WANTED: Feature Writers Or Reviewers For Book About Security Guards
Hi, I am seeking some book reviewers or feature writers for my recently published book, Guards Gone Wild!.
It is a memoir of my experiences in the private security industry. There’s plenty to tell. Scams perpetrated by security agencies and guards. Intense confrontations with delinquents and work colleagues. Funny moments to make you laugh and frustrating moments that made me cry. And so on and so forth.
The short stories in my book also answer some questions that may help reduce conflicts between security guards and the general public. Why are some shopping malls are more popular with delinquents than others? Why do security guards get cranky when customers want to enter the department store at the very last minute? Are security guards overworked? What are the negative effects of sleep deprivation? The answers to these questions and more can be found in my book.
If you are a blogger with an active blog, I would greatly appreciate it if you are interested in writing a feature article or review for my book. You can send an email to me at guardsgonewild@gmail.com.
In return, I will give you a free signed copy of Guards Gone Wild! and, if you are a published author too, I will gladly write a feature article or review for your book as well.
This free book offer is limited to residents of Singapore only as I am too poor to mail multiple packages to overseas destinations.
Loh Teck Yong
Ivy League Ah Gong & The Tray Return Policy
* The above image is taken from this Yahoo Lifestyle article.
WE CAN’T RETIRE!
“You don’t have enough money for retirement!”
Yeah, I know.
“You need to keep on working well into your late 60s!”
Yes, I know that already. Every Singaporean knows that.
A FAIRY TALE ENDING FOR SENIOR CITIZENS?
But luckily for us, thanks to the farsightedness of our government, most senior citizens in Singapore have the benefit of an Oxbridge or Ivy League education. Take my HDB neighbour for example. He was 65 when he lost his job as a security guard due to a leg injury. And after losing his livelihood, he had to deal with unpaid loans and mounting hospital bills. But he remained positive. And he had good reason to.
Because a mere week after his loss of employment, he was contacted by a representative of the Skull and Bones society at Yale where he had spent his youth. And when I saw him next, the former security guard was lounging around at a penthouse suite as the Director of Internal Communications for a Fortune 500 company.
He’s not the only senior citizen with a fairy tale ending.
Another neighbour of mine, a lady in her late 50s, recently lost her clerical job at a factory. She just couldn’t keep up with the competition from the younger university graduates from China and India. But like the ah gong from Yale, she had nothing to worry about. And sure enough, just days after her departure from the factory, her sorority sisters from Oxford reached out to her and offered her a position as the Managing Director of General Human Affairs. Her company now pays her a five-figure monthly salary just for reading magazines in her oak-paneled office.
Okay, okay. Enough already! What I just said was a load of bullshit and you ought to know that. If you truly believe that Singapore is stuffed full of security guard uncles and office aunties with Ivy League connections, then there’s this exclusive time share property in Narnia I want to sell to you.
So why did I bullshit? I was trying to make a point. Two points. Okay, three.
One. We do not have enough money for retirement and will need to work past the ripe old age of 65 just to make ends meet.
Two. Unless your ah gongs and ah mas actually have Ivy League or Oxbridge connections, nobody is going to offer them bullshit jobs like Director of Internal Communications or Managing Director of General Human Affairs and pay them a lot of money for doing pointless work.
Having said all that, we now arrive neatly at point number three. Read the rest of this entry
Guards Gone Wild! Is Now Available At LocalBooks.sg!
Hi guys! Just want to let you all know that my book, Guards Gone Wild!, is now available at LocalBooks.sg.
The book is a memoir of my experiences in the private security industry. There’s plenty to tell. Scams perpetrated by security agencies and guards. Intense confrontations with delinquents and work colleagues. Funny moments to make you laugh and frustrating moments that made me cry. And so on and so forth.
But I don’t want you to just laugh or cry along with me. In order to reduce conflicts between security guards and the general public, I think there are some serious questions that need to be asked.
For example, why are some shopping malls are more popular with delinquents than others? Why do security guards get cranky when customers want to enter the department store at the very last minute? Are security guards overworked? What are the negative effects of sleep deprivation? The answers to these questions and more can be found in my book.
A copy costs S$20 before GST. Shipping within Singapore is FREE for all orders delivered via SingPost. For international shipments, shipping fees is a flat rate of $20.
Loh Teck Yong
3 Halloween Mysteries
Generally speaking, ghost hunting television shows tend to enjoy a spike of popularity around the Halloween season and, due to my job as a security guard, I tend to get requests to share spooky stories right around this time.
Now, let me ask you a question. Between a security guard and professional ghost hunter, who do you think has the more difficult job? Below, I will recount to you 3 spooky incidents that happened to myself and other security guards during the night shift. And you can judge for yourself if it would be easier to deal with the spookiness by your lonesome self or when you are being surrounded by a squad of cameramen, lighting technicians and miscellaneous gophers.
#1. The Haunted Bench
In my book, there’s a story about a haunted school where two luckless teenagers had a ghostly encounter with a man in white. I was there at that time and received their complaint about a stranger who was loitering on school grounds. However, after searching through the school in the dark (it was 7pm in the evening), I found no trace of any intruder.
