Posted: 2/8/2009 10:33:24 PM EDT
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It used to be we had to worry about the dangers on the road. Nowadays my worries come from within the department. Awful, monday morning quarterbacking supervisors mostly. Guys who couldn't hack it on the road and now sit behind a desk telling us how we should have handled something.
It's pretty much been like this my whole career so it's not a shock to me. I love to listen to the old guys talk about "the way it used to be" when the admin actually supported you and stuck up for you. Must have been great. Try to do the right thing now or try to help someone out and it only leads to headaches. Common sense has been removed from the profession. Doesn't matter if you actually made a difference as long as you "cover your bases" Please feel free to vent away. |
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How about the insane amount of policies?
Potentially getting fired for shooting somebody with the wrong brand of firearm or ammunition? The thread over on AR Discussions regarding somebody's department requiring chamber flags on their patrol rifles? Lots to vent about Edit: In our union/association monthly newsletter, there is a section that talks about department history. This month there was an blurb saying that in 1909, officers shot a burglar that was trying to flee after leaving a vacant house! Imagine the tornado if that happened today. AND the officers got citizens to assist them to surround the house. These days you would probably be sued and fired if a citizen helps you and gets hurt. |
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My place started that change about 7 years ago, atleast I got a good 7years of the "old school" time under my belt before the change. To much politics, to many policies and to many supervisors who 1) have no business being supervisors (last night rotation I worked the Sgt favorite phrase to me was " what do we do?" or 2) will write you up for something that you saw them do the day before they got promoted.
J- |
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Law enforcement is changing and not for the better. I'm tired of holding hands and singing around the fire as the city burns to the ground.
The patrolmen is where the work gets done. At some point though you have to decide to stop bitching about the changes and do something to fix it. After 9 years of running a beat and getting in trouble for doing my job, I got tired of the lazy supervisors finding fault in my actions because they had to put down their sandwich and come out in the field. I got promoted to sergeant and take care of every person on my relief. No matter what I'm doing, at work or not I'll help any of my people anyway I can, within the rules. I regularly get calls from beat cops not on my shift asking for advise. I have never went home without all my people being in, I stay until everyone is in and all the paperwork is complete. Stop complaining about your bosses or the policy of your department. Lead by example, get promoted and change things. Be the supervisor that everyone wants, then encourage others to get promoted and follow your example. |
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Quoted:
Law enforcement is changing and not for the better. I'm tired of holding hands and singing around the fire as the city burns to the ground. The patrolmen is where the work gets done. At some point though you have to decide to stop bitching about the changes and do something to fix it. After 9 years of running a beat and getting in trouble for doing my job, I got tired of the lazy supervisors finding fault in my actions because they had to put down their sandwich and come out in the field. I got promoted to sergeant and take care of every person on my relief. No matter what I'm doing, at work or not I'll help any of my people anyway I can, within the rules. I regularly get calls from beat cops not on my shift asking for advise. I have never went home without all my people being in, I stay until everyone is in and all the paperwork is complete. Stop complaining about your bosses or the policy of your department. Lead by example, get promoted and change things. Be the supervisor that everyone wants, then encourage others to get promoted and follow your example. Why is it so hard for people to take care of their people and why are there so many around who won't do it? I don't know and somewhere around I'd like to find the process that turns some into jerks and others into leaders and deep six the former and bottle the latter. Taking care of your people, ensuring that everyone is in, I did that in military police and I do it now. We had a day long drill with deploying sailors in the woodlands and the order went out from me that no one is released from the drill until their status was personally verified to me. Then, the driving force was the memory of a Marine who had been left behind in a western desert and died and though that may not be exactly the reason now, it still comes down to: THEY'RE YOUR PEOPLE. THEY DEPEND ON YOU. YOU'RE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM. For me, being a leader brings out a lot of qualities, a