a court would favor the first. Also, if a five-man BG team consisted of only one unarmed combat trained BG if an attack did occur and the trained BG was disabled, what then ? Not only is the client, but the whole team is at then risk.
I wonder how many of the five and a half thousand SIA licensed BGs can honestly put their hand on their hearts and say they have the training necessary to counter an attack on their client if ever an attack occurred. Probably very few. How many are arrogant enough to say they don't need unarmed combat training, probably most. How many of those are actually working, probably very few.
Someone recently said to me that they have been working in close protection for almost ten years and have not trained, or ever needed to train in any form of unarmed combat, because nothing has ever happened, and they plan each operation so well they are confident nothing will never happen. I think this attitude is completely wrong and just pray to God nothing ever happens because it would be too late to then say 'I told you so.' Wouldn't it ?
I have been lucky and have traveled the world and have met BGs from many countries including the USA, South America, The Balkans, Russia and many other eastern European countries and almost all are hard men experts in unarmed combat. And yet the British Government, and many British bodyguards themselves actually deems it unnecessary. The best bodyguards are undoubtedly the best trained, so if you want to be one of the the best then get get yourself fully trained and don't make excuses for your own inadequacies.
Stay safe
Robin
I have to say at this early stage of the discussion that I completely and wholeheartedly agreed with him - I absolutely believe BGs (and door supervisors, but this is another discussion, another time) should be experts in unarmed combat. I cannot and will never understand the irrational philosophy of some people working in this sector; I believe that if you cannot disarm, disable and defend then you should not be looking after the safety of others. Period. And if you cannot protect yourself, how on earth can you ever protect someone else ?
But, using the arguments put to me over the years, I have decided to argue to case on the side of the government and the thousands of licensed CPOs working in the industry both in the UK and worldwide who have no unarmed combat training and still go out to work everyday thinking they can protect their client.
The first and most prevalent argument was that if a CPO plans his operation carefully and properly, looking at and countering every single risk, then there would never be any need for any physical confrontation and therefore why should a CPO train for something they he or she will probably never, ever need ? I agree, of course all operations should be planned meticulously and carefully, looking at every possible eventuality, but this is an argument mainly made by the inexperienced and novice, because seasoned operatives will absolutely know it is never possible to counter every single eventuality, because you cannot ever fully plan against something that cannot be understood, and another person/s thoughts, feelings, impulses or actions can never be completely understood. The fundamental objective for a CPO is to make things extremely difficult, if not impossible for an attacker. But even with immense resources and capabilities, even the best security has been breached; Presidents have been assassinated and businessmen kidnapped. And people have been attacked on impulse, with no prior planning from the attacker. It happens. Fact. So what would an untrained CPO do if someone did jump over the barrier with a knife and ran towards his or her film-star client at an film premier...run away ? Of course most CPOs would say they would try to stop them, but most would neither have the ability or facility to be able to, because they have never been trained to. As mentioned in a previous article, at a recent close protection training course I asked a class of students who thinks they can look after themselves, and everyone put up their hand. I then asked who has actually had unarmed combat training ? Only one person put up their hand. At another class I asked the same question and again everyone put up their hand, I then took a fake knife out and attacked two or three students, no one could defend themselves...actually no one even made any attempt to, and this type of bodyguard training is fully endorsed by the Security Industry Authority and the British Government. Sadly this will only be made public when someone famous is either injured or killed in an attack when the bodyguards had failed to protect them because they have not been trained to.
I have also heard arguments saying that the UK and the USA are still at complete opposites when it comes to violence and the use of weapons and firearms. And again I completely agree; people in the US have a constitutional right to bare arms, they are much more widely available than here in the UK and most people in the US have legal and registered firearms, but again this is completely irrelevant to the role of the CPO. People get shot and stabbed in the UK each and every day, so therefore regardless of the frequency of use or the fact that more people in the US have guns than in the UK, the actual risk of a weapon being used against your client is exactly the same. The risk is still there and so training in disarming techniques should be part of every bodyguard training programme, where ever you live.
I also heard one CPO argue that putting someone down in an attack could result in a prosecution of the bodyguard and my reply was simple...firstly don't be a bodyguard if you think that you might get arrested for doing your job, secondly an untrained, unskilled bodyguard is actually likely to do more damage and could possibly go too far in order to compensate for their lack of skills in countering an attack than someone skilled and trained. To disarm and disable in a controlled and efficient manner, or to kick the shit out of an attacker in an untrained and uncontrolled manner, I am not a legal expert but I am sure a court would favor the first. Also, if a five-man BG team consisted of only one unarmed combat trained BG if an attack did occur and the trained BG was disabled, what then ? Not only is the client, but the whole team is at then risk.
I wonder how many of the five and a half thousand SIA licensed BGs can honestly put their hand on their hearts and say they have the training necessary to counter an attack on their client if ever an attack occurred. Probably very few. How many are arrogant enough to say they don't need unarmed combat training, probably most. How many of those are actually working, probably very few.
Someone recently said to me that they have been working in close protection for almost ten years and have not trained, or ever needed to train in any form of unarmed combat, because nothing has ever happened, and they plan each operation so well they are confident nothing will never happen. I think this attitude is completely wrong and just pray to God nothing ever happens because it would be too late to then say 'I told you so.' Wouldn't it ?
