Saturday, September 25, 2010

The thrills of working at a college football game

A close friend of mine started working security at his university's football games. He told about getting paid to watch the game from the press box, and he made it sound like a cush job. So the next time his school had a home game I asked him the following:

Hey were you at the football game yesterdee? I saw that it was delayed for a while b/c of lightning. Then the "Visiting Team" kicked "Your Team's" bottom.

(NOTE: misspellings -- intentional and otherwise -- from the email will be preserved for hilarity)

Friend's response:
Yeah dude I was at the game yesterday. One of the worst jobs I've ever had. I stood in the same position on the field for about 7 hours except for the lighting break and having to tell people on the field to stand behind the orange line that is about 5 feet from the edge of the field. I constantly had to ask these people with field passes to step back from the line but lots of them would insist on having one foot over it. Then I had to stare blankly at thousands of people in the crowd and watch to see if anyone was about to jump onto the field. My job was to tackle them if they did and I don't know how to tackle anybody. I was not allowed to look at the game and I never looked at the scoreboard to prevent myself from getting involved. The crowd would go wild and I would just stare blankly straight ahead. It was comical and embarrassing. I was so miserable that I was happy we lost because I wanted the entire crowd to be misearble too. It really really sucked man. But thanks for asking! :)

My response: Welp, glad to find you in good spirits.

Friend:
Thanks. the worst part I think was the staring at about 10,000 people in my corner of the stadium. It was embarrassing having to give a solid blank face while they are cheering. The second worst part was standing in one place for about 7 hours. The third worst part was the anticipation, every moment expecting somebody from the crowd to bolt onto the field and then me making a spectacle of myself trying to tackle them on national tv. The forth worstest part was having to pester people about not crossing the line (like hearding sheep). The next worstest part was the rain and the last worstestest part was having my bosses come around and chew me out every few minutes in a military fashion. Oh yeah and I made about $X but the company kept $X/2 to pay for my security clearance.