To preface; I have been doing licensed security for over 6 years. Armed, unarmed cannabis, mental health, hospitals, basically anything you can do in a Guard uniform I've done it. I've been licensed in both TX and CA. And I see the same issues in both states.
First, the security industry is legally allowed to do some things that other industries aren't. You aren't legally required to give a lunch break or 10 minute breaks. If a company does, it's out of pragmatism not obligation. There are legal exemptions for security guards. We work long hours because of high turn over and the necessity for many sites to have 24/7 coverage.
Second, it's mostly contract work. You typically work for a company who has a contract with the client site. In part this is due to licensing restrictions, but contractors also allow clients to pull Guards off post with little to no reason. Doesn't matter how fickle the client is, or the fact that most have no security experience. You can and will be removed without investigation or anything resembling HR being involved. Contractors also help keep the tax rate of companies low. Less employees despite more people working for you. It also allows someone else to take the liability. As security is mostly there to mitigate liability. Because they bill a certain amount for every hour you work, and leadership positions are full of putting put proverbial fires while also doing HR, scheduling, and anything else they feel like putting on you.
Third, as I mentioned, clients almost never have actual security experience. You'll be hard pressed to find one security liason who's ever worked a post. Rarely You'll get either a former LE or someone who's got college but never actually worked as a Security Guard. But they'll act like they know everything. You'll get “read your post orders” when the post orders are outdated and incomplete, or non existent. I heard the other day “a month in security is like an eternity” from a man who's never worked a post. If he actually knew the job, he'd know that we're lucky to get any information about a post, and that most supervisors are doing at least 3 jobs in one. Partly due to budget restrictions because it's contract work. And the boss would rather save money than have an efficient staff.
Fourth gripe, Police make terrible Security Guards. There's this weird assumption that we do a lesser form of what they do. We do not. I exist to prevent liability, and mitigate conflict before it happens. Police are reactionary and often incite incidents due to arrest incentives. Most cops I've worked with are too aggressive and entitled. A good Guard knows how to de-escalate and provide a certain level of customer service. Depending on the post, we can go hands on, but that's a rare situation because something went wrong. Cops are trained to escalate due to non compliance. If I did that I'm losing my job, license, and seeing jail time. I even once worked for a cop who was training us in firearms. In regards to martial arts he said “you only need to know the things they don't allow in mma.” Like, damn. Because I know how to grapple properly I'm less likely to injure someone, and this cop who admits to being armed at all times is telling Guards to injur people. That's terrible advice and indicative of the poor training LE gets.
There's probably more I could say, but you get the gist. Guards have either a Paul Blart reputation, or people think we want to be that dude from Police Academy who was obsessed with guns. I've worked with both stereotypes, and both are bad at the job. Just saying, next time you see a Security Guard, know that even though they look like cops that do very little, they deal with a lot of crap. Bad or non existent post orders, low wages, long hours. Not to mention most people see us sitting there “doing nothing” and don't realize that, because we don't constantly have tasks like most jobs, that time is there to observe, report, and act when you see a problem. And then the Karen's of the world feel like they need to taddle on us for doing our jobs. It seems to be an industry standard tbh.