Kiwi Mind set

Kia Ora,

Well thought I would be on a quiet task (& for most parts it was) & home before the real idiot brigade came out at midnight (which I was for once).

But it still didn't stop the encounter with the good old fashioned kiwi mindset when it comes to security or New Zealanders dealing with security.

First off are the signs. No matter how big a sign might be, it could be ten foot tall & flashing Neon, Kiwis don't see them or if they do they only apply to everyone else but them.

Then the person placed to enforce those signs. To a kiwi they are only there to make their life difficult, even though the reason more often than not is Health & Safety or real security concerns.

Last of all is the Kiwi belief that they only need one security person when six is what is really needed or required if they are adhering to Health & Safety requirements or international standards.

The following are incidents several years ago that shows this mindset in full glory.

Whilst patrolling fenced area due to Fireworks (explosives) in a 40 foot container encounter a family trying to shortcut across. Two adults & two toddlers possibly three at most. As far as they were concerned as a security officer I was only impeding their progress through a short cut so that lacked commonsense. What was pointed out to them was they weren't showing commonsense as they didn't care about the lives of their children in case the container did happen to blow. So questions had to be raised about their parenting skills.

Twenty minutes later two young couples climb over fence & were stopped. Again we go through the commonsnse this is a short cut jibe. To which it was pointed out that if they were using commonsense they wouldn't climb a fence with signs saying "Explosives keep out". Reply was "where are these signs?" "You climbed over top of one!" Then came the threat to do bodily harm. Unfortunately for them at the end of the fenced area at that time a security briefing was in progress with security supervisors & police for event.

If New Zealand wants to be regarded as a world class place for people to visit then it has to act as world class. That means expecting restrictions due to security or Health & Safety.