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-jma
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Pearls before Swine Series
Bug Sweep Wisdom
February 2009.2 Version
By James M. Atkinson, the "Sun Tzu of Bug Sweeps"
A brave man dies but once, but a coward dies a thousand deaths.
It is always better to die on your feet, then to live on your knees
Always dance like nobody is watching.
Do not go gently into that dark night
Do not bring a knife to a gun fight
Forgive your enemies, forget not their names.
A closed mouth attracts no foot.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
Some friends will help you move, but real friends will help you move bodies.
A brave and honest man will still stand up to do
the right thing, and will lift his voice and
speak the truth when it is appropriate to do so.
A coward will sit in the back of the room and keep his mouth shut.
The racking of a shotgun speaks loudly in any languages, and any culture.
"Sie vie pacem, para bellum" (if you want peace, first prepare for war)
When you are traveling always check into your
hotel at least one hour before sunset (or 6 PM
whichever is first), and always call ahead for
reservations. Otherwise, you will end up paying
too much for your room, you will get a bad room, or you may get no room at all.
Assume that hotels will always screw up your
reservations, so always have a backup plan for an
alternate hotel, and then an alternate for your
alternate. Do not forget to cancel the backup
reservations that you do not use once you have checked in to you room.
When everything is coming your way, you are in the wrong lane.
If you actually think, you can drive your car
after a few drinks (or any quantity of alcohol)
you should consider driving a powerful motorcycle
instead, should not wear a helmet, and should
sign an organ donor card as soon as possible.
The most importance thing in your house is the
mattress, linens, and blankets on your bed. Not
the sofa, not the big screen TV, not the stereo.
Keep your priorities straight, and invest in a
good nights sleep and buy a good bed.
If you stay in a hotel try to stay with better
large chains of business hotels, but take care
not to stay at conference hotels as the rooms
will be at least 4 times more expensive then a business hotel.
When you are performing a sweep try to stay at a
hotel that is ten miles or more away from the
site, twenty to thirty miles away is often the
best option. While the driving to and from the
site may be a bit of a hassle it will give you
time to detect and then throw off any
surveillance that may be on you. The 30-45 minute
commute will also give you emotional distance
from the site. This will give the caffeine time
to fully to kick in, and will give you more hotel
options. This will also give you an inventory of
hotels within your coverage zone so that you tend
to use them as a remote base of operation that
are each spaced 50-60 miles apart. A list of
12-15 regular hotels will be sufficient for you
to cover a radius of 200 miles of work space (or
at least 20-25 million people).
When you travel you should bring your own sheets,
and get the kind that are "bug and vermin proof"
and hypo-bacterial. This also applies to your
pillow case covers, your own blankets, and your own quilt.
In a hotel room the nastiest, most disease-laden
items are the TV remote control, the telephone,
and the bed spread. Lysol is available in small
cans for just this sort of thing, but you should consider bringing your own.
Never eat out of, nor drink out of the mini-bar
in a hotel room and avoid the vending machines.
Use room service instead, or better yet go visit
a local grocery store after you check in and buy
$20 worth of groceries, beverages, and snacks.
The difference between the word Cop and Con is
one letter. Trust is hard to gain, and very easy
to loose, never forget this fact.
Never stay at a hotel that does not have room
service available 24 hours a day, but only use it
on rare occasions. Breakfast is always the best room service meal, not dinner.
Room service is always best before 9 PM, so order
your dinner early. If you eat in the restaurant,
be sure to have reservations, and try to be
seated at or before 7 PM for the best food.
A good restaurant will always require a gentleman
to wear a jacket for the evening seating, but a
truly good restaurant will loan him a properly
sized jacket should he not be wearing one.
At a proper establishment, no member of your
group sees you pay the check as it is never
presented at the table, or if the check is
presented at the table, nobody notices that you have covertly paid it.
Always have a few good friends with whom you can
share your thoughts, fears, wants, goals,
desires, and disappointments, and whom will
always give you honest criticism and advice.
You will never have more then five really close
friends in your entire life, and consider
yourself to be blessed if you have only three.
A good friend will always tell you when you are
being a too much of a geek or acting like a horses ass.
"You have to learn the rules of the game. And
then you have to play better than anyone else." - Albert Einstein
Good service is always well tipped, but bad
service is also tipped along with a very discrete complaint to the management.
A gentleman tips for the service which he expects
to receive next time at the establishment, not
for the service he just experienced. Learn what
this means, and why tip money should always flow
freely to the appropriate people, but withheld
from others (ie: one does not tip the owner of a hotel, or the desk clerk).
Nobody should ever see you tip, and the recipient
of the gratuity should not know that a gratuity
is being covertly passed to them until they feel it in their hand.
The most powerful words in business are those of
"Please" and "Thank You", and you should use them often.