I have been lucky and have traveled the world and have met BGs from many countries including the USA, South America, The Balkans, Russia and many other eastern European countries and almost all are hard men experts in unarmed combat. And yet the British Government, and many British bodyguards themselves actually deems it unnecessary. The best bodyguards are undoubtedly the best trained, so if you want to be one of the the best then get get yourself fully trained and don't make excuses for your own inadequacies.
Stay safe
Robin
Sunday, 23 August 2009
How the Government has failed the British Close Protection Industry
Established in 2003, The Security Industry Authority (SIA) was set up “to raise standards of professionalism and skills within the private security industry and to promote and spread best practice”. It reports directly to the British Government's Home Office, and its remit is “to help protect society by collaboratively developing and achieving high standards within the private security industry”. However, in my opinion, specifically within the Close Protection sector (as well as the door supervisor area) , it has done just the opposite.
Anyone entering the Close Protection industry in the UK must have a license and the only way to get a license is to attended a training course accredited by the SIA. You must have one of these qualifications before you can apply for a front line close protection licence; 1) Certificate in Protective Security from the Buckinghamshire New University, 2) Level 3 Certificate in Close Protection from the City & Guilds and 3) Level 3 BTEC Certificate in Close Protection Operations from Edexcel. Once you have attended and passed one of these three courses, you can then apply for your licence at a further costs of £245.00 (490 USD) every three years. At the time of writing this, there were 4,117 valid licences, 32 have been revoked and 101 refused. (note: this was written early 2009)
I agree with licensing and I also totally agree with good training, accountability and transparency within this specific sector of security, however in the Government's rush and quest to control everything and everyone, it has made the close protection industry frighteningly more dangerous for both operators and, more importantly, the clients themselves. What once once a unique, elite industry manned by some of the best trained professional operatives in the world, is now open to absolutely anyone - anyone from any background can now protect another human being against the threat of assault, kidnap and ultimately assassination. You can be a over-weight, unfit, supermarket shelf filler, who has not done one minute of exercise or self defence, and still attend, and pass, a close protection training course, and apply for and receive a front-line license. In my opinion, this is not making the industry more professional, it is turning the British close protection industry into a global laughing stock.
Admittedly, like every in industry, there were cowboys in this industry as well; there were people running correspondence courses in close protection, there were farcical courses run by people with absolutely no experience what so ever and there were so-called 'CP' courses based entirely on unarmed combat. And admittedly, the SIA has rid the industry of most of these clowns. However, prior to the SIA, the industry was pretty much self-governing; contracts were awarded to operatives via recommendations and referrals and only to those that had attended peer recognised training. And recognised training companies never accepted people on their course that were not of a high enough calibre. Yes, it was unfortunate for those shelf-fillers that had wasted their hard-earned money on a unrecognised course, but the industry is ultimately there to protect people against the gravest of threats, and not for feeling sorry for the wannabes who had wasted their money. Now, however, the sole priority for most close protection training companies is to pass as many students as possible – who would attend a course with a company that only had a 50% pass rate, even if those 50% were the best of the best? In my opinion most training companies now are only motivated by profit, not by producing an elite team of professionals.
A short while ago I was a guest at a local close protection training course, talking about living and working in Russia (my speciality). The classroom was on the second floor, on the way up to the classroom I passed a twenty something stone 'student' who was puffing and panting his way up the stairs. During the talk I asked all those students who in the class felt they could 'look after themselves.' Everyone put up their hand. I then asked who had had intensive close quarter self defence training. One person, from a class of thirteen, put up her hand. Everyone said they could 'look after themselves', yet no one knew how to! And if they didn't know how to look after themselves, how did they expect to look after a client? EVERYONE passed the course.
This is what the SIA has done to the industry, it has opened it up to absolutely everyone and anyone, regardless of their background, experience or capabilities. They have given the job of protecting somebody against a possible threat of assassination to absolutely anyone. There are many clients, contractors and employers that now just ask if you have an SIA licence, regardless of your background or experience - not because they want to, but because they have to. They want to provide the best service possible but in many cases are limited to employing just those with SIA licenses. As I mentioned earlier, my speciality is high-risk protection in Russia. I have lived and worked in Moscow for many years, my wife is Russian and also from a security background. I know the city as well as my home city and I have hundreds of contacts, yet I was recently turned down for a job because the contractor was British and I did not have an SIA license – the job was given to someone with a license but who had never stepped foot in Russia. This is what the SIA has done.
I recently attended a SIA network meeting. In an open question forum I asked the SIA: if licensing was supposed to professionalise the industry, why can almost anyone pass an SIA course, surely this is a contradiction in terms? They had no answer.
There are still many good, honourable, experienced, professionals working within this industry sector here in the UK, but since the SIA introduced licensing, there are 1000x more wannabes than there ever were.
