My oldest daughter, EM1, is out of school and trying to figure out exactly what it is she wants to do for the rest of her life. She currently works a couple of part-time jobs, but her goal is to have full-time employment by this summer.
We shall see how that works out.
Job hunting is never fun, and it can be quite a beating to your ego as you hear people tell you “no” over and over. I still recall when I was in my twenties and I was trying to get my first job in law enforcement. In the early nineties, jobs were scarce and there were hundreds of people trying to get hired for every two or three jobs out there. I applied to dozens of police departments and most of them simply put my application in their files and I never heard from the again.
Even the departments that brought me in for testing and interviews were just establishing hiring lists for positions that didn’t exist. My name was on so many lists I lost track of the agencies I had applied to, but my phone still never rang.
Finally, tired of waiting for someone to hire me, I decided to put myself through the police academy on my own and hope that with an academy certificate I would be a more desirable candidate.
Okay, honestly, I didn’t put myself through the academy. I didn’t have any money. My grandfather agreed to pay for my training, so I guess you could say that he put me through the academy. He also told me that if I could get hired by a police department before I graduated the academy, I did not have to repay him for the loan.
Of course, he was also pretty confident I wasn’t going to get hired anytime soon.
While in the academy, I met a guy who had been hired by the Hillsborough Police Department (HPD). HPD was paying all of his expenses (unlike myself) and as soon as the academy concluded, he had a job and a paycheck waiting for him. His name was Steve.
Steve and I became friends while we were in the academy. We hung out during most of the breaks, partnered up during scenarios, and then, during classes, he would try to get me kicked out of the academy.
Steve was the guy that will talk to you continuously while an instructor is giving a lecture, or write notes and pass them over to you, never getting caught or drawing unwanted attention to himself. I did not have that same skill. The first time I said something back or opened the note to read it, I would find the instructor standing over my shoulder and asking me if I thought I had more important things to do than pay attention.
Steve would sit next to me with a stern expression on his face as if admonishing me that, “Yes, Gary, you should shut up and listen. Can’t you see the rest of the class is trying to learn something?”
Sadly, this sort of thing happened to me on multiple occasions. Steve wouldn’t let up, and I was incapable of learning how to ignore him.
Somehow, I managed not to get tossed out, despite Steve’s best efforts at sabotage. And as the final weeks of the academy rolled around, it appeared that I was going to make it to graduation. I did not have a job to look forward to, but at least I would have my academy certificate.
One day, Steve came up to me on a break and told me, “I have some good news.”
I wondered if that meant he had figured out a new tactic for getting me in trouble or thrown out of the academy. Turned out, however, that he actually did have good news.
He told me that the Hillsborough Police Department was hiring. He said they had only one position open, but he told them about me and suggested that I would be a good hire for them. He also said the chief at HPD wanted me to send him my resume.
“Um, when?” I asked.
“Now,” he told me.
“Now, now?”
“Right this second, now,” he confirmed.
Well, I didn’t have a resume with me, so with a pen and a sheet of binder paper, I wrote a mostly blank page of reasons why HPD should hire me, then put at the bottom: “Almost graduated from the police academy.”
Next, using the fax machine at the academy office, I sent this illegible sheet of scribbles to Steve’s bosses. It was the most embarrassing job application I have ever submitted. It looked like a ten-year old was writing an essay for his teacher on, “Why I want to be a policeman.”
That should have been the last thing I ever heard from HPD. However, three weeks later, exactly two days before I was scheduled to graduate from the academy, HPD called to tell me that they wanted to hire me.
Steve, the guy I thought was secretly trying to guarantee that I never made it through the police academy, had found me a job. To this day, I still can’t believe the sheer luck it took to be in the right place at the right time with the right person on my side to get me hired.
I found out later that fifty people had applied for that single opening at HPD, but it was Steve’s recommendation that opened the door for me. To this day, I am grateful to him for that.
When I got hired, I called my grandfather that night. I was excited about finding a job and I wanted to thank him again for paying the tuition for my academy training.
I also wanted to let him know that I would not be paying him back.
.
.
.
Enjoying Deep Dark Thoughts? Follow me on Facebook so you don’t miss a post. Just go to my page and click the “Like” button to receive updates on my blog and other projects.
And you can follow me on Twitter @gallenwilbanks.