just did my ride along

[roccoRIDE]

I just litterally finished my 4 hour ride along and even interviewed the cop for my composition class in my: Interview Your Future Job Path project. I gotta say there were a lot of shocks with how everything goes and political bs that comes into the job. From what I got, atleast in my area, there's pretty much zero comradery within this Troop, and there's a lot of ups and downs. But for the most part, the guy switched from being a welder of 8 years to being a Cop (much less pay by the way) for now what is 13 years. He's a field training officer and says the biggest thing is when he continues to get thank you letters from people he's dealt with, and mediating huge problems IE > when this ex-body builder who he said could tear his head off was on the verge of suicide and attacking him before his backup arrived and he talked him down.

I was pretty damn impressed though with his honesty, and how well from what I gathered he's done his job. He enjoys it and his son is now doing a smaller division (not state) but he wants his son to push over to state due to the jump in pay and more he'll be involved.

I was surprised with how educated applicants are, some people got their master plus military backgrounds. Also, even though he wishes there was more of a comradery and they all could be one big family in his troop, he still organizes get togethers amoung the families. He also explained how he's never seen anyone get hired on their first try, and that most people get shot down the first time around because they try to see how determined you are to getting the job. He said what got him was - "if you get your bill at a nice restaurant and you see that its half of what its supposed to be what would you do" he pretty much said he'd pay the bill and then he realized right after that he opened up a whole new can of worms with that statement.

To make this long story less of a read, he shared tons of stories from the field, we had some good laughs about pepper spray and other things he's come accross, learned the realities of how the community can sometimes backfire on the uniform and hardships of a police officer, but none the less the feeling you get when you know you've made a difference. At the end however, we shook hands, i thanked him and we both parted ways.

Definately reassured me of why I wanna be a cop tho..

cheers

[squeeeg]

You sound like you really had a good guy to bring you around. I felt the same way after my first ride. Good luck on your path to becoming an officer.