Originally Posted by Anotherpointofview
If this board is going to exist I feel that someone has to speak up and say this:
1. If you want people to listen, converse like you have some sense. If you say there is a problem, give specific examples (leaving out the names). Painting everyone with a broad brush is chickenshit and shows you don't have an argument, only an axe to grind. I could easily get on here and say, "All the patrolmen that have left sucked and I'm glad they are gone. Maybe now we can hire some people that will work." That would be neither true nor would it be acceptable to post even if it were.
2. If you've gone to the trouble of identifying the problem, let us all know what solution you came up with. Again, I could say we need to go to rotating shifts with fixed days off. That might be great for me if I had Saturday, Sunday and Monday off, but suck for the guy who gets Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Remember, the "solution" needs to be just that, a solution, not simply a different way of doing things that causes as many issues as it resolves. Just because it would be ideal for you doesn't mean it would be ideal for your buddy. Just because it would work for you and your buddy doesn't mean it will work for the rest of the shift, well you get my point...
3. Work hard, study for the promotion tests. and put yourself in a position where you can do more than just make suggestions. You'll see that making all those changes we as parolmen think would be great don't seem quite as appealing as you go up in rank. I would love to chase every bad guy that runs from us until the wheels fell off our cars. But, in light of the way the Tennessee Supreme Court has been ruling we would be taking our very freedom into our own hands. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that an officer could be charged criminally, and it is a VERY distinct possibility that he/she could be sued civilly and lose. Sometimes what we can and cannot do is not within our own control.