lot of emotions, that I like. There's pride in that if I'm on the job, it's taken that people will stay alive and well. There's independence in that I'm calling the shots ...... and those I put out in the field have my trust to accurately call their shots and I don't have to second guess them. I won't second guess them; if I had to do that, I wouldn't put them out in the field in the first place*. There's power when one is leading their own missions with their own crews and one knows that they can do it outstandingly because they've trained the people for it, rehearsed to do it. I've got a recovery training mission coming up in a few weeks and before I take my troops thru it, I want to get out there with the equipment and thru it myself first. And you know? That feeling of power is rather incredible, better than sex actually (though not necessarily better than shooting the AR-10). Sure, there is responsibility and there is not always comfort, but really, the rewards far outweigh the disadvantages. To me, the biggest reward? When the energy that one puts in their troops stars flowing back to you. That's my vent reaction. *which is not to say that one of my people out in the field would be wrong for deciding that something is beyond them and that they needed help. Quite the opposite. _______________________________________________________________________________________ ("I don't want to rush you, Lieutenant, but (we have company and ....,)"––Janeway to Torres about her recovery mission, started only 2 minutes ago, may soon come under enemy fire. "We're finished, Captain. Decontamination went exactly as planned, the console has been transported to engineering and we're on our way back now."––Torres and a suprised Janeway looks at Chakotay about the leader they can put in the field, (w,stte), Voyager "State of Flux") |
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It's the same at the fire department. We have chiefs who when they were street paramedics used to bitch and moan about the stupid and BS calls we had to go to because the dumbass medical director or the EMS chief or whatever decided that should be the new policy. Now, those same guys are writing guys up for the same crap they used to pull. We even have a deputy chief that has a hard on for the perfect uniform and has already sent out several letters for guys not wearing their badge shirt while stopping to pick up chow or going to the grocery store––this is the same guy who was sumo wrestling many years ago as a Lieutenant in the day room at one of the busiest fire houses in the city, and who NEVER wore his badge shirt for anything unless it was ordered.
It's the same and it's getting worse. The politics are pervasive and the results of playing the game are easy to see. You play by THEIR rules and you get that next trumpet. You don't play by their rules, you get a crappy assignment and wind up burned out, pissed off, and wanting to leave. I just don't understand why people can't sit down and discuss things man to man and then work out something that improves service and doesn't destroy morale. Oh well, I'm closer to the end than the beginning. |
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Quoted: It's the same at the fire department. We have chiefs who when they were street paramedics used to bitch and moan about the stupid and BS calls we had to go to because the dumbass medical director or the EMS chief or whatever decided that should be the new policy. Now, those same guys are writing guys up for the same crap they used to pull. We even have a deputy chief that has a hard on for the perfect uniform and has already sent out several letters for guys not wearing their badge shirt while stopping to pick up chow or going to the grocery store––this is the same guy who was sumo wrestling many years ago as a Lieutenant in the day room at one of the busiest fire houses in the city, and who NEVER wore his badge shirt for anything unless it was ordered. It's the same and it's getting worse. The politics are pervasive and the results of playing the game are easy to see. You play by THEIR rules and you get that next trumpet. You don't play by their rules, you get a crappy assignment and wind up burned out, pissed off, and wanting to leave. I just don't understand why people can't sit down and discuss things man to man and then work out something that improves service and doesn't destroy morale. Oh well, I'm closer to the end than the beginning. Likewise here - and it's been the same for years. As far as "backing your boys" as a supervisor/company officer they still teach that (Mission > Men > Self) in Officer Development classes, just like they do at the US Army NCO Leadership school. The problem is that people have either been sucking up emulating shoddy bosses to maintain career viability for so long that poor conduct becomes ingrained, or they no longer love the job and figure why should anybody else. "Watch your thoughts... they become words. Watch your words... they become deeds. Watch your deeds... they become habits. Watch your habits... they become character. Character is everything." - Ralph Waldo Emerson I'll update more on this in a little bit (I'm at the wife's work) |