Do not spend or obligate money that you have not
yet made, nor spend a check that has not yet
fully cleared the bank. It is alright to make
plans to spend money that has not yet arrived,
but never make business promises for money that is not yet actually in hand.
Credit cards should not be used to finance your
sweep or any other business operations. Instead
use them to obtain hotels rooms, airfare, and
rental cars. Credit cards are not to be used to
purchase sweep gear or for anything where you
have advanced notice of several weeks.
If you live on plastic you can die very quickly.
You should always have sweep work pending, sweep
work that is pre-paid and on the schedule, sweep
work that is in process, sweep work that you have
just completed but are awaiting payment, and then
follow-on or continuing sweep work or projects.
Big sweeps are the big bricks that hold up the
wall, but small sweeps are the mortar and cement
that holds the bigger bricks (or sweeps)
together. A wall that is made of either all
bricks or all mortar will be weak and will
quickly collapse in bad times. Without small
sweeps you will starve, and without the large sweeps you will not grow.
Even in good times, always except the small sweep jobs.
Pay for new equipment and training out of the
revenues of larger sweeps, but never from the small sweeps.
Take time to think in the middle of doing. A few
minutes of thinking can save hours of doing.
Doing without thinking is dangerous; thinking
without doing is misguided. Sometimes we must do and think at the same time.
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he
should fear never beginning to live."
- Marcus Aelius Aurelius
Make sure that you control your sweep equipment,
and that it does not control you. Meditate on
this for a while, for it is one of the great secrets of the TSCM business.
Keep your sweep equipment in good repair, and
operational at all times. A few minutes of
checking out your equipment the night before you
start a sweep can prevent six hours of utter on-site chaos, or a missed bug.
Check the batteries in your sweep gear before you
start the sweep and then again before you put the
equipment away at the end of the sweep to minimize any unpleasant surprises
Many TSCM specialist have missed bugs because the
batteries in their own equipment were either weak or completely dead.
No piece of sweep equipment can replace a
flashlight, a proper ladder, and the eyes of a
TSCM specialist. This is also one of the great
secrets of how to perform a proper bug sweep.
When in doubt always wear long sleeved button
down oxford shirts, a crew neck T-shirt, and a
tie. But, always pack a couple of polo shirts so
that you can match your client's dress code.
Metallic watch bands, rings, cuff links, tie
tacks, ear rings, nose rings, eyebrow piercings,
or other conductors have no business being worn by a sweep person.
When in doubt wear a dark suit, a white, long
sleeved, button down oxford shirt, and a muted
tie. Shoes and socks should always be black leather, as should the belt.
If you have a tattoo, keep it fully covered up
and concealed while on a sweep. Nobody really
cares what kind of motorcycle you drive, the name
of your first love, or your relationship for your
mother. It is alright for you to have body art, just keep it concealed.
Attention, both gendersÂ… please wear a clean
white crew neck undershirt with sleeves under
your button down oxford dress shirt when working.
Please shower once in the evening and once in the
morning, and apply anti-perspirant, and use only
the slightest hint of cologne.
Fresh underclothes every morning is also a real
winner, and is something that many people do not
pay attention to much to the annoyance and disgust of their customer.
Fresh socks every morning is also a must, and
bring at least two sets of shoes so that you can rotate them on alternate days.
Brush your teeth three times a day, always use
mouthwash in the morning and after every meal.
Carry a tin of breath mints on you are all times.
Know when to wear a suit, and when to wear jeans
and a flannel shirt on a sweep.
Always carry a pocket sized notebook, a small
ruler, and two ball point pens or pencils on a
sweep. Learn to take copious notes, and always
write down the date and time of each note.
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
Learn how to use a ball point pen or key ring as
an edged weapon, and learn when to use it to save your life.
Do not cheat at golf, ever; it is the game of the
honor of a true gentleman. Be truthful on your
handicap, tip your caddy well, and never carry
your own bags. Other players will always remember
your cheats and mulligans, and will expect the
same from you in business and thus never trust
you. Golf is all about business and honor, learn
to play it, you will learn much. Meditate on this
until you understand why this is so important.
Learn to play chess well, and to moderate your
play to match your opponents skill level. It is
more about having a pleasant two way play, and
less about winning in seven moves or less. Be
able to both play chess and to teach chess. The
best way to learn chess is to teach it to a
child, and to never win more then 50% of your
matches. Sometimes it is about controlling
yourself, and reigning in your capabilities, and
less about winning. Learn why this is important in business.
Learn to play blackjack and poker well, to the
point that you are not welcome in certain
casinos. Learn why this is important to TSCM and
Intelligence activities in general.
A wise person stays away from casinos except for
the occasional free buffet or to play the quarter slots on a rare occasion.
If you are highly skilled in mathematics you may
successfully play casino blackjack on your own,
but never as a team effort. Blackjack is a game
of pure mathematics, and is the only game in a
casino where you have even the slightest chance
of leaving with more money then you came with.
