Three Requests From a Client Supervisor
You are six weeks into your first guard post, working 19:00–07:00 alone at a 40,000 sq ft distribution warehouse. At 02:40 the site supervisor - a client employee, not your employer - asks three things before shift end: sit in on an interview with a picker accused of stealing about $600 of power tools and take notes "for the file"; open and search every locker in the break room until the tools turn up; and leave the forklift near-miss at bay 7 out of the daily log because "nobody got hurt and head office freaks out." Your post orders describe the guard role as observe, report, deter and document, and say the client directs tasks but not conditions of employment. Your licence is current and on you.
1. Go through each of the supervisor's three requests and state what you do and why.
Read the worked answer
Treat each request separately, because the correct answer is not the same for all three.
1. Sit in on the interview and take notes. A guard can stand by to keep the peace, but taking notes as the client's investigator blurs the line between security and the employer's disciplinary process. Those notes become a business record that can be subpoenaed, and they make you look like an agent of the employer rather than an independent observer. Reasonable action: remain available nearby, document only what you personally see and hear relevant to safety, and tell the supervisor that a company investigator or HR should run the interview and keep its record.
2. Search the lockers. Lockers are the client's property, but you have no search powers. Searching without consent, a written company policy and client management present exposes you and your employer to a complaint and undermines your credibility. Decline and refer it to the site supervisor and your own operations manager in writing.
3. Omit the near-miss from the log. This is the clearest refusal. Falsifying a record is dishonest, breaches the Code of Conduct, and hides a hazard you are required to report as a worker. Log it factually, refuse the instruction, and report the instruction itself.
2. Who do you contact, in what order, and what is in writing before 07:00?
Read the worked answer
Chain of command first, then the paper trail.
- Your own employer's on-call supervisor - not the client - because the client supervisor has no authority over your employment conditions or your records. Report all three requests, the refusal, and the near-miss.
- The client supervisor - confirm in person, politely, that you have logged the near-miss and declined the search, so there is no surprise later and no suggestion you agreed and then went behind them.
- Your memo book, before you leave post - time-stamped entries of what was requested, what you did, who else was present, and who you notified. Keep your original notes; do not rewrite them later.
What goes in the daily log is an objective entry about the bay 7 near-miss: time, equipment, what happened, whether anyone was injured, who was notified. What does not go in the log is commentary about the supervisor's motives. The integrity issue goes up your own chain, in writing, as soon as practical.
3. Explain the difference between what a client can ask of you and what a police officer could lawfully do here, using the locker search and the interview as examples.
Read the worked answer
A client can direct the tasks in the contract - patrols, access control, reporting, observation - but cannot lend you powers you do not have.
- Search powers. A police officer can search where the law authorises it (consent, incident to arrest, warrant, or a recognised exigency). A guard has no such authority. The most a guard can do about a locker is what the client's own written policy allows its managers to do, with consent and a witness; if nothing is found, that is the client's problem, not a reason to escalate.
- Detention and interview. A police officer can arrest and detain on legal grounds. You can only do what any person can: keep the peace, ask someone to leave under trespass law, or make a citizen's arrest in the narrow circumstances the Criminal Code allows and hand the person to police immediately. Running an accusatory interview is not on that list.
The professional framing: my value here is an accurate, independent record and a calm presence - not authority I do not have. When the client wants police powers, the answer is always "call police."