sounds like you have one of those jobs in which you just need to show up and you don't need to actually do anything.
In most jobs, if you're not actively busy at all times working, it's either because you're dead, or about to get fired, because the work never ends. If you just "show up," but don't do anything, you're not gonna last long.
Yes in fact I was a security guard from 1999-2000. Was a little bit scary alone at night in a huge dark 2-story 5-acre medical building, had to go through the entire bldg HOURLY and push security checkpoint buttons on the walls in specific locations & keep logbooks. Brainless work yes, but there was no time to sit around and do nothing.
I've had job sites like that... But most of them were literally just sitting somewhere doing fuck all for 8 hours. Like when I was posted to a quarry for a few months and then a random dilapidated farm house after that. Just providing a presence as a deterrent for trespassers.
true, just providing a presence is a deterrent for trespassers, But the human aspect of it is if an employer has a security guard sitting idly, bad things are gonna happen because that guard's gonna get bored and do weird things. It's human nature. So wise employers know that If they want effective security guards, they've gotta keep their security guards busy.
You have a point there; the companies I did security for were pretty shit. One of them wasn't even paying us our proper hours and we sued them over it, and won.