For this reason, casinos do not like blackjack
players, or they manipulate the games to put the
odds strongly in the houses favor. Scientists,
engineers, and physicians tend to be very good
with blackjack, but bad at poker.
Poker in all its forms and variants is the game
of the true sociopath, and it is all about
reading and manipulating people. You can only
play it well if you understand both yourself, and
other people. Politicians and salesmen tend to be
very good at poker, but very bad at blackjack.
If someone is good at playing both blackjack and
poker, they should be considered very dangerous
at anything they do, and to be the consummate
predator. Many spies, soldiers, and military
leaders can do this, and they make the most exquisite cold blooded spy hunters.
If you work for someone for a living do not try
to delude yourself into thinking your little
moonlighting TSCM jobs means that you are self
employed. Instead you have nothing more then a
hobby with benefits. You are only self-employed
when you earn 100% of your income from the work
of your own hands, and you answer to nobody but your clients.
Never conceal from your customers that you are
moonlighting, because someday your customer will
tell your employer about the projects you have
been doing for them so that he can make a
referral for your services. While your customer
has good intentions in doing this your boss is
never going to trust you again, and you may or
may not find yourself unemployed and not understand why.
If you are moonlighting, be sure your customer
knows where you work, and who your boss is to avoid such ugliness.
If you are moonlighting, make sure that your
daytime employer knows about your
hobby-with-benefits, and that both your boss and
your supervisor know what you do outside of
company time. Do not use your employer's
equipment or use your employer's time or other
resources in support of your moonlighting unless
you have express written permission to do so, and
update this written permission once a year.
If you are moonlighting, and using your employers
equipment or any resource of your employer
without express permission then you are stealing from them.
Stealing is stealing, and there is no gray area
is matters such as this, never forget this.
To learn a subject, try to teach it to someone else.
Become highly proficient with small arms, but
pray that you never need to use them except as a last resort.
Always be discrete about small arms, and make
every effort to ensure that nobody knows that you are packing.
A hit with a .22 LR is better then a miss with a .44 magnum.
Never draw a sidearm in anger, and never for
anything other then immediate self defense.
Only a fool fires warning shots or brandishes
sidearm in an attempt to scare away trouble.
Carry it in a proper holster, and not your waistband.
New ways are not always better, neither are the
old ways. Learn why this is not always true, and
learn when to stay on course, and when to change your path.
There is no better discipline for a TSCM
specialist than to build a structure, a house,
office building, or a barn. The same hold true
for designing and installing computer networks,
phone systems, and data systems. This is one of
the great secrets of learning about TSCM and bug
sweeps, for if you know nothing about
construction you have no reason to be in the business.
All TSCM specialists must have some level of
knowledge and hands-on training and experience
with locksmithing and alarms systems, not so that
they can actually install and repair locks and
alarms for a living, but so that they can detect
poorly installed, manipulated, or weak locks and alarms.
If a TSCM specialist is a master locksmith and an
expert with alarm systems they can make a
significant income doing these things when they are not doing sweeps.
Learn to write computer programs from scratch in
C or C++ and develop your own TSCM software that
you use on your own sweeps and which you never
sell outside of your own operation.
At least once in your life delivery a baby into
the world, and then afterwards examine your life thus far.
The ability to wash your own windshield, fill
your own gas tank, and change the engine oil in
your car does not mean that you are an auto
mechanic. A true mechanic can rebuild an engine
by himself, and can strip the vehicle down to the
raw chassis rails and rebuilt it better that the
factory. Ditto with sweep equipment and a real
TSCM specialists, you are poser and a faker
unless you can Frankenstein your own equipment.
Facing a problem and fixing it is easier than complaining about it.
"Our games don't end in ties" - anonymous
Real men drink beer out of bottle or chilled
glass, not out of a can. They also know when to
stop drinking, and know not to drive after any drinking.
Root beer, ginger soda, orange soda, and crème
soda are all to be consumed from a chilled bottle
or glass, and in the same fashion as any other bottled beverage.
Only a fool makes light of someone who prefers to
be a moderate drinker, or someone who prefers to
avoid alcohol outright. A good host will always
ensure that non-alcoholic beverages are always
discretely available to all guests, along with
coffee, teas, and other non-intoxicating drinks.
Being out on a sweep, doesn't not mean that you
are on vacation, and that you are free to pickle
your liver and party until 2 AM.
Strippers, hookers, massage parlors, porn,
recreational drugs, alcohol, and other such
immature foolishness have no place when you are
on business trips. For that matter, these things
should have little or no place in your personal life either.
If you are bored at the end of the day while on a
sweep, and have trouble getting to sleep, then you are not working hard enough.
When you are on a sweep, be sure to eat an early
dinner so that there is at least 3 hours between
your main course being eaten and you going to bed.
