shift work?

I recently retired from a central florida police dept after 20 years, I'm in my early 50s. I am considering applying for your agency. I have a few questions if someone can give me straight answers.

1. Do you work shift work?
2. Has your agency been hiring lately?
3. Have they been hiring officers who have retired from other agencies?
4. I live in the Tampa area, is it difficult to be assigned to that area.
5. Is it easier to be hired or to start as a reserve?

I would appreciate any serious and thoughtful responses.

I recently retired from a central florida police dept after 20 years, I'm in my early 50s. I am considering applying for your agency. I have a few questions if someone can give me straight answers.

1. Do you work shift work?
2. Has your agency been hiring lately?
3. Have they been hiring officers who have retired from other agencies?
4. I live in the Tampa area, is it difficult to be assigned to that area.
5. Is it easier to be hired or to start as a reserve?

I would appreciate any serious and thoughtful responses.

Hello and thanks for your inquiry

1) No we do not work shift work strictly days and ocasional til 7p at the latest. We are not a full service agency like a police or sheriff (Its great)
2)It varies put down full and reserve on your application. Same process
3) We recomend experienced leos overs newbees
4) nope you will know when applying what counties are available

Good luck

The last poster/poser is not correct. Some of the supervisors are innovative and schedule officers at other times rather than day shift (sort of like police work ya know).

"We" don't recommend retired over non-experienced, we just want you to work, not pose. We got plenty of them for now.

Next time somebody gives advice here, please know what you're talking about, and I do.

It depnds on which district that you work in, as to what hours you work. There are five districts in this agency and each district is basically run like a separate agency.

I do know that most of the time, the officers in the Tampa area do not work shifts much later than 7-8 at night unless there is a special detail to work. Poaching in one of the parks would be an example of a special detail.


The SW district(which is the district that Tampa is in) as a whole has some of the greatest numbers as far as visitation is concerned. So, I do not thin that it would be out of the question to think that they need more people. Like the other person said, you will be told where the openings are.

I do think that there is an open position at Honeymoon Island that has gone unfilled for quite sometime.

Be mindful, that DEP is in a budget crisis, so it might be a while before you get hired.

From my experience DEP likes officers that already have experience. The officers like that as well, as long as you are willing to work and not be "retired on duty".

Personally, I think this is a great job for someone that is retired.

We are a proactive agency, in case you did not know.

There are some great officers in that district. Maybe it would be good to do a ride along with one of them to get a feel for the agency and see if our agency is something you would be interested in. Doing a ride along will probably be much more useful in getting the true answers that you want. You have been around the block, you know where the true answers come from.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your reply. I will take your advise and do a ride along.

I may have retired from the police dept, but I have always been active and would like to remain so. In my previous job, I have at different times worked as a criminal investigations detective, street crimes detective, traffic enforcement, and patrol.

I sincerely wish you luck.
There are a number of supervisors that took a lateral over from “other state agencies” that openly resent retired cops from P.D’s and S.O’s that have much more “Real Police Experience” than they do. I guess that it makes them feel impotent, as knowledge and experience is power.
Having said that, if you are coming from Tallahassee P.D, you will be O.K. and probably eligible for a staff level position.

The last poster/poser is not correct. Some of the supervisors are innovative and schedule officers at other times rather than day shift (sort of like police work ya know).

"We" don't recommend retired over non-experienced, we just want you to work, not pose. We got plenty of them for now.

Next time somebody gives advice here, please know what you're talking about, and I do.

Hey gomer if you cant say anything nice say it to your dog or something because Im not your animal. Each Distr,ict obviously varies. Work just what do you call work come on, This job is gravy write a couple NTAs and UTCs and thats all they ask. Get off your high horse. Just because the guy is retired doesnt mean hes dead. Give him some credit and your dead wrong read the job description. How many people do you know here that are not some form of previous LEO,CO,CPO. Exactly I bet you can count them on one hand. My information is true and correct especially on the west coast. WE DONT WORK SHIFT WORK.....I dont pretend to be a police or Sheriff. I am proud of being a SLEO.