The Visitor Who Won't Leave the Lobby
You are stationed in the lobby of an office building. A man arrives at 16:50 claiming to have a 17:00 meeting with a tenant on the fourth floor. He is not on the visitor list, the tenant's reception does not answer the phone, and he refuses to wait in the designated waiting area, saying he is 'a personal friend' and will go up himself. He becomes increasingly loud, uses abusive language toward you, and steps toward the turnstile. Two employees are waiting to badge through, watching. Your shift ends at 18:00 and your relief is not yet on site. The building's access procedure requires all visitors to be signed in and escorted or confirmed by the tenant.
1. What is your response to the man, and what are the limits of your authority?
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The officer's role is to control access and keep the lobby safe, not to punish or detain.
Response:
- Stay calm and keep distance. Do not match his volume or language. Speak in a low, clear voice and keep a safe gap and an exit line.
- Restate the requirement once, plainly: he must be signed in and confirmed by the tenant before going up. Offer the waiting area.
- Do not physically block, grab, or push him unless he is committing an assault or forcing entry that you must prevent - and even then, your priority is your own safety and calling for help.
- Call for assistance (supervisor, control room, or the tenant by another number) and, if he becomes threatening or tries to force the turnstile, call the police.
- Record the times, his description, and what was said.
Limits: you may refuse access and ask him to leave; you may not search him, restrain him, or use force except in lawful self-defence or to prevent a crime in progress, and only to the minimum necessary. Your authority is procedural, backed by the site's rules and, where needed, the police.
2. The two employees are watching and one mutters that you're 'letting him carry on.' How does this affect your handling?
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Being watched does not change the correct action, but it does raise the cost of getting it wrong in either direction - appearing weak by caving in, or appearing heavy-handed by escalating.
A sound answer:
- Do not change the decision to perform for the audience. The requirement stands regardless of who is watching.
- Project calm control: clear voice, steady stance, brief explanation to the employees ('Please badge through, I'm handling this').
- Keep the situation contained so the employees are not drawn in and the man does not get an audience that rewards his behaviour.
- Escalate through proper channels, not by recruiting bystanders to help subdue him.
This tests whether the candidate understands that an officer's authority is applied consistently and calmly, not adjusted to save face in front of onlookers.
3. At 17:55, with no relief yet, the man has left but the tenant calls to say the 'friend' was expected and is angry he was turned away. How do you close out the shift?
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Close out with a complete, factual handover rather than a defensive one.
- Handover to the relief or supervisor: describe the visitor, the times, that he was not on the list, that the tenant could not be reached, that he refused the waiting area, and that he left. Note the tenant's later call.
- Do not editorialise or apologise for applying the procedure. State what the procedure required and what you did.
- Flag the process gap: the tenant was unreachable by phone at a critical moment and the visitor list was not updated - these are matters for the site to fix.
- Record it all in the occurrence book with times, so the next shift and the supervisor have the full picture.
The test is whether the candidate closes the loop with documentation and a handover, and whether they understand that following the documented procedure is defensible even when a tenant is unhappy.