At the end of each day, before going to bed write
yourself a memo where you summarize the previous
days work, and what you plan to accomplish during
the next day. This is called making a plan, and
it is something that few people ever do.
The best cure for insomnia while in a hotel room
after a full day of sweeps is work on your report.
Be sure that you are getting a solid 8 hours of
actual restful sleep each night, and eat a really
good breakfast before you head out to the job site.
Never forget that you are the most important
piece of sweep gear in your inventory, and that
you always need a full night sleep, and at least
two good meals each day to be most effective.
Try not to be on a job site or in transit for
more then 12 hours in any given 24 hour
period. Longer hours may occasionally be needed,
but your plan should be to work 8-10 hours per
day, but have the capability to extend this to
16-18 hours when there is no other option.
Sweep people do not take lunch breaks that
involve more then 5-10 minutes so that they can
grab a can of soup or sandwich and then to get
back to work. If you want a one hour lunch then
become a construction worker or banker.
The television at the hotel can cost you a
fortune in lost time and productivity. When on a
sweep limit yourself to no more then 30-60
minutes of news, and no more then two hours for a
movie or your favorite shows. All total you
should not be watching television or movies for
ore then 2-3 hours when on a sweep.
When staying in a hotel never go to bed with the
television left on, and never rely on the alarm
clock in the hotel to work. Instead bring your
own battery powered alarm clock to use as a
backup to the one the hotel provides.
Take time each day after the work is done to do
nothing. Just to sit quietly by yourself, to
think, and to clear your mind. Let your mind go
blank, and just let yourself breath. God invented
bathtubs, commodes, tree stumps, and comfortable
chairs for mediations like this.
Consider everybody to be honest, honorable, and
hardworking, until they show you otherwise on at least three occasions.
Always try to generously and anonymously help
others, and never expect or ask for anything in return.
The fewer people that you involve in your
charitable activities the better. When you are
ready to perform charitable acts everybody will
want to help you but they will want a little of
your charity to stick to them in the form of
political favors, publicity, or raw percentages.
Do not let the agendas of others contaminate your own.
Try to always do more for others than they do for
youÂ… but be quiet about it, and keep it private.
When you give to someone to help them out, give
until it hurts, and then give some more... this
is true sacrifice, and it is something you should do often.
Help feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, help
to bury the dead, and comfort the grieving. Help
your local community, neighbors, friends, and
family first before you waste time and money
trying to help someone who you do not know on the other side of the globe.
Remember, half the people you know are below average.
Visit people in nursing homes and hospitals,
because someday you may live in one and will be
lonely when nobody comes to visit you.
Learn how to suture a wound or injuries of
another person, both literally and figuratively.
Know how to give a hug and provide a strong
shoulder or arm, but also how to throw some 2-0
silk or apply a splint, swath, and sling.
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.
Learn CPR and First Aid well, and recertify every
six months. Pray you never need to use it, and
when you do use it pray that you remember your
training. Carry a set of reflective triangles,
fire extinguisher, AED, oxygen tank, and a first
aid kit on all sweep vehicles, and know how and
when to use them as you can relieve much suffering with these item.
Giving a warm blanket, a good coat, new socks and
good shoes to someone who needs these things will
alleviate much misery in your fellow man.
Children often need these things, and well as the
homeless, the old, and the infirm. Learn how to
obtain and supply these things to others, but how to do so anonymously.
Stay current on all your immunizations, and get a
flu shot every Fall, and a pneumonia shot every five to ten years.
Have an annual physical when in good health, and
more often if ill. These check-ups should be at
least 90 minutes long and should check you out from head to toe.
Always tell the truth to your physician, even if
it is an ugly truth, for they always have your
best interests at heart. However, there are some
truths that should not find their way into your
medical records, and which should remembered by
the physician and not written down.
Obtain a Commercial Drivers License, and Medical
Examiners card, and stay current on all your
endorsements. Most sweep vehicles are mandated by
federal law as commercial vehicles, so having a
CDL, CPR, and Medical Examiners card in your
wallet is a real quick way a customer or others
to determine if you are for real or not and not just another poser.
Whores pose in front of their equipment
collection in a feeble attempt to prove to the
world that they actually own more then a $99 bug
detector. However, the poor, inexperience sweeper
who does this look like a whore on display in a
brothel window. Ditto for the TSCM'er who feels
that they need to prove that they have
such-and-such equipment for sweeps. Both are
whores, just of different types, learn why.
Learn what the word poser means.
As the wind blows, so all politicians bend.
The size of the dust cloud tells us little about the traveler.
The drive home or to your hotel from a sweep at 2
AM is always longer than the drive at 6 AM you
took to get to the sweep location that morning.
Owning a lot of expensive cameras does not make
you a photographer, deal with it. It only becomes
art when someone can see a soul in the picture.
