Originally Posted by
Unregistered
This is a great post.
I would like to take it a step further.
Patrol in general, even under great leadership and staffing, is miserable. It is the most dangerous, we are first on scene to handle the chaos, and we do all the managing of peoples emotions, which in my opinion, is the most mentally draining and destructive part of the job. With that said, we signed up for that, HOWEVER, it is the agencies duty to offset that factor as much as possible by reducing the exposure with a full staff and even extra deputies, remember when we used to have floater units and razor units?, to handle when people were off. Moreover, once the positions is mastered, senior officer should me moved and replaced. This is necessary in order to prevent burnout and to make this job sustainable.
We are not all running around clawing and demanding transfers and promotions for more status and power. No, many of us want that to simply get off the streets. That is not a good reason to promote or transfer.
Here is the fatal flaw with this agency. Its truly this simple. All the citizens complaints, poor moral, resignations, early retirements, mental breaks, suicides, divorce, substance abuse, and so on... it can all be prevented. It starts with patrol. Make it fun. Make it a good place to work. Keep patrol fully staffed. Everything will fall into place after.
Here is the issue. Everyone comes in and gives it 300%. They do this in hopes to shine and be noticed. Noticed in order to promote or transfer to get off patrol. They see how patrol under these conditions can not be sustained for 3 decades, so they floor it, risking burn out, and give it all they have. Once they get passed over and over and over again, they give up. Once they give up, they stop trying. Here is the kicker. Here is the HCSO mind fuk! They give up and slow things down and give it 100%. 100% is all that is required. However, here at the HCSO, thats not enough. See, thats how they cut cost and run this place with half the officers. With officers running at over capacity fueled by hope. Hope to transfer. When that doesn't happen, they give up. They stop falling for the “If you are on time, you are late” bullshiit, putting yourself and your family second to the agency for nothing. These are NOT LAZY SLUGS. These are people that now pace themselves in order to be able to maintain this career on the front lines for 3 decades. If they speak up about this paradigm, they are treated like lazy outcasts, when they work plenty hard. They just stop kissing ass or going out of their way. Kind of like what manipulative groups like scientology do to members that speak up. Same concept.
Right now a one year deputy and a 20 year deputy are all in the same. Same value. Its cheaper for them to let a 20 year senior deputy quit and replace them with a new one making half the money. Both are zero value. The only reason they give a crap about new guy quitting, under 2 years on, is only because the agency has to eat the cost of the academy and training. Not because they care.
Fix patrol and deputies wont be clawing for promotions. Fix patrol and deputies wont burn out and quit. Fix patrol to where we can enjoy this job again. Fix it to where it can not be used as a punishment. Give is more deputies, give us time at the end of the shift for reports and admin, get us he to our families on time. Bring back the 2nd shift. Citizens will notice the change.
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