Most advice about when to quit a job is really advice about grit, and in law enforcement there’s even more pressure to stick it out because of everything it took to get where you are. You did the academy, collected the certifications, started the retirement clock, got the seniority, worked the bad shifts, and maybe…
There’s an old saying about having twenty years of experience versus having one year of experience twenty times. I’ve always thought that was a pretty good way of looking at it, particularly in law enforcement. I’ve known officers who could tell you exactly how many years, months, and days they’d been on the job. They’d…
I went through the police academy for the first time in 1998. Twenty-eight years later, I went through it again. A lot changed in that time, including me, but one thing became even clearer the second time around: The police academy is a terrible place to start getting ready for the police academy. By the…
If somebody has been doing the job for twenty years, I expect them to know things a new officer simply hasn’t had time to learn yet. They’ve seen calls go sideways, watched people react under pressure, learned which details matter, and probably made enough mistakes of their own to recognize a few before they happen…
I’ve been through a lot of training over the years. Some of it changed the way I worked. Some of it gave me a certificate, a few pages of notes, and absolutely nothing else. The difference wasn’t always the instructor or the subject. I’ve seen organizations spend money sending employees to training, only to have…
It’s pretty easy to judge the boss when you’re not the boss. I’ve done plenty of it. I’ve looked at decisions made above me and thought they were slow, unnecessary, poorly timed, or just wrong. Sometimes I was probably right. Becoming the person in the chair didn’t suddenly convince me that bosses know better than…
Starting over sounds like going back to the beginning, but at 52, I don’t think that’s what it means. I have started over in a few different ways over the last several years. I came back to policing after being away from it for a long time. I went through the police academy again, twenty-eight…
I’ve sat on both sides of the interview table enough times that I don’t really think of one person as the interviewer anymore. If I’m hiring, I’m trying to decide whether somebody can do the job and handle the responsibility I’m about to give them. If I’m applying, I’m trying to figure out what I’m…
I’d rather see someone start this job believing they can make it than arrive already convinced they can’t. But when somebody tells me they’re ready, I want to know what they’ve done to prepare. Believing you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean you’re prepared to do it. Take somebody getting ready for the academy. He…
I’ve made enough mistakes in my life to know I’m going to make more. Some have been poor decisions. Others were decisions I thought were right at the time, only to find out later that I was wrong. Either way, once I recognize the mistake, I have a choice. I can spend my time explaining…