Days before Christmas in 2018,
Jermaine Massey was on a phone call with his mother. It being personal, he was
in a remote area and was thus not disturbing anyone—that except for Earl,
Doubletree’s security guard. Massey subsequently accused Earl of harassment. While
the video that Massey took of the guard during the altercation shows Earl to be
quite calm, the passive aggression was doubtless off the charts. The incident
points to a growing problem at the time as American businesses were increasing
their security presence, at the very least in terms of exposure, and last but
not least, with considerable discretion and thus power. The incident shows that
guards were well aware of how to mask personal power with the air of staid
professionalism. This only makes the
latent authoritarian mindset more dangerous to the public.
After Massey had relocated to another hotel (without a
refund from Hilton/Doubletree as of that time), he wrote on social media that
while he had been talking with his mother, Earl approached. “He said that I was
a safety threat to the other guests and that I was trespassing and said that I
was a disturbance because I took a personal phone call from my mom in a more
remote area of the lobby.”[1]
Even if Massey had been too loud in his phone conversation, considerable
overkill is involved in stretching noise to a safety “issue.” Additionally, Earl presumed that Massey was trespassing even though the latter had his
room key (with the envelop indicating the room and date!) visible. That Earl
refused even to admit the possibility that the key might be valid points to a
serious lapse in Earl’s mind. What could prompt such a distortion well in the
scope of Earl’s duty?
Friedrich Nietzsche would say that the pleasure of power
is the underlying culprit. Earl was simply too weak to resist his over-extended
need for power, and his tendency to assume the worst in people—common, I
suspect, among police—only fed his need. That Earl had handcuffs and a metal “badge”
that doubtless had been designed to mimic a police
badge only enabled his predisposition to act even beyond the functions of a
guard. For instance, a guard does not
have the authority to arrest—so why the cuffs?
Making the problem of the over-extended guard worse, the
hotel’s manager on duty enabled Earl by taking Earl’s decision that the police should be called on Massey as something
that should and cannot be overridden. Earl used a walkie-talky to communicate
his decision to the manager, then told Massey that the police would be there to
escort him off the property. Even though Massey insisted that he had a room at
that hotel, Earl countered with a tone of being the person in charge there, “Not anymore.” Even though the manager
followed Earl’s instruction to call the police, Massey claimed that the manager
only asked him—after having called the police!—what had happened. Luis, the
young manager, was derelict in subordinating his authority to a guard—taking the
guard’s side as the full story. And
yet Luis and Earl would presume to call the customers guests. After being a customer of Hilton Hotels (Doubletree),
Massey would be well within proper behavior to laugh out loud at the sheer
presumption, for who treats a guest as Earl and Luis had treated Massey?
In conclusion, this case strongly suggests that managers
should not just take the word of their respective security guards, who likely
have their own agendas (i.e., power-trips). It is the absolute power that
businesses allow or enable guards to have that is so dangerous. What if the
police had arrested Massey? A bad situation could have gotten much worse (with
a police record). Significantly, the Portland, Oregon police did not even talk
to Massey; they too took the guard’s side for objective truth. An axis can be drawn from Earl to Luis to the local police:
the axis of absolute power that businesses enable. At the very least,
businesses should not permit their guards to wear handcuffs or police-like badges.
Once I saw this in a Target store and asked a cashier about it. “I know; it is
over the top. They can’t even use those cuffs.” I asked why the show. “To
intimidate customers,” she answered matter-of-factly. Target would go on in
following the other herd-animal retailers to call customers guests. Intent to intimidate guests—nice!
For more on Nietzsche applied to managers, see On the Arrogance of False Entitlement, available at Amazon. For more on business ethics, see Cases of Unethical Business.
For more on Nietzsche applied to managers, see On the Arrogance of False Entitlement, available at Amazon. For more on business ethics, see Cases of Unethical Business.
1. Keith Allen, “Hotel
Employees Who Asked Black Guest to Leave Fired,” Cnn.com (December 29, 2018).