Ditto for sweep gear, fancy equipment, and camera
equipment means nothing and are only children's
toys unless you own the methods and techniques first.
Do not make a mistake by only using bug sweep
equipment make by TSCM companies, but rather use
some TSCM gear, some basic electronics test
equipment, some communications test equipment,
and construction and physical inspections tools
and equipment. In fact the majority of your
equipment should not be TSCM equipment or you are
setting up a situation that will lead to your failure.
If a piece of equipment is important to you, then
you need to have at least two of them at all
times. This applies to ladders, voltmeters,
spectrum analyzers, and TSCM equipment.
Take all measurements three times, and then with
at least two different pieces of equipment. If
all six measurements do not match, or they are
not even close then you need to investigate why.
For every 10,000 amateur photographers there are
5 true professional photographers, do not expect
this ratio to be different in the sweep profession.
Clients will look at your shoes and tie before your resume.
Bring two full sets of clothes to every sweep
project to include extra boxed shirts, and
pressed silk ties. Do not be afraid to change
your tie and shirt every 3-4 hours while working.
Your client should never know that you have
brought extra clothes, and they should never
suspect that you have changed clothes.
An academic degree or title only belongs on your
business card if you are a practicing medical
physician, or a professor at a university, or
engaged in an activity involved in academic pursuits such as research.
If you went to college for eight years, please
feel free not to put it on your business card.
Your PhD is only important when you are less then
30 years old, after that age your academic
degrees are best kept out of sight and your
reputation allowed to speak for itself. Learn why
this is true, and why this is something that some people never learn.
A D.O., Chiropractor, Naturalist is not a real
doctor, and they are more likely to cause you
pain and misery when you really need to see a
real doctor. Know when it is appropriate to see a
real doctor, and when it is all right to seek out alternate medicine.
You cannot work inside a 12-foot ceiling, by
standing on a 6 foot ladder. If you do not
understand why, then you are in the wrong business.
Know the phone number of the nearest emergency
room and 24 hour drug store with full time
pharmacy that is nearest to the hotel where you
are staying, or the job site where you will be working.
Obtain the direct dial numbers for the Attending
Physicians on staff and the Triage nurse and know
when to call without going through the switch
board at 3 AM. Always ask for a fast track so
that you can get in and out within 90 minutes for minor illnesses or injuries.
Learn that a hospital that gets paid by an
insurance company will try to keep you in the
emergency room for five or more hours. If you are
paying cash (on the spot), most emergency rooms
can get you in and out in under one or two hours
for non-serious visits. Along these lines always
make sure you always carry $500 in cash to pay
your medical bills on the spot to help get you
out of the emergency room faster.
For non-critical injuries or illnesses it may be
more timely to drive 20-30 miles away from where
you are currently to be seen in an emergency room
in a small community instead of the emergency
rooms of a major city. Very often the smaller
hospitals can get you into an ER bed right away,
and can get you discharged in under two hours.
The fastest way to get a bed in an emergency room
is to arrive by ambulance, but if you do arrive
by ambulance you can expect to stay for at least
a solid 4-6 hours. If you have a serious injury
you can plan to stay in the emergency room for 12
hours or more. If you are seriously ill this
extra time is to observe you and ensure that you are stable enough to go home.
If you only need an antibiotic, a muscle
relaxant, or a half dozen stitches to close an
open wound there is no reason for the hospital to keep you for 12 hours.
Always be nice to everybody in the emergency
room. Just because you have been there for four
hours to have a splinter removed from your
pinkie, does not mean that you have been
forgotten about. Rather it may be that the
patient three rooms away may be about to die and
the ER staff has been fighting to save the
patients life for the past six hours.
If you are in pain when you arrive in the ER,
please request some kind of pain medication
within 30 minutes of your arrival so that your
time in the ER is a pain free as possible. This
will help you from becoming impatient and crabby,
and will allow people who are much more injured
then you to be tended to first. If you are
arriving by ambulance ask the paramedics for
something (by IV) to alleviate your suffering.
If you do not like the way that you are treated
in the hospital immediately ask to speak to the
attending physician, the patient advocate, or the
head of nursing. Hospitals really do take
complaints seriously, but since so few patient
know how to properly complain they very rarely hear about problems.
You can refuse to have a specific medical person
not touch you, so if you do not want medical
students, or a particular grumpy nurse from
touching your you can tell them to go away.
However the "grumpy nurse" is often the best one
on staff, and you are just being a really
difficult patient. Never loose sight of this, and be nice.
If you get a grumpy nurse or doctor, explain to
them that you can understand that they may be
having a bad day, and explain that you are having
a pretty bad day as well, but you appreciate them helping you.
When in the hospital or emergency room, listen to
the advice of your doctor, but only if they have
completed their residency and are either a fellow or attending physician.