Anyone entering the Close Protection industry in the UK must have a license and the only way to get a license is to attended a training course accredited by the SIA. You must have one of these qualifications before you can apply for a front line close protection licence; 1) Certificate in Protective Security from the Buckinghamshire New University, 2) Level 3 Certificate in Close Protection from the City & Guilds and 3) Level 3 BTEC Certificate in Close Protection Operations from Edexcel. Once you have attended and passed one of these three courses, you can then apply for your licence at a further costs of £245.00 (490 USD) every three years. At the time of writing this, there were 4,117 valid licences, 32 have been revoked and 101 refused. (note: this was written early 2009)
I agree with licensing and I also totally agree with good training, accountability and transparency within this specific sector of security, however in the Government's rush and quest to control everything and everyone, it has made the close protection industry frighteningly more dangerous for both operators and, more importantly, the clients themselves. What once once a unique, elite industry manned by some of the best trained professional operatives in the world, is now open to absolutely anyone - anyone from any background can now protect another human being against the threat of assault, kidnap and ultimately assassination. You can be a over-weight, unfit, supermarket shelf filler, who has not done one minute of exercise or self defence, and still attend, and pass, a close protection training course, and apply for and receive a front-line license. In my opinion, this is not making the industry more professional, it is turning the British close protection industry into a global laughing stock.
Admittedly, like every in industry, there were cowboys in this industry as well; there were people running correspondence courses in close protection, there were farcical courses run by people with absolutely no experience what so ever and there were so-called 'CP' courses based entirely on unarmed combat. And admittedly, the SIA has rid the industry of most of these clowns. However, prior to the SIA, the industry was pretty much self-governing; contracts were awarded to operatives via recommendations and referrals and only to those that had attended peer recognised training. And recognised training companies never accepted people on their course that were not of a high enough calibre. Yes, it was unfortunate for those shelf-fillers that had wasted their hard-earned money on a unrecognised course, but the industry is ultimately there to protect people against the gravest of threats, and not for feeling sorry for the wannabes who had wasted their money. Now, however, the sole priority for most close protection training companies is to pass as many students as possible – who would attend a course with a company that only had a 50% pass rate, even if those 50% were the best of the best? In my opinion most training companies now are only motivated by profit, not by producing an elite team of professionals.
A short while ago I was a guest at a local close protection training course, talking about living and working in Russia (my speciality). The classroom was on the second floor, on the way up to the classroom I passed a twenty something stone 'student' who was puffing and panting his way up the stairs. During the talk I asked all those students who in the class felt they could 'look after themselves.' Everyone put up their hand. I then asked who had had intensive close quarter self defence training. One person, from a class of thirteen, put up her hand. Everyone said they could 'look after themselves', yet no one knew how to! And if they didn't know how to look after themselves, how did they expect to look after a client? EVERYONE passed the course.
This is what the SIA has done to the industry, it has opened it up to absolutely everyone and anyone, regardless of their background, experience or capabilities. They have given the job of protecting somebody against a possible threat of assassination to absolutely anyone. There are many clients, contractors and employers that now just ask if you have an SIA licence, regardless of your background or experience - not because they want to, but because they have to. They want to provide the best service possible but in many cases are limited to employing just those with SIA licenses. As I mentioned earlier, my speciality is high-risk protection in Russia. I have lived and worked in Moscow for many years, my wife is Russian and also from a security background. I know the city as well as my home city and I have hundreds of contacts, yet I was recently turned down for a job because the contractor was British and I did not have an SIA license – the job was given to someone with a license but who had never stepped foot in Russia. This is what the SIA has done.
I recently attended a SIA network meeting. In an open question forum I asked the SIA: if licensing was supposed to professionalise the industry, why can almost anyone pass an SIA course, surely this is a contradiction in terms? They had no answer.
There are still many good, honourable, experienced, professionals working within this industry sector here in the UK, but since the SIA introduced licensing, there are 1000x more wannabes than there ever were.
Key Points On Finding The Best Training Courses.
Finding the right training course is a really important first step in your career in close protection. Train with the right company and you could find work straight away, train with the wrong company and you could waste thousands of pounds and never get any work. Also, your initial close protection training should be just the first step of your training portfolio – further and on-going training is a must on the road to a really great career.
Choose a course relevant to your career path. For example, if you do not intend to work outside of the UK, then initially investing in a training course offering extensive firearms training will be a waste of money - British employers will not need to know that you can field-strip an AK47 under constant mortar bombardment! If you want to work at events and concerts then specific training pertaining to this sector will be far more beneficial - choose the relevant training course only after you have decided on your career path, you can always upgrade your training to suit a new environment at a later date.
In my opinion, it is better to be a master of one trade than a ‘jack of all trades’. Once you have decided on your career path and your particular speciality, invest in further, on-going training specific to that field. If you have limited operational experience then train, train and train. I always refer back to a good friend who, over the course of two years, invested well over £10k on training. He eventually got a job paying £1000 a week plus accommodation, expenses etc and stayed in that job for two years. His initial investment was paid back in just over two months. Do the maths!
Make sure the training company has the right accreditations and endorsements. If you intend to work in the UK directly for a UK contractor then you will need to attend an accredited SIA course. Even if you think you initially intend to find a position directly with a client (when you currently do not need an SIA licence) that contract might not last, and therefore you might still need SIA accreditation and a license at a later date, so don’t waste money on a course that is not recognised or accredited, even if it might be a lot cheaper. Spending a little extra now might be of benefit in the future.
