Pros and Cons of Security Contracting

[Music] so you want to be a contractor everyone in Saipan ki badger comm here to talk about the pros as well as the cons of security contracting what I'm gonna say is largely based on my experience as well as essentially observation great context I contracted for about six years from 2010 through 2016 three different companies or two different companies three different contracts two different Nao's a couple of the contracts were four or one of the companies I worked for for a couple of contracts Academy Z xpg us training center Blackwater rebranded over and over again I also worked for Oh H which you don't know who they are don't worry about it ultimately though two different companies three different contracts over the span of about six years first we'll take a look at like why you'd want a security contract if you think it's because you want to be up on top of the building just like stacking bodies no not so much and if that is why you want to do it probably a sociopath or just lack maturity so moving past that what are some reasons well the money typically money can be pretty good so money it'd be a pretty legit reason for contracting past that depending on like your lifestyle schedule schedule might actually be something that is advantageous depending on you what you like to do things along those lines if you want to do it because you want to you like wave that American flag no that's a stupid reason if you wanted to do that just stay in the military and yeah actually have a mission do that security contracting not so much so past those reasons why we would start security contracting we started looking at some of the pros what are they as far as pros go chief among them is money depending on the contract you can make some pretty sweet money now granted you can also be in crappy I don't know like State Department contract or something like that not be making very much money but I mean the spectrum goes anywhere from like probably a horrible dangerous contract for like 200 bucks a day up to kind of your median for some good contracts which is like I'm 575 or something or you get some of the rad contracts you'll be up at like 750 or even over a thousand bucks a day think about that it's your daily rate which means all you do is wake up in country and you collect a thousand bucks it's pretty rad daily rate every single day so if you're deployed for like sixty days straight or 90 days straight depending on what you're making at the end of it because you're deployed every day Davi raid every day let's say 90 days coming home with I don't know a good like forty five grand if you didn't spend it all online while you were at work so what are some other advantages I will say schedule depending on your lifestyle that can absolutely be an advantage because again you're gonna have these blocks of time off whether it's a sixty sixty ninety ninety or like 90 thirty rotation something like that we're working on any home 30 different schedules again depending on you and what you want it can be advantageous pass those to another pro in depending on a contract food amazing food like that rad chefs on site and be a special occasion boom steak and lobster like massive feast for like holidays and stuff or or if you're just a fatty you can go get like basically this huge deep freezer full of dove bars or boxes in the nihms and Snickers and all these things short-order cook pretty much cook you a steak anytime you want pretty rad another Pro dependent would be Jim's usually ahjumma's are pretty nice now all that said if you're on a mill base and whatever a contract basically defaults to mill then you have nailed chow halls and mill gems not so much one last Pro I guess you could say is for me personally one of the sites that was at there was a this psychiatrist which everyone doesn't prescribe drugs psychiatrist psychologist whatever and this person was there and yeah like if you want to go talk to him no charge pretty much like will sign your name on the little sign in sheet thing give you write down essentially an appointment slot and go talk with a person it just so happened I was there while I was going through my divorce and yeah it was pretty nice nice little fringe benefit keep in mind the reason why that person was there though not too too long before that it was basically a coordinated attack on the site and they almost got in and so one of the dudes ended up clacking off his suicide vest he was at the inner wall because of physics dude explodes outwards inwards explosives all around him and long story short dude's head flies up lands over in pod village so one of the people that worked on that site some female came out and all of a sudden just got real that she was in Afghanistan at this point seeing this dismembered head out there and so they ended up bringing a psychiatrist or psychologist whichever one which fringe benefit for me like obviously too bad for her so I will say that is probably the last of the pros in my mind with respect to security contracting sounds pretty good so far right well let's talk about some of the cons well one of those cons is money what do I mean by this well first of all if you're on a shitty contract and you're getting like 200 250 bucks for your daily rate one it's probably disproportionately dangerous for that pay and on top of that like you may as well go back groceries that like Trader Joe's and make that much money and go home every night sleep in your bed but as far as money goes you go from being in the military because pretty much all the contracts require that and making not very much money I basically I think my first year in the Marine Corps made like $12,000 or something and so then fast forward a little over a decade and I'm making like over that