An M.D. after a persons name just means that the
graduated from medical school, not that they have
the experience to treat you. An intern is still a
medical school student, and a resident is someone
who has graduated from medical school, but who
lacks the experience to yet be fully trusted by
hospital. All should be working under the close
supervision of an attending physician.
Always keep in mind that medical school students,
interns, and residents are still in training. It
is OK for them to talk with you, to examine you,
to give you stitches, and perform minor
procedures, but you can always request that these
people not treat you (and you can wait for hours
until the attending has some free time).
Not everybody in a hospital is a doctor or a
nurse, and there are many, many "technicians" and
aides who actually know little or nothing about
medical care and who are barely making minimum
wage. You can always ask for an IV nurse or
doctor to draw your blood instead of a lab tech,
and can ask for a nurse to help you instead of a
nurses aid or assistant. Learn how this applies
to bug sweeps and TSCM, and why one highly
training TSCM person can be better then twelve
warm bodies, and why this does not always apply.
You doctors and nurses will not be offended if
you ask them to change their gloves or wash their
hands or instruments before touching you. In fact
most will have already done just this just before entering your room.
Only trust medical advice that comes from a
medical doctor who has more then four years of
experience out of medical school (not some 20 something wonder kid).
Remember that Nurses are not medical doctors.
Carry an abbreviated medical history on your
person at all times, to include all allergies to
anything, any medications, drugs, supplements, or
herbs you are taking, what current medication
conditions you have, or have had. Include all
your emergency contact data, and include your
insurance data or your credit card numbers. This could save your life.
Always have a will, and have a close friend,
spouse, or family member designated as the
executor of your estate and who also has power of
attorney over your affairs. Also, along these
same lines have someone who is reliable and
trustworthy designated to act in your behalf
should you ever suddenly become disabled or
unable to function. Make sure that this person
has studied your will, knows its contents, and
knows how you want things handled.
When you travel always carry a full a one to two
week supply of medications with you in your carry
on luggage. Then always keep your carry on
luggage with you at all times when you are
traveling so that if your hotel room gets robbed
you will still have plenty of your of meds
available. If you have to consume any medication
out of your carry on kit you should refresh it as soon as possible.
If you ever travel overseas purchase a special
insurance policy for emergency medical
evacuation, and designate in the policy which hospital(s) they can take you to.
In the hospital, the best bed is usually the one next to the window.
ICE your phone, your wallet, your passport, and
your luggage. Learn what this means.
A degree from a diploma mill or "Distance
College" will always make you look like a
complete fool, it is just that you may be too
obtuse and uneducated to realize it.
Learn what the word "obtuse" means.
If you did not have to stop at DOT scales when
you crossed the state lines and maintain drivers
logbooks, then you have the wrong kind of sweep vehicle.
It's OK to be a nerd, but never be dorkÂ… learn the difference between the two.
The best way to learn is in the Socratatic and
Didactic methods, learn why, and learn to master
both methods as both a teacher and a student.
When in any classroom; learn to talk to the
teacher, ask questions, and actually make an
effort to learn something from each other.
Teaching is always a two way group effort, and it
requires that the teacher do more then stand in
front of the room and spew forth dry materials.
Unless the teacher or instructor can see the
light behind the student's eyes, they have no
business teaching and should seek other pursuits.
Learn what this means, and apply it to both your
own educations, the education of your family.
If you are teaching and you can not see that
light or see nside the heads of your students
then you are wasting everybody's time.
Never confuse a teachers with a babysitter, or a
teacher with a salesman. Learn what this means.
As a student you should never just passively sit
and say nothing as the teacher will not know if
you are absorbing the materials being presented.
Most students never engage the instructors, and
most instructors never engage the students. Learn
to be both a good student, and an engaging
teacher, as you will be in both positions many times in your life.
A good teacher was first a good student.
Teach Sunday school to children, and be amazed to
learn of love, grace, and faith from them in its purest form.
A teacher must master the materials before they
can teach it, and they must be able to see inside
the minds of the students in real-time as they
teach to see if what they are teaching is being
absorbed by the student or they are not actually
teaching but rather just lecturing and wasting everybody's time.
A good TSCM person has mastered his craft to the
point that he can explain technical material in
simple, non-technical understandable terms to
anybody from a six year old child to a multi-billionaire CEO.
White hair and a beard does not indicates
experience, just an illusion of such. Learn when this is not always true.
The more honest a man is, the less he has to tell
you about it. Along these same lines, the more
references or endorsements a person provides to
you or the more names they drop the more of a
true charlatan you can expect them to be.
All real bug sweeps and TSCM require the use of a
ladder. If you do sweeps professionally you need
lots of ladders, and vehicles that allow you to
transport the ladders inside the vehicle. As you
will usually need a six and eight foot folding
ladder on all sweeps, and periodically need a
twelve foot folding ladder or 20 foot extension
ladders. Thus the inside cargo area of your
vehicle will need to be at least 12 feet long.
