It was 1981. Greg and I had just arrived in Las Vegas and since neither one of us had gotten a job yet, we were both considering all of our options.
On one of Greg’s interviews, he heard about an opening with Western Security Consultants as an undercover investigator. He suggested that I give them a call and try to set up an appointment. Even though I had no experience in this area, I had nothing to lose by checking it out. I made an appointment with Ron Slay, the owner of the company. Ron said that he was looking for someone to do “secret shopping” jobs as well as undercover work. Since I had had a lot of experience doing all different kinds of jobs as well as office work, he thought that I could probably do the job and write the necessary reports.
My first actual job was as a secret shopper for Tony Roma’s. I would go to the restaurant, eat and drink, then write up a report detailing the entire experience. For this I would be paid $10 an hour as well as have all of my food and drinks paid for. Sweet!!! I knew that I was going to like this job. Many, many, more restaurants and bars followed, as well as some casinos. I was good at my job and highly effective.
Several months into my secret shopper job, I was offered a real undercover job. I was about to go to work for Paul Anka’s Jubilation Disco/Nightclub. I managed to get myself hired as a cocktail waitress and not only would I be getting paid for that job but I was also getting paid to report back as an undercover investigator. These jobs were not only fun but they were also very profitable.
Soon after my job at Jubilation ended, things started to slow down at Western Security Consultants so I decided to accept a job with a competing security firm, Whitney Investigations. I had some experience under my belt and Whitney Investigations had a lot of work for me to do. I worked undercover in many different areas of many different casinos. I worked for retail stores, carpet factories, restaurants and bars. I even followed cheating spouses. One of the last jobs that I worked, was as an undercover investigator in conjunction with the Las Vegas Police Department. It involved a drug bust with dealers selling to young teens.
Since most of the work that I did was highly confidential, you can understand why I can’t get into too much detail about most of my jobs. I think that you can see that it was an extremely varied and interesting job. Towards the end I also started feeling like it could be potentially dangerous so I decided to quit and get into a safer occupation. I really liked my work in this field and it was an exciting adventure in my list of careers.