in one month it's crazy right so now all of a sudden you're a thousand-aire you're making money getting your daily rate and typically especially people coming from the marine or Marine Corps well yeah Marine Corps any military branch like you're not making very much and the military doesn't instill like good spending habits because even if you spend your entire paycheck it doesn't matter you just go eat at the chow hall you live in the barracks whatever but a lot of people get into contracting start making money and their lifestyle immediately extends to basically meet their income and at this point their incomes pretty good and so now yeah you're living like a thousandaire man and you get this really skewed way of looking at things what I mean by that is you start looking at things in context to your daily rate so you're looking at this you're like oh man that's pretty cool like man this used dirtbike it's only five days like no it's like 2,500 bucks but like you rationalize it away in like a daily rate you're like oh that new rifle it's only three days work that's fine and you end up with like a really skewed relationship with money if you are not incredibly disciplined and careful I will say both myself as well as almost everyone I witnessed contracting it gets yeah it does so what about the schedule work in half a year sounds pretty awesome right like it does on its face it seems amazing and here's the trap you will rationalize away that you will have more time at home this way like you get all your work done and then your home so whether you're rationalizing this to your spouse yourself your children you're like you know that like if I take this job yeah I'm gonna be gone for this time but then I'm gonna be home for this whole block of time like all of it and you'll rationalize it away know if for whatever reason you have like that magical marriage that can survive contracting or one of those very few that makes it through the military which really and truly takes both partners like 100% on board if you have one of those like you might get through it otherwise like it is rough I'm not saying that's the reason I got divorced but it absolutely contributed to my divorce and I will say like I was right there saying hey like by doing this like I'm only going on half the year make all this money I'll be home half the year this would be great like all this time with my family my kids my friends whatever it is it's not true like you get in this weird place where you basically put the world on hold when you go to work because it's like wool I'm not here anymore I'm not in the state so every we'll be unpause and that's not the way it works Ivan said all this am i saying you shouldn't contract no you do what you want to do make that choice yourself as far as who do I think can actually benefit from it like realistically if you are young and single and important one here have a lot of fiscal discipline which chances are if you're young and single and just came out in the military you may not have that third one but that is who I think honestly could benefit from contracting here's the thing it's a trap it's absolutely a trap you start making over six figures for only working half the year and you start rationalizing everything like oh like I have more time with my kids no no you miss all the important stuff like the important stuff doesn't happen on a plan like the important stuff is like losing the tooth and stuff like that like as stupid as it sounds like no like that's where the important stuff is like it's not in these schedule blocks of time it's these little gyms from like day to day life same thing with a relationship for that matter and what happens is yeah like you're gonna be home and you're gonna have money but there's things you want to do and unless you're single you get home and you have your all of your obligations and you still haven't had time for yourself like yeah you have time to yourself when you're at work but unless like your past time is just playing xbox or something like that like when you get back stateside there's things that you want to do that you weren't able to do and so your time is split and fractured even more and yeah golden handcuffs man because of all those things quitting contracting was absolutely one of the hardest and absolutely one of the best things I did hands down so if you are going to go security contract no matter if you have kids if you don't have kids if you're married if you're single whatever I would encourage you to step into it with an exit strategy like a hard-line exit strategy because what will happen it would be one of the old dudes on contract you'll be in your 60s and you'll be slepping your gear from post to post like no why are they there one they they're made poor financial decisions or two they're in the trap man like oh man one more deployment if I bring a new car then I'll stop and one more deployment like remodel the bathroom there's always one more deployment my buddies and I had joke about the best way of getting out of it is to essentially just go Winchester on a belt-fed like into a Hesco wall or something so that you cannot come back you're basically fired but it is a hard job to get out of so if you enter it do it with an exit plan that is my advice for that but as always thanks for joining us to keep badger calm before to see you next time [Music]

Channel: Kit Badger

Views: 1,180,681

Rating: 4.8677154 out of 5

Keywords: Kit Badger, Gear Reviews, Tactical Gear, contractor, Security, Security Contracting, Security Contracting overseas, Contracting, overseas, Contracting overseas, positives, negatives, Military, Law Enforcement, camaraderie, service

Id: t89R06Xzqr4

Length: 15min 4sec (904 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 18 2019