Inspect your ladders before and after any use, as
it is quite unpleasant for you to come crashing
the ground when the laws of gravity decide to
teach you a painful equipment lesson.
The taller the ladder the more likely it is that
you could get hurt. While crashing to the ground
from the top of a 15 foot ladder is pretty
serious, you can also suffer lethal injury by falling off a 4 foot step ladder.
There is no place for wooden or metal ladders in
our business; fiberglass will keep you from getting killed.
When on a ladder keep a little neon bulb circuit
tester in your pocket and touch it to any ceiling
track before you touch it. Ditto for any conduit
or lighting fixtures you find. This may well save
your live, or at a minimum keep you from serious injury.
Keep a little money in the bank, a little in your
mattress, but the majority of it in your
educations, the tools of your trade, and your
business operation. Of these, the time and monies
you spend on your own education will result in
the greatest return-on-investment, and will
result in the strongest long term stability of your finances.
Keep at least six months of personal expense
money for food, rent, utilities, etc. in the form
of cash in the bank at all times, and another six
months stored in a fire-proof safe in your house.
Keep this money separate from any business funds,
and only use it to personally support yourself in
an emergency for at least one year. As time goes
on you should built this up to at least three
years of monies, do not consider this is be
retirement money, but rather only personally
emergency or survival money. This is not for
medical bills, down payments on houses or
vehicles, legal bills, bail money, or even money
that you can use for your kids college fund.
Rather this is for actual life safety and
personal emergencies where you may have to either
evacuate, hunker down, put out the fire, buy a
generator, clean the guns, stock up the larder, and so on.
Purchase insurance on everything that is
important in your life, this should include not
only your equipment, vehicles, property, and
assets, but also your own health, possible
medical disability or yourself, and even the
lives of yourself, all close family members, and
all sweep people or critical employees who work for you.
Open a retirement fund when you are very young
and still in your teens, and add part of your
paycheck to it on a regular basis. This must be
an ultra-low risk investment, and U.S. Savings
Bonds in a safety deposit box are always a real long term winner.
You must have some type of investments that are
volatile in nature and risky in order to make
significant profits on your investments. But do
not stray into this mine-field until after you
have both your emergency funds and retirement
funds established and well developed.
Do not invest any money in stocks unless you read
the Wall Street Journal from cover to cover every
single day for at least one year, and understand
what forces drive the market. Be prepared to lose
every penny you invest in the stock market, and
never delude yourself into thinking that any stock is actually safe.
Treat your employees like family, pay them all a
good wage, be liberal with all perks and
benefits, and give them part of the proceeds of
any project they are involved in as a bonus.
Do not wait until the end of the year to give
away bonus money, but rather let it flow freely
throughout the year as it is earned.
Give all employees feedback on their performance
as often as possible, but do so with tact, and in
private if there is a problem. All employees
should get some kind of feedback from you at
least once a week, more often if you canÂ… but be sincere.
Employees should respect you, not fear you. Learn when this is not true.
Anybody who will steal for you will steal from
you. Never trust them, and discharge them as soon as possible.
Make sure that all of your employees are
comfortable financially, emotionally, socially,
and physically. Learn why a genuine pat on the
back will always get you more in the long run then a kick to the behind.
Never lend money to an employee, if you want to
help them out then pay them more, or do something
indirect to bail them out, but it may be unwise
to give them money directly. When you do assist
an employee in this manner nobody else should know about it in your company.
Money can actually be toxic is some relationships, learn what this means.
Know your employees problems or weaknesses, and help them overcome them.
Employees works for you for the money. They work
for you because you are a good leader, and you
give them a pleasant working environment. The
money must be secondary, and never be so obtuse
as to threaten someone's paycheck over their performance.
Leadership is all about being able to do the job
yourself, but inspiring others to follow you and
to assist you in getting the job done. At its
core, leadership is always about doing it yourself, never forget this fact.
Leadership is all about making clones of
yourself, and letting them do your job.
Always praise your employees publically, and only
criticize in private. Even then, only criticize
very rarely, and do it with compassion and respect.
Learn to sweep your own floors, make your own
coffee, and answer your own phone.
There is much wisdom in this, learn why.
Never run up a total amount of credit card debt
that you can not pay in full every month.
Ideally, you should be able to pay off all
plastic debt with your profits for two weeks or less.
If you use a credit card, learn how to make
anticipatory payments when you travel or make
large purchases. This will annoy your credit card
company, learn why. This will also ensure that
you are never late on a bill, and why your credit
limits will be way higher then anybody else you know.
If your banker is not in your office just to say
hello every 90 days or so then you are not
dealing with a real banker, or you are not a real customer.
If you ever have any problems with your bank
accounts you should expect your banker to visit
YOUR office or home at the time that is
convenient to you to help resolve the problem,
and to apologize for the error and not the other way around.
