Story time: ........I joined Pinkerton Investigations in the fall of 1990. Somewhere I still have my company ID and a few other cool things.
Most people have heard of the Pinkertons, but here is a crash course for those that have not..... The Pinkertons were started in 1850 in Chicago, Illinois and quickly developed a reputation. That is a nice way of saying they killed people...... Though the pitch line was officially "We Never Sleep" and at times "We Always Get Our Man"....... Maybe it should have said, "We Never Give Up" because in 1990 there was still a bonus on the books if you could bring in Jesse James.
I will forever remember a phone call I got in January of 1991, ".....Jeff how quick can you get to Columbia." I said it's about a 3 hour drive to which the response was a little chuckle and then my boss Steve said, "....uh, No. The country not the town."
When I first started with the company I spent a week with former police officers from various agencies Missouri State Highway Patrol, Springfield and St. Louis PD and a former FBI agent. The week consisted of drug test, (selling urine) various training and more than a few lessons that not all cops are good people.
The picture with this story is an example of what almost every cafe used 35 years ago. We were instructed to go out to lunch, and bring back a receipt like this to learn how to complete Pinkerton Expense forms...... Back in 1990 I was just a kid, a year out of the Police Academy and naive as HELL.
The old officers all had valuable lessons to teach a kid like me. The receipt lesson came from a Missouri State Highway Patrolman, (I won't name him, we became life long friends - My mom hated his guts, he once wrote her a ticket before he realized who she was.....LOL - she just called him that Black Bastard)
My trooper friend taught me the finer points of faking receipts..... I remember the mixed emotions I had, to me every police officer was supposed to be like Marshal Matt Dillon, wearing a white hat and always being the good guy. And here I was with all these officers that were teaching me and telling me stories about the "stuff" they had done.....
The Springfield guys told a story about a night out after a day of training. A car full of them were packed in one car drinking pony Millers and tossing bottles at targets beside the road. They came up on a long haired hippy thumbing for a ride, when they tossed an empty nailing him in the head. The impact took him off his feet, over a bridge railing and into the water below.....
I felt sadness when they taught me about faking drug test and other things most people would consider far worse..... What amazed me even more was Pinkerton was perfectly fine with fake receipts so long as the math - mathed. They couldn't careless so long as the paperwork made sense.....
A few things I learned that week:
1. All people are lazy, they may do their jobs - but the bare minimum. 2. People will just run with paperwork that looks correct3. Ethics are often just a word companies like to use.....the word Ethics- not actual Ethics....... 4. The difference between the Good Guys and the Bad Guys is all determined by who exactly is telling the story. 5. It is all in how you tell the story...........
There are days I miss Pinkerton - Why did I leave? Ethics. The pay for Pinkerton was good, the Bonus program was freaking outstanding!!! I was young, cocky as hell and didn't think I could die. I had a habit of going after things way out of my league..... I have dated women (married one too) that should have never even talked to me.... except for the fact they did. I sold a security contract in 1991 in Kuwait.
The contract was a multi million dollar payout.... When I turned it in, my boss and his boss instantly called for a meeting. They said, we are not giving this to Pinkerton, .....we are going to start our own agency - just the 3 of us and we will all get rich.
Was I dumb - was it ethics...... Do a little Googling and you can see who they became. Start with major security company that started in the mid 1990's.....and see which one sounds like me.
Oh, and the answer is I was a dumbass kid with ethics. A smart man would have joined them...... I may be a dumbass, but I can teach you a thing or two about expense reports...... Come to think about it, I used to be pretty good at throwing Baby Millers too.
