On the day shift, my 12 hours of duty begin early — I’m up when most students are just falling out of the taxi. I check on my sleeping daughter, then after squats and porridge, it’s off to unlock all the buildings on campus so the teaching staff can start early.

Unlike some campus security guards I’ve seen on YouTube, my colleagues and I don’t get to fly around on Segways or golf buggies. Every assignment, barring emergencies at remote sites, is completed on foot. The latest recruit to our shift says her Fitbit recorded almost 14 miles in one day. If you’re running to provide first aid or chasing escaped ducklings out of the coffee shop, the mileage can be even more impressive. The longest I’ve ever run in one go was the half mile from campus into the town center to find two winos passed out in both entrances to our finance building. It was rush hour, so the roads were clogged: I ran because driving would have been pointless. All the while, I kept praying that both intruders weren’t violent or train wreck drunks.

Throughout the day we’re on call for everything from newly arrived freshmen — they often need directions, keys and reassurance — to royal visits and pizza deliveries. Our rule of thumb is to treat everyone on campus, and in the immediate surroundings, the same: I’ll never forget the call we got about an “unconscious tramp” in a toilet cubicle who turned out to be a tutor overindulging in Candy Crush on his lunch hour.

We don’t carry weapons, and we don’t have the right to search students unless they agree to it. Luckily, it seems most drug users are smart enough to feed their habit outside of smell range. Still, there’s always one student who thinks he can indulge in something illicit and still appear normal. To the ravers out there: Rest assured, our teen years and twenties were spent as recklessly as yours. When you come to us for help with pupils like tunnels and a gleaming forehead, we know it’s not because you’re carsick.