Every profession has its official rulebook. Ours comes in the form of a thick manual, a two-week training course, and a laminated SOP card that lives permanently at the bottom of the drawer because we have already memorised everything on it.
But then there is the other rulebook. The one nobody hands you on your first day. The one you only learn after weeks on the job, through trial, error, and the quiet wisdom of the senior guard who has seen everything twice and still shows up on time.
These are those rules.
Rule Number One: Never, Ever Say “Quiet Night”
You know the moment. It is 2am. Nothing has happened for hours. The lobby is empty, the CCTV monitors are showing nothing more exciting than a moth circling the car park light, and you think to yourself — or worse, you say out loud — “Quiet night tonight.”
Do not do this.
The universe is always listening. The moment those two words leave your mouth, something will happen. A pipe will burst. A fire alarm will go off. A suspicious van will park outside with its engine running. Nobody knows why this rule exists. It just does. Respect it.
Rule Number Two: Know Where Every Toilet In The Building Is
This is not optional. This is survival.
Visitors will ask. Contractors will ask. The new intern who has been working there for three months and still cannot find the second floor bathroom will ask. You are expected to know — not just the nearest toilet, but the cleanest one, the one that is always out of paper, and the one on level four that nobody talks about but everyone secretly uses.
This knowledge cannot be learned from a map. It must be earned.
Rule Number Three: “I’ll Only Be Five Minutes” Means Something Completely Different
In the English language, five minutes means three hundred seconds. In the visitor car park of any building in Malaysia, five minutes means anywhere between forty-five minutes and the heat death of the universe.
You will learn this. You will accept this. And eventually, when someone pulls up, winds down their window, and says those four words, you will smile, nod, and quietly begin mentally rescheduling your entire afternoon.
Rule Number Four: The Art of Strategic Awareness
There will be moments — and every guard knows exactly which moments these are — when the supervisor’s car turns into the compound just as you were about to sit down, check your phone, or close your eyes for what you were absolutely certain would only be thirty seconds.
The ability to go from horizontal to fully upright, clipboard in hand, in under three seconds is not something they teach you in training. It is something your body develops on its own, out of pure professional instinct.
Some call it reflexes. We call it experience.
Rule Number Five: The Radio Is Always Loudest At The Worst Possible Moment
You are in the middle of a perfectly normal conversation with a visitor. Everything is calm and professional. And then your radio — which has been silent for the past two hours — suddenly crackles to life at full volume with a message that is, somehow, always completely unintelligible.
You excuse yourself. You turn away. You press the radio to your ear and squint, as though squinting helps you hear better. It does not help. But you do it anyway. We all do it anyway.
Rule Number Six: You Will Become Surprisingly Good At Reading People
This one is less funny and more true.
After enough time on the job, you develop a sense. You can tell the difference between someone who is lost and someone who is looking for trouble. You notice the person who walks in too confidently for someone who claims not to know where they are going. You spot the one whose eyes are scanning the room instead of looking for the person they claim to be visiting.
Nobody teaches you this. It builds slowly, quietly, without you realising it. And one day you act on a gut feeling, flag something to your supervisor, and it turns out you were right.
That is the day you understand why this job matters.
Rule Number Seven: Take Care of Each Other
The last rule, and the most important one.
The colleague coming in for the next shift — check on them. The guard who has been unusually quiet for the past few days — ask if they are alright. The new recruit who looks like they are not sure they made the right career choice — tell them it gets better, because it does.
This job can be lonely. The hours are long. The appreciation is sometimes thin on the ground. But the person standing next to you at the guard post understands all of that without needing an explanation.
Look out for each other. That is the most unwritten rule of all.
— Name and location withheld at the writer’s request
pakguard.online — by guards, for guards.
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