I’ve never believed the officer with the highest test score should automatically get promoted. Some people are excellent test takers who have no business supervising other officers. They can memorize policy, give a polished interview, and answer every question on an oral board, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’d trust them to run a shift,…
A police chief answers to somebody, and the people he answers to are allowed to ask hard questions about how the department runs, how the money gets spent, and whether the town is getting what it expects. That part isn’t the problem. The problem starts when the question stops being about the department and becomes…
One thing about working in a small town is that very few decisions stay at the office. The person you dealt with this morning may be standing behind you at the grocery store that afternoon. The person you had to tell no may be sitting a few rows away from you at an event that…
Most good employees don’t wake up one morning and decide they’re done trying. It usually happens a little at a time. They come to work wanting to do a good job, take responsibility for things that aren’t necessarily theirs, help coworkers who need it, and try to fix problems before those problems become somebody else’s…
Small-town accountability gets personal pretty fast. There’s a good chance I know the person I’m dealing with. I may know his parents, his kids, where he works, or what he ordered the last time I saw him at lunch. Sometimes I know everybody involved. That’s part of living and working in a small town, and…