Learn what "Private Banking" means.
Work within the time the client allowed you to
access the premises. Let your client's wants,
needs, and access always direct your efforts.
But, do not let the client tell you how to do a
sweep, but rather let then define the parameters under which you operate.
The client should never have to conform to your
needs, but rather the other way around.
If the person who you are dealing with cannot get
a retainer check cut, and sent to you within 48
hours then you may not want to be dealing with
them as they likely lack the authority to engage
you in the first place, and you may never see the
money that you are due for the sweep.
Sweep payment terms are always half up front
(plus anticipated expenses), and the balance when
the report is provided. For some project you may
want to get the entire balance up front, well in
advance. In other cases, for established client
you may let them pay at the end of the service.
Some executives only want to issue one payment
for the TSCM services, and they are more then
happy to provide this payment well in advance of
the services actually being provided. When this
happens always give the customer much more then
they are paying for, and go out of your way to do a fantastic job for them.
While it is permissible to provide terms of "10/0
Net 10" you do not provide terms of Net 15, or
Net 30 unless you are an utter fool.
The more paperwork that you provide to your
clients accounting department the more likely
that it is the secrecy of the sweep will be
compromised. With this in mind the executive who
engages you should arrange for a check to be
manually cut to them which they send to you in
order to keep you out of their regular accounting
systems for at least a few weeks after the sweep is completed.
Learn why most rumors and leaks originate from
the accounting department, sales and marketing
departments, and then the computer/MIS
department. Accept this fact, deal with it, plan
appropriately, and make sure none of these
departments know anything of your project.
Some computer security people are just glorified
systems administrators, learn the difference
between the two. Some security people barely make
a good night watchmen, floorwalker, or bodyguard.
Just because somebody has the word "security" in
their title does not mean they know anything about it.
Sometimes you can only get into an office for
one, single frantic 16 hour session as the office
is only available for a very narrow, single shot
sweep, and other times you can spend 3-4 days
inside a single room. Have the capability to
operate under either condition or everything in between.
With some customers you can come rolling in with
twelve TSCM people and twenty thousand of pounds
of equipment and then run six or more people in
the office 24 hours a day for an entire week, but
in other cases the client can only get a single
person in with a couple of briefcases, for one afternoon or evening.
Learn to smoothly operate with a minimum number
of people on-site, and to be as invisible to the eavesdropper as possible.
If you are going to be performing sweeps
professionally you must keep the following tenets
in your mind at all times, and repeat them in
your mind until they become deeply integrated into all of your activities:
Know your client
Know his threat
Know your own equipment
Know your own weaknesses and strengths
Know bugging equipment
Know the eavesdropper
Know the laws of physics
Work within the time you are given
Work with what equipment you have on hand
Cover all the bases
Overlap all equipment coverage
Pay careful attention to details, for it is the
details that we use to catch the eavesdropper.
Keep a written notebook that contains a record of
everything you did on the sweep.
Miss nothing; take your time to do a good job.
Keep your clients secrets
Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened?
At least two smoke detectors on every floor, plus
one at the top of all stairways.
One carbon monoxide alarm close to the floor, and
anything that burns, heats, or cooks something,
plus one carbon monoxide alarm and smoke detector in each and every bedroom.
Always refuel your fuel tank before it reaches
half-empty. Stopping for gas is easier then walking for gas.
Diesel is better then gas for large vehicles, learn why.
All TSCM people know what NIMS, ICS, COG, COOP,
EOP, EOC all mean, and perform their sweep
activities to be fully compliant with these
matters. If you do not know why, then learn or find another occupation.
Never forget to fart, and learn to take pride in it.
Buying a violin at a pawnshop does not make you a
concert violinist. Much the same way that buying
a pile of bug sweep equipment on E-Bay does not
make you a competent bug sweeper.
He who laughs last thinks slowest.
Some of life's best lessons were learned early in kindergarten:
Always wash your hands.
Do not run with scissors.
Play nice with the other kids.
Bring enough candy for everybody.
Solve Your Own Problems.
Don't hit people; keep you hands and feet to yourself.
Don't call other people names.
No yelling or cussing.
Never hurt anyone on the inside or the outside.
Play fair.
Work as a team.
Always do your best.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Be a good listener.
Respect others and their property.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Use kind words.
Flush.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some
and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
When you go out in the world, watch out for
traffic, hold hands and stick together.
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World Class, Professional, Ethical, and Competent Bug Sweeps, and
Wiretap Detection using Sophisticated Laboratory Grade Test Equipment.
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James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803
Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467
127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web:
http://www.tscm.com/
Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 E-mail: mailto:jm..._at_tscm.com
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We perform bug sweeps like it's a full contact sport, we take no prisoners,
and we give no quarter. Our goal is to simply, and completely stop the spy.
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Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:15 CST