Ask the CP community via the forums and networking about various training courses and training providers. There are many good training providers out there but is their training recognised and accepted both within the close protection community and by the major contractors? It is no good training with XYZ in so-and-so small town in the middle of no-where, even if they are SIA accredited, if none of the major contractors and employers know of, or are familiar with the company. Call major employers such as Controlled Risks, Hart, ArmorGroup, Minimal Risks, The Olive Group, Genric, Kroll, Drum, Aegis, Ake etc and ask which close protection training providers they most recognise and who, in their opinion, is it worth training with. Many will, of course, tell you to train with them as many offer their own close protection training courses!
If a contractor runs its own training courses, then ask what are the chances of working with them after the course? Of course this depends entirely on your capabilities so no one can give you a guarantee of work, but if you pass with flying colours will you get work with them?
Check out the instructors; are they experienced, what is their background? There is a big, big difference between those instructing from a text book and those instructing from actual experience on operations out in the field. Make sure your instructors have real-world experience; learning from someone with little or no field experience can be dangerous.
Make sure your instructors are suitably qualified to instruct. In the UK, all instructors need to have an SIA recognised teaching qualification. There are a number of qualifications accepted by the SIA and full details can be seen on the SIA website. Some training providers have a number of instructors, but only one or two have the approved teaching qualifications. Do not sign up for a course where the instructors are unqualified.
It is a legal requirement to give everyone a cooling off period once a deposit is paid / contract signed, so make sure you go and see the training school and meet the directors and instructors within seven days of placing your deposit or signing up on a course. You would not buy and pay for a car without seeing it first, so don’t do it with your training. If you are at all unhappy, or the instructors are not accredited and cannot be verified, then ask for your deposit back and find somewhere else to train. Taking a day off and loosing £50 in petrol is much better than wasting £2k and four weeks of your time on a course you are unhappy with and will ultimately get you nowhere.
Get yourself physically and mentally prepared for the course. Sadly, fitness and self-defence are not requirements for an SIA course, but ask yourself whether you would employ someone overweight, unfit and unable to defend themselves or, more importantly, their principle? Hundreds, if not thousands of people obtain their SIA licence in close protection without one shred of self-defence training! I have personally witnessed an extremely overweight person who could hardly manage to climb the stairs to the class-room, come out at the end of the course with a pass! Of course he would probably not get work anyway, but don’t be like him, train hard, learn self-defence and get in shape!
Lastly, beware of a few unscrupulous people in the industry. I have heard of companies taking 50% deposit on a course that is half the price of a normal course, only to disappear a few days before the course is due to start. Beware of on-line training, and correspondence courses – all worthless in this industry. Stick to what you know and to referrals and recommendations from others in the industry.
Hope this information helps !!!
Choose a course relevant to your career path. For example, if you do not intend to work outside of the UK, then initially investing in a training course offering extensive firearms training will be a waste of money - British employers will not need to know that you can field-strip an AK47 under constant mortar bombardment! If you want to work at events and concerts then specific training pertaining to this sector will be far more beneficial - choose the relevant training course only after you have decided on your career path, you can always upgrade your training to suit a new environment at a later date.
In my opinion, it is better to be a master of one trade than a ‘jack of all trades’. Once you have decided on your career path and your particular speciality, invest in further, on-going training specific to that field. If you have limited operational experience then train, train and train. I always refer back to a good friend who, over the course of two years, invested well over £10k on training. He eventually got a job paying £1000 a week plus accommodation, expenses etc and stayed in that job for two years. His initial investment was paid back in just over two months. Do the maths!
Make sure the training company has the right accreditations and endorsements. If you intend to work in the UK directly for a UK contractor then you will need to attend an accredited SIA course. Even if you think you initially intend to find a position directly with a client (when you currently do not need an SIA licence) that contract might not last, and therefore you might still need SIA accreditation and a license at a later date, so don’t waste money on a course that is not recognised or accredited, even if it might be a lot cheaper. Spending a little extra now might be of benefit in the future.
Ask the CP community via the forums and networking about various training courses and training providers. There are many good training providers out there but is their training recognised and accepted both within the close protection community and by the major contractors? It is no good training with XYZ in so-and-so small town in the middle of no-where, even if they are SIA accredited, if none of the major contractors and employers know of, or are familiar with the company. Call major employers such as Controlled Risks, Hart, ArmorGroup, Minimal Risks, The Olive Group, Genric, Kroll, Drum, Aegis, Ake etc and ask which close protection training providers they most recognise and who, in their opinion, is it worth training with. Many will, of course, tell you to train with them as many offer their own close protection training courses!
If a contractor runs its own training courses, then ask what are the chances of working with them after the course? Of course this depends entirely on your capabilities so no one can give you a guarantee of work, but if you pass with flying colours will you get work with them?
Check out the instructors; are they experienced, what is their background? There is a big, big difference between those instructing from a text book and those instructing from actual experience on operations out in the field. Make sure your instructors have real-world experience; learning from someone with little or no field experience can be dangerous.