And that, unfortunately, scared the pair of teenagers so much that they promptly resigned from their part-time job that very night. They never returned to the school.
After that incident with the teenagers, my colleague at the school had a spooky encounter of his own. You can read about it here.
He was locking up the place one evening when he saw a girl sitting at one of the benches in the school. All alone. At 8pm in the evening. Well, it’s not an odd occurrence really. Sometimes, students stay back late for one reason or other. Not an odd occurrence at all. EXCEPT this particular girl vanished mysteriously into thin air within seconds and was never seen again.
But what about the haunted bench, you ask? Well, according to the testimonies of the teenagers and my colleague, both the man in white and the disappearing girl were sitting at the same bench…
Towards the end of my assignment at the school, I was doing my usual patrol around the school grounds when I noticed that the bench had been removed from the school. I talked to the cleaners but no one knew why.
#2. Rude Awakening
This happened to a night shift guard who was assigned to guard a warehouse. There wasn’t anything particularly spooky about the warehouse, nor was it stuck in the middle of nowhere.
For the first few nights after getting the assignment, the guard played it safe. He kept himself awake and alert for surprise inspections from the management. After a few nights of non-activity however, he decided to cut loose and indulge in a bit of drinking. Several bottles later, he was fast asleep. Well, no harm no foul, he thought. The warehouse was done for the day and nicely locked up for the night.
But then, in the middle of his booze-induced slumber…
BANG! BANG! BANG!
He jerked up from the comfortable armchair, his mind still befuddled with alcohol, and saw a strange woman banging on the guardhouse’s window and glaring at him from outside the guardhouse’s window. Probably due to all that booze in his system, he felt anger instead of fear. So he got up from his “bed”, opened the guardhouse and chased after the strange woman who had appeared so suddenly in the middle of an empty warehouse.
But, according to his testimony when he later told us his story, he couldn’t catch up to her no matter how hard he ran. And when he thought he had finally cornered her inside the warehouse, she had mysteriously vanished.
And what did the night guard do? Read the rest of this entry
This Is How I Am Thanking My Friends & Supporters
My book, Guards Gone Wild!, is currently available for sale via Select Books’ web store. It’s the only book store carrying my book at the moment.
However, after encouraging my friends to purchase my book via their web store, I have heard complaints about the steep delivery and shipping fees the store is charging. And I feel bad about this.
Therefore, before I can get another online web store to retail my book, one that specializes in fulfilling international orders, you can purchase Guards Gone Wild! directly from me. After consulting the post office, I have found out that:
The shipping fee for one copy of my book from Singapore to Zone 1 (Malaysia & Brunei) is S$5.80.
The shipping fee for one copy of my book from Singapore to Zone 2 (Countries in Asia & the Pacific. Except for Australia, Japan & New Zealand) is S$9.45.
The shipping fee for one copy of my book from Singapore to Zone 3 (Countries in the rest of the world, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Africa, America, Europe and the Middle East) is S$12.55.
If you are residing within Singapore, then you are in luck. Delivery within Singapore is free, because I will personally cover local delivery costs.
However, all this is a limited time offer. I will continue to personally fulfill both local and international orders until I can get another web store to carry my book.
My book is currently retailing for S$20 per copy. If you wish to purchase a copy, send me an email at guardsgonewild@gmail.com.
Loh Teck Yong
Guards Gone Wild! Is Finally Available For Sale!
My book, Guards Gone Wild!, is finally available for sale! It’s a collection of short stories about my adventures in the security industry. There’s plenty to tell. Scams perpetrated by security agencies and guards. Intense confrontations with delinquents and work colleagues. Funny moments to make you laugh and frustrating moments that made me cry. Perhaps my stories will cause you to form a new opinion about security guards.
Right now, it’s only available for sale via Select Books’ online store.
However, the international shipping fee is kinda steep, so if you are not residing in Singapore at the moment, you can purchase the book through me.
For delivery within Singapore, the fee is S$8.50.
So if you are residing in Singapore, it might actually be cheaper for you to just pick up the book at their office.
The address is:
65A, Jalan Tenteram
#02-06, St Michael’s Industrial Estate
Singapore 328958
Telephone: (65) 6251 379
Their office opens from 9.30am to 6pm.
If you don’t mind the S$8.50 delivery fee, then you can click on this link to get to the store’s webpage.
Loh Teck Yong
My Books Have Arrived!
500 printed copies of Guards Gone Wild! arrived at my flat on Tuesday.
These aren’t mockup copies! They are the real deal!
This is what 500 books look like. I stacked them up pretty good, huh? I even set Care Bears to guard them.
The bear on your left is Wish Bear, one of the original Care Bears. On the right, we have Good Luck Bear, another original Care Bear.
Why Wish Bear and Good Luck Bear? Well, Wish Bear because my Wish to become a published writer just came true. And Good Luck Bear was there to bless me with good luck.
Loh Teck Yong
