I work for an organization whose employees include people than some people would just love to assassinate, so we have security for serious reasons, not just for paranoia or for keeping the unwashed masses from wandering into the building. We employees have electronic swipe cards and photo IDs and all that good stuff. Whenever the Ministry of Fear in DC raises the Terror Level, we have what I call crackdowns, during which times the security people at the entrances have orders to do “100% ID checks.” That means you swipe your card and display your ID. But here’s the ridiculous part. The security dudes quickly get bored and stop really looking at your creds after you’ve successfully swiped in, especially when they’ve seen your face several hundred times. I carry a little leather cardholder thingy containing stuff like aMetroCard and a photo of my baby daughter, as well as my employee ID and swipe cards, which are obscured by the former items. So I wave my baby picture/MetroCard at the security dudes and they nod and say thank you. “It’s OK:  he’s got a MetroCard and a cute kid.”
However, if I forget my creds, then I have to go through the metal detector like an ordinary mortal — usually. In such cases I invariably think, yeah right, the day I come unglued and bring my firearm to work with homicidal intentions is the day I will also forget my creds and be thwarted by the metal detector. Knowing me, that’s probably exactly what I’d do:  forget my swipe card and ID. And with my last flicker of rationality I would think, ah fuck it, let’s come back tomorrow and kill everyone when we have both our gun and our ID .
I don’t mean any disrespect for the people whose job it is to watch our back. Most of them are decent people doing a necessary job honorably. But I can’t help but sneer every time I look out my office window at the garage entrance below me, and see the perfunctory pro forma trunk inspections the guys do on cars coming into the building. I don’t know about you, but whenever I install a car bomb, I mount it someplace discreet like under the car, instead of like, you know, leaving it hanging out in plain sight in the trunk? Cause it like so totally blows when the security dudes find your bomb?