Make sure your instructors are suitably qualified to instruct. In the UK, all instructors need to have an SIA recognised teaching qualification. There are a number of qualifications accepted by the SIA and full details can be seen on the SIA website. Some training providers have a number of instructors, but only one or two have the approved teaching qualifications. Do not sign up for a course where the instructors are unqualified.
It is a legal requirement to give everyone a cooling off period once a deposit is paid / contract signed, so make sure you go and see the training school and meet the directors and instructors within seven days of placing your deposit or signing up on a course. You would not buy and pay for a car without seeing it first, so don’t do it with your training. If you are at all unhappy, or the instructors are not accredited and cannot be verified, then ask for your deposit back and find somewhere else to train. Taking a day off and loosing £50 in petrol is much better than wasting £2k and four weeks of your time on a course you are unhappy with and will ultimately get you nowhere.
Get yourself physically and mentally prepared for the course. Sadly, fitness and self-defence are not requirements for an SIA course, but ask yourself whether you would employ someone overweight, unfit and unable to defend themselves or, more importantly, their principle? Hundreds, if not thousands of people obtain their SIA licence in close protection without one shred of self-defence training! I have personally witnessed an extremely overweight person who could hardly manage to climb the stairs to the class-room, come out at the end of the course with a pass! Of course he would probably not get work anyway, but don’t be like him, train hard, learn self-defence and get in shape!
Lastly, beware of a few unscrupulous people in the industry. I have heard of companies taking 50% deposit on a course that is half the price of a normal course, only to disappear a few days before the course is due to start. Beware of on-line training, and correspondence courses – all worthless in this industry. Stick to what you know and to referrals and recommendations from others in the industry.
Hope this information helps !!!
Key Points On How To Find Work In Close Protection.
I still receive emails each and every week from people all over the world looking for work. Some emails don’t have any message, just an attachment with their CV, others a brief note saying something like “please find attached my CV, contact me if I can be of assistance.” Most are not addressed to anyone in particular, just Dear Sir, and some have not been blind-copied so I can see they have sent the same email to hundreds of other people. This is NOT a good way of finding work.
If I had £1 for every time someone has said to me that there is no work in the close protection industry, I would be retired in a quiet little cottage overlooking the sea. There is plenty of work in the industry, you just need to get up of your back-side and find it. In London alone there are hundreds of Close Protection Officers working full-time, and thousands on temporary contracts for events, short-term assignments, meetings, conferences etc. There are at least fifteen countries with the highest threat level, and over 55 countries with the second highest threat-level, and in almost all these countries nearly every foreign company or organisation employs security consultants, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign companies working in these high-risk arenas. There are said to be tens of thousands of bodyguards operating in Iraq alone! The only reason you cannot find work is that you have not spent enough time finding work! The phone does not start ringing just because you have spent £2000 on a training course and have your SIA badge. Bizarrely, most people spend every penny they have on their basic training and absolutely nothing thereafter on finding work. They are the ones that then complain time and time again about the industry and the fact that there is no work.
So what can you do to find work in close protection?
The first and most important thing is to decide early in your career which environment do you want to work? You cannot do anything unless you make this fundamental decision. Do you want to work abroad or in the UK? If abroad, where – define specific areas and do not just say you will work anywhere in the world - because you cannot. So be specific; do you want to go to Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, The Congo, Russia and by being specific it becomes a lot easier to target your marketing campaign. If you decide to say in the UK are you interested in corporate or celebrity protection? Events, concerts, galas, opening nights, conferences, witness protection, residential security, corporate security, etc. However, bear in mind that if you only want to work in the UK the chances of finding full-time work is a lot less – we just don’t live in a high enough risk country for most people to employ full-time protection. But if you have a good idea of where you want to work and in which environment, targeting employers becomes a little easier.
Be brave and pioneering and start up your own security consultancy company specialising in a specific high-risk part of the world. If, for example, you specialised in supplying security services to The Democratic Republic of Congo, and you marketed this carefully to foreign companies and organisation trading and operational in that country, it would not take you very long to develop a good network of clients who would use your services. I did this in Russia and was one of just a handful of British recognised for providing close protection services in Moscow.
Use the internet as a resource. Find out who employs who, and in what environment. Make a list of employers within your defined areas of speciality and expertise. You cannot target the hundred thousand or so security companies in Europe alone, so narrow it down and concentrate on a small selection. If a website says they are not accepting CVs, then don’t send them your CV. Keep a note of the site for future reference, but don’t waste your time and money by sending your CV to someone who might immediately bin or delete it.
IMPORTANT – Call first and ask for the name of the person in charge of recruitment and if you can speak directly to them then even better. Ask if they are recruiting, if not, again make a note to call back in a few weeks / months. Ask if you can send them your CV. If they say no, then don’t send it. Don’t try to talk them into receiving it as for sure it will go in the bin! Be polite, make friends with them and call them back at another time. Have a note book and make a systematic structure of whom you have called, who to call back on, who you have sent your CV to, who has replied etc.
