"Over the years of working in security sphere, I realized how ridiculous is the concept that "a man is stronger than a womanʺ. We can go into a burning hut and stop a galloping horse, as a classical Russian poet said. In my experience, a woman is more attentive to the guarded object and does not react on provocations. Of course, everyone’s get emotional sometimes, but here we listen to our intuition smartly," says Tatiana Varguzina, an security inspector at the brewery in Samara.
"By the way, I am on duty alone at my checkpoint, while men at the same checkpoints work in pairs. Although our workload is almost the same, it happens that more vehicles pass by my checkpoint during the shift. But I do everything by myself, while in other places two men do the same work," she says.
Liya Gizatullina from Ufa, a security inspector in a shopping center, has always been drawn to such a job.
"My relatives worked in law enforcement agencies. I spent 10 years working in transportation and undermined my health there. We often got very cold in inspection service, and as public transport conductors, we constantly breathed exhaust fumes. In the end I quit, I had to look for something new. After all those hard conditions, working in security turned out to be a paradise," recalls Liya. In June, she will have been in her position for 14 years.
The most difficult part of the job is the human nuances. Security guards in public establishments often have to cope with thieves and drunken rowdies; they need to be able to find an approach to each person, while not making accusations without evidence.
"The main thing is to observe without giving the appearance of doing so. Talk and watch how the potential offender reacts. They sometimes give themselves away: they get nervous or think they’ll never be figured out. At this point it is important to catch them red-handed," says Galina Slugina, security inspector at the Marketplace warehouse.
"It also happens that drivers try to bring in unauthorized persons (for example, children). After all, we have a brewery company, there is a lot of alcoholic products, and the law strictly prohibits children to be on the territory. And some truck drivers take their whole families with them, and then try to drag them through all the facilities."
But the most difficult part of the job for Varguzina is communicating with her colleagues.
"A woman often has to be tough in her job, and can’t hold back at the end of the day. All her accumulated irritation spills out onto her colleagues. One woman does not listen to the other, and the atmosphere immediately turns into an argy-bargy. It’s easier to find common ground with men because they are more willing to make concessions or just agree to stop the conflict," she says.