‘People think it’s an easy job. It’s not’
Tjeans and a white shirt.
Mr. Tolten sensed she was going to jump, so he rushed over and pulled her away from the wall. The young woman struggled with Mr. wo summers ago, Tolten and said she wanted while making his to kill herself. “You’re too rounds as a security young,” he said to her. “You guard at the have your whole life ahead First Avenueof you.”
Garage in Downtown, Tony He managed to pull a radio Tolten emerged from an elevator from his back pocket and on the facility’s sixth call for assistance. A short floor and entered the bright time later, a police officer arrived light of day. He looked out at and took the young a sea of automobiles on the woman away. Relieved, Mr. garage’s top floor. It was a Tolten resumed his rounds. busy day in this part of town, Mr. Tolten says that moment near Pittsburgh Municipal was one of the most satisfying Court and the Allegheny of his 35 years in the County Jail. security business. “I saved a
Mr. Tolten had walked woman’s life,” he said. Other only a few steps when he times have been odd and looked to his right and saw a challenging. “I catch people young woman climbing to in the stairwells having sex, the top of the wall at the edge shooting drugs. You name it, of the garage. She wore blue I’ve seen it.
“The day before yesterday, a young lady went around pulling the fire alarms in the emergency call stations at the garage. Police arrested her. She had a box cutter on her. That’s the type of people we run into.”
On other days, the job can seem fairly routine. Mr. Tolten checks each floor of the garage twice an hour to make certain nobody is breaking into parked vehicles. He’s 60 years old, and the walking takes a toll on his knees, but “I can handle it,” he said.
Over the years, Mr. Tolten has worked security at places like PNC Park, the U.S. Steel Tower, the D.L. Clark Building and various parking garages. He knows what some people think of the profession, that security guards do little other than sit around and watch video monitors.
Even on routine days, it’s a false perception, he said.
“We have to interact with the public,” he said. “That’s harder than any office job in America. We’ve got to sign people in, deal with attitudes, with people not waking up on right side of bed and taking it out on security. People think it’s an easy job. It’s not.”
For his work at First Avenue Garage, Mr. Tolten receives $13.60 an hour. It’s not enough, he said, so on weekends he works a second security job at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh in Oakland.
What would a pay increase mean to him?
“A lot,” he said. “It would help me pay some bills off. I wouldn’t have to work two jobs. I’d have some free time. I’d spend some time with my lovely wife, Evette.”