DO NOT send copies of your CV via email to everyone without first calling as detailed above. Yes, it is a cheap way of sending your CV out to as many people as you think possible, but I can almost guarantee 99% are deleted even before they are opened. I still get CVs every week without having any available positions - how on earth am I ever going to open and read them all? And why should I spend hours upon hours of my time reading CVs? For what purpose? If I was paid for it, yes of course, but wasting time and money is not a priority for recruitment officers and personnel departments of security companies.
ALWAYS follow up your CV with a call. Ask if they got it, if they have managed to read it and if not when would be a good time for you to call back. If you are told you are not suitable, try to find out why, and ask if they have something more suitable to your current experience until you gain more education and/or experience. You have to develop a rapport with HR. I had 70 CVs sent to me once for a five man team I needed in Moscow; I tended to look more closely at the CVs from the people whom I had spoken to and developed a slight working relationship with. It is natural. If you don’t have the bollocks to pick up the telephone, then you definitely should not be in the industry.
Make sure your CV is perfect – no mistakes and no bullshit.
Networking is a great resource as many positions are still gained via word of mouth and via referrals and recommendations. In close protection we naturally tend to work with people we trust. Make contact with as many people in the industry as you can as one of them might one day, give you that vital ‘heads up’ on a great position.
Join close protection forums. Whilst some of the notices and threads are very unprofessional, extremely arrogant, and political, there is still a lot of good information to be had via the forums. (You will also notice how those replies and unprofessional threads usually come from people out of work!!!). Everyone should work together but for some bizarre reason forums compete with each other! If you join a forum remain professional at all times and do not get involved in petty arguments and situations.
LASTLY - Join dedicate a few hundred pounds a year and join associations, subscribe to magazines, join professional CV databases and network events etc. If all you ever get is a couple of days work a year from them, it has covered the costs and you just don't know what is around the corner.
Stay safe
Robin
If I had £1 for every time someone has said to me that there is no work in the close protection industry, I would be retired in a quiet little cottage overlooking the sea. There is plenty of work in the industry, you just need to get up of your back-side and find it. In London alone there are hundreds of Close Protection Officers working full-time, and thousands on temporary contracts for events, short-term assignments, meetings, conferences etc. There are at least fifteen countries with the highest threat level, and over 55 countries with the second highest threat-level, and in almost all these countries nearly every foreign company or organisation employs security consultants, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign companies working in these high-risk arenas. There are said to be tens of thousands of bodyguards operating in Iraq alone! The only reason you cannot find work is that you have not spent enough time finding work! The phone does not start ringing just because you have spent £2000 on a training course and have your SIA badge. Bizarrely, most people spend every penny they have on their basic training and absolutely nothing thereafter on finding work. They are the ones that then complain time and time again about the industry and the fact that there is no work.
So what can you do to find work in close protection?
The first and most important thing is to decide early in your career which environment do you want to work? You cannot do anything unless you make this fundamental decision. Do you want to work abroad or in the UK? If abroad, where – define specific areas and do not just say you will work anywhere in the world - because you cannot. So be specific; do you want to go to Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, The Congo, Russia and by being specific it becomes a lot easier to target your marketing campaign. If you decide to say in the UK are you interested in corporate or celebrity protection? Events, concerts, galas, opening nights, conferences, witness protection, residential security, corporate security, etc. However, bear in mind that if you only want to work in the UK the chances of finding full-time work is a lot less – we just don’t live in a high enough risk country for most people to employ full-time protection. But if you have a good idea of where you want to work and in which environment, targeting employers becomes a little easier.
Be brave and pioneering and start up your own security consultancy company specialising in a specific high-risk part of the world. If, for example, you specialised in supplying security services to The Democratic Republic of Congo, and you marketed this carefully to foreign companies and organisation trading and operational in that country, it would not take you very long to develop a good network of clients who would use your services. I did this in Russia and was one of just a handful of British recognised for providing close protection services in Moscow.
Use the internet as a resource. Find out who employs who, and in what environment. Make a list of employers within your defined areas of speciality and expertise. You cannot target the hundred thousand or so security companies in Europe alone, so narrow it down and concentrate on a small selection. If a website says they are not accepting CVs, then don’t send them your CV. Keep a note of the site for future reference, but don’t waste your time and money by sending your CV to someone who might immediately bin or delete it.
IMPORTANT – Call first and ask for the name of the person in charge of recruitment and if you can speak directly to them then even better. Ask if they are recruiting, if not, again make a note to call back in a few weeks / months. Ask if you can send them your CV. If they say no, then don’t send it. Don’t try to talk them into receiving it as for sure it will go in the bin! Be polite, make friends with them and call them back at another time. Have a note book and make a systematic structure of whom you have called, who to call back on, who you have sent your CV to, who has replied etc.
DO NOT send copies of your CV via email to everyone without first calling as detailed above. Yes, it is a cheap way of sending your CV out to as many people as you think possible, but I can almost guarantee 99% are deleted even before they are opened. I still get CVs every week without having any available positions - how on earth am I ever going to open and read them all? And why should I spend hours upon hours of my time reading CVs? For what purpose? If I was paid for it, yes of course, but wasting time and money is not a priority for recruitment officers and personnel departments of security companies.
