Another day, another rookie

My department is about to dramatically slow down the flow of cadets from the academy. The city has only approved two classes for the next fiscal year. This is after a few years of at least 5 cadet classes a year. Even with that number of cadet classes, our department has only had a net gain of 150 officers. Our department workforce is old and many officers are retiring. Slowing down the academy does not seem like the correct choice, but the powers that be did not ask me. It will just mean more patrol overtime programs once our numbers start to dwindle.

Since the slowdown was announced, the academy has been in overdrive. New classes seem to be coming out every other week. That means that I have been very busy, when I am at work at least. I am one of only three evaluators on night shift at my station. Lately I have been in demand. The current rookie is Carol. She is in the middle of her final week of evaluation. She is 5 feet and 110 pounds of smiling hispanic female with an attitude. Her first night shift trainer said to her on their first day, "The cute smile is not going to get you anywhere with me, it is time to get to work." She responded with "If you have made this long being as big as you are, I think that I will be fine."

I have always wondered why any female would want to do this job, as a patrol officer. I am by no means saying that they can not do this job. On the contrary, I have worked with some excellent female patrol officers, my sister-in-law being one of them. When she was on patrol, she was an excellent officer that had a fantastic work ethic. However, I was always worried about her. I knew that she was a very capable officer, but the people that she came into contact with did not know that. I feared that she would get into more physical confrontations because she was a female. Thankfully, this did not come to pass.

Back to Carol. She grew up in two district and went to Waltrip High School. She took some classes from UH and changed her major numerous times. One day she decided that she was bored and since the Army would not take her, she applied with the department. That is not the best reason that I have heard for joining the department, but it is not the worst either. Luckily, she seems to have a good head on her shoulders. I hope that her smart mouth does not get her in trouble. It is one thing to smart off to someone when I am standing beside you and quite something different to do it by yourself. Hopefully she will work at a station that encourages officers to ride together.

So far, our days together have been rather boring. We have made numerous traffic stops without getting any drunks and we have written many reports. Tomorrow will be her last night and then I am sure that the next rookie will not be far behind her.