ALWAYS follow up your CV with a call. Ask if they got it, if they have managed to read it and if not when would be a good time for you to call back. If you are told you are not suitable, try to find out why, and ask if they have something more suitable to your current experience until you gain more education and/or experience. You have to develop a rapport with HR. I had 70 CVs sent to me once for a five man team I needed in Moscow; I tended to look more closely at the CVs from the people whom I had spoken to and developed a slight working relationship with. It is natural. If you don’t have the bollocks to pick up the telephone, then you definitely should not be in the industry.
Make sure your CV is perfect – no mistakes and no bullshit.
Networking is a great resource as many positions are still gained via word of mouth and via referrals and recommendations. In close protection we naturally tend to work with people we trust. Make contact with as many people in the industry as you can as one of them might one day, give you that vital ‘heads up’ on a great position.
Join close protection forums. Whilst some of the notices and threads are very unprofessional, extremely arrogant, and political, there is still a lot of good information to be had via the forums. (You will also notice how those replies and unprofessional threads usually come from people out of work!!!). Everyone should work together but for some bizarre reason forums compete with each other! If you join a forum remain professional at all times and do not get involved in petty arguments and situations.
LASTLY - Join dedicate a few hundred pounds a year and join associations, subscribe to magazines, join professional CV databases and network events etc. If all you ever get is a couple of days work a year from them, it has covered the costs and you just don't know what is around the corner.
Stay safe
Robin
Effective Networking for the CPO
When I last looked at the SIA (Security Industry Authority) website, there were 5563 people with valid Close Protection licenses in the United Kingdom. It stands to reason therefore, that a very large proportion of these people are also looking for work within this specific sector – why spend a couple of grand on a close protection training course if you don't want to work in close protection ? Every day, without fail, I receive a handful of emails and CVs from people either looking for work or looking for tips and hints on finding work. Recently I had an email from someone on Facebook, their email simply read; “Hello mate, can you tell me how I can find a job in CP.” If I could have answered him in as few words, I would have certainly been permanently employed throughout my career - which I definitely have not been. It happens time and time again; most people spend their time and hard earned money getting a CP license and then have absolutely no idea what to do next, thinking that perhaps a quick reply to a Facebook question would give them the answers they desperately need. Another email I recently had was from an acquaintance who has been trying to find CP work for as long as I have known him, about five years. He gets the occasional job, but rarely and certainly not enough to even cover the cost of his initial training course, let alone to make a living from it. He has now decided enough is enough and has left the industry - I think he is back stocking shelves in a supermarket somewhere.
When I started in close protection way back in the '80s, the job was certainly elitist and almost always based entirely on recommendations and referrals, no one ever went on a course and then straight into employment if they were not known on The Circuit, or at least could be referred by someone who was well-known. That is the way it was, and to some extent that is still the way it is now, the only difference is that there are now thousands more close protection officers looking for work than there ever was twenty years ago and so the necessity to network and get a good reputation is infinitely more important, it was vitally important back then and it is even more important now! Time and time again I hear the excuse; “but there is no work out there,” or “I have sent hundreds of CVs and letters out to contractors and most don't even bother to reply.” A good friend who works as head of HR for one of the biggest security contractors in the UK once told me that he gets between 80 and 100 unsolicited CVs each and every week. Unsolicited means that they are not applying for any vacancies, they are just sending their CV out on spec. How does a person who is extremely busy filling current vacancies and running his department have the time to reply to CVs that he has not even asked for, and how can companies finance the time to reply to something they have not asked for either ? If you are going to send your CV out on spec, then don't expect a reply. The same applies to e-mails; I got an email yesterday that simply said “please look at my CV attached and get back to me with any jobs.” Undoubtedly these are the sorts of people who will moan that no one replies to their CV or email and that there isn't any work !
Lets make things absolutely clear; we live in a high-risk world where hundreds of thousands of people the world over either need, or want personal protection. This is a fact. There are also more countries than ever rated Cat. 4 or Cat 5. risk, where almost all foreign companies operating in these countries need security and protection. If you only want to work in the UK then you are right; there is probably not enough work to go round, but if you want to work abroad, even temporarily, then there is plenty of work out there. FACT.
But how do you effectively network ?
I had two very different emails recently which highlighted the difference in both successful pro-active networking and a negative belligerence towards networking. The first email was from someone wanting a free listing in the forthcoming Middle East Security Directory which I am now editing. The company offers free listings if a copy of the directory is ordered prior to publication, but he didn't want to order a copy. His email said he had just paid for the close protection course but that is it - he is not going to pay for anything else, ever and will network himself, via the forums and people he knows. He desperately wants to work in the Middle East, but actually he knows no one in the region which was why he wanted to list himself under individual contractors. I experienced this attitude time and time again in this industry and I didn't argue; I just explained that he wouldn't work for free so why should the company list him for free ? I didn't hear back.
And on the other side of the coin, another email asked whether I was still running the BBA as he would like to join. I am not so I forwarded him to the BBA website. He also wanted to be listed in the directory and ordered his copy. He also said he had just ordered a copy of the latest directory of security and close protection from Varsity Publications. He also wanted to subscribe to Pilgrim Information's CV database, and he joined all the CP forums, both in the UK and abroad. He also joined a couple of other associations which I could recommend. His comments to me were; “Apart from as much free networking as I can do, I have also dedicated three hundred pounds a year to paid listings, subscribing to security magazines and to joining security associations. Sure, some money will be wasted but some won't and hopefully what works will more than compensate for what doesn't.” What a great attitude!
Ask yourself one question, who out of these two is more likely to succeed ? It may cost a little more money, but by also looking at paying for some media and marketing services, the second person's business will be seen but many more people. Fact. And three hundred pounds is actually one or two days work in a high-risk environment, so if all he got was two days work A YEAR from the money he has spent marketing himself, then that alone is worth is. Do the maths...
So I would say this to all novice CPOs looking for work. If you complain and moan that there is no work out there, for sure there will be no work out there for you. Guaranteed. If you are not willing to network, not just on the free forums but also by investing a little money on marketing your services, joining associations, subscribing to magazines, joining CP databases etc, then again it is unlikely you will find work. But if you are consistently positive and pro-active then for sure work will eventually come your way too. It is a bit like opening a shop. If you spend all your money on your stock, but nothing on telling people about it, it is doubtful you will sell much. But if you spend more on telling people what you have, you can always order more stock when it runs out.
Good luck and stay safe.
Robin
When I started in close protection way back in the '80s, the job was certainly elitist and almost always based entirely on recommendations and referrals, no one ever went on a course and then straight into employment if they were not known on The Circuit, or at least could be referred by someone who was well-known. That is the way it was, and to some extent that is still the way it is now, the only difference is that there are now thousands more close protection officers looking for work than there ever was twenty years ago and so the necessity to network and get a good reputation is infinitely more important, it was vitally important back then and it is even more important now! Time and time again I hear the excuse; “but there is no work out there,” or “I have sent hundreds of CVs and letters out to contractors and most don't even bother to reply.” A good friend who works as head of HR for one of the biggest security contractors in the UK once told me that he gets between 80 and 100 unsolicited CVs each and every week. Unsolicited means that they are not applying for any vacancies, they are just sending their CV out on spec. How does a person who is extremely busy filling current vacancies and running his department have the time to reply to CVs that he has not even asked for, and how can companies finance the time to reply to something they have not asked for either ? If you are going to send your CV out on spec, then don't expect a reply. The same applies to e-mails; I got an email yesterday that simply said “please look at my CV attached and get back to me with any jobs.” Undoubtedly these are the sorts of people who will moan that no one replies to their CV or email and that there isn't any work !
Lets make things absolutely clear; we live in a high-risk world where hundreds of thousands of people the world over either need, or want personal protection. This is a fact. There are also more countries than ever rated Cat. 4 or Cat 5. risk, where almost all foreign companies operating in these countries need security and protection. If you only want to work in the UK then you are right; there is probably not enough work to go round, but if you want to work abroad, even temporarily, then there is plenty of work out there. FACT.
But how do you effectively network ?
I had two very different emails recently which highlighted the difference in both successful pro-active networking and a negative belligerence towards networking. The first email was from someone wanting a free listing in the forthcoming Middle East Security Directory which I am now editing. The company offers free listings if a copy of the directory is ordered prior to publication, but he didn't want to order a copy. His email said he had just paid for the close protection course but that is it - he is not going to pay for anything else, ever and will network himself, via the forums and people he knows. He desperately wants to work in the Middle East, but actually he knows no one in the region which was why he wanted to list himself under individual contractors. I experienced this attitude time and time again in this industry and I didn't argue; I just explained that he wouldn't work for free so why should the company list him for free ? I didn't hear back.
And on the other side of the coin, another email asked whether I was still running the BBA as he would like to join. I am not so I forwarded him to the BBA website. He also wanted to be listed in the directory and ordered his copy. He also said he had just ordered a copy of the latest directory of security and close protection from Varsity Publications. He also wanted to subscribe to Pilgrim Information's CV database, and he joined all the CP forums, both in the UK and abroad. He also joined a couple of other associations which I could recommend. His comments to me were; “Apart from as much free networking as I can do, I have also dedicated three hundred pounds a year to paid listings, subscribing to security magazines and to joining security associations. Sure, some money will be wasted but some won't and hopefully what works will more than compensate for what doesn't.” What a great attitude!
Ask yourself one question, who out of these two is more likely to succeed ? It may cost a little more money, but by also looking at paying for some media and marketing services, the second person's business will be seen but many more people. Fact. And three hundred pounds is actually one or two days work in a high-risk environment, so if all he got was two days work A YEAR from the money he has spent marketing himself, then that alone is worth is. Do the maths...
So I would say this to all novice CPOs looking for work. If you complain and moan that there is no work out there, for sure there will be no work out there for you. Guaranteed. If you are not willing to network, not just on the free forums but also by investing a little money on marketing your services, joining associations, subscribing to magazines, joining CP databases etc, then again it is unlikely you will find work. But if you are consistently positive and pro-active then for sure work will eventually come your way too. It is a bit like opening a shop. If you spend all your money on your stock, but nothing on telling people about it, it is doubtful you will sell much. But if you spend more on telling people what you have, you can always order more stock when it runs out.
Good luck and stay safe.
Robin
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
