Junie's Online Thoughts
Thursday, October 24, 2002
Worked last night at Noodle. Ran my ass off for the usual tips. Nothing stellar. I work again tonight, which is rare, but I had to switch my days this weekend because my friend, Susan, is coming down from MN to visit. I have no idea what we are going to do....I had tickets to Six Flags, but they expired, and it costs too much to go there full price. Otherwise, I have no clue.....
Still no decision on the job applicants. THere are complications with both top candidates, so yesterday I was plagued with doubt and reviewed all of the resumes again. I pulled out the top ten people and I want to see if I can hand over the whole process because I AM SICK OF IT. It was a bad, bad idea for me to have chosen/interviewed my replacement. While I may know the job skills to be successful in this position, Im way too close to decide. And its too much pressure when I wont be the one to deal with the new person. ARgh, I say. Argh.
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Despite the fact that I didnt get to chase anyone down the street, no one shot at me and we didnt have any real adrenaline-pumping situations, the ride along last night was quite fun.
I started the evening with a stop at Dunkin Donuts. I had to get into my cop mentality, right? :) I pulled into the station and waited for the officers to assemble for the night shift. At 2:30-ish, the sargeant called them together and they stood in lines in front of him. I was surprised at how militarily they were set up...they had to stand at attention at the start of their shift, be checked over by the sargeant, then stand "at ease" until they were finished with their role call. I was assigned to Officer Rankhorn, a thirty something guy from Douglasville with a heavy southern twang, a visible temper and a habit of chewing tobacco and spitting it into a red plastic cup. But despite any of his weirdness, he was really nice to me and willing to take me along on his shift without too much of a hard time.
I watched the officers wait for their cars (officer rankhorn drives the same car every day, and shares it with a guy on the morning shift (7 to 3) and a guy on the overnight shift (11 to 7). When the car arrived, we drove off to his beat, the area around Martin Luther King Jr Blvd and Cascade (a slightly seedy, higher crime-filled, mostly black part of town.) Whenever you watch Cops on TV, and they are in Atlanta, 9 times out of 10, they are in Zone 4, the precinct where we were.
THe night started with a call for a 42, a burglary, where a guy in a hooded sweatshirt had broken into a house where someone had recently died, took a bunch of stuff, ran off and into a building down the street. We drove to the alleged house where the guy ran. As it turns out, the folks living in the house were completely confused, claimed they hadnt seen the guy and let the cops search their house. (I had to stay by the sidewalk while they were doing all of this.) After about 30 minutes of this, we drove to the house where the robbery took place and where the neighbor lived who had called the police. No one was in either house, and as we drove there, a call came over the radio that some kids had chased the perpetrator, who had thrown the bag of stuff at them before taking off. Since they had recovered their property, there was no reason to worry about it anymore. Rankhorn explained that when a call comes out as just an investigation...if no one is hurt, arrested or there is no property stolen, they write it down as a "12", a B.S. paperwork term for not having to write a report about it. Then we bullshitted a while with another officer about his trip to New York, the sniper and the health care package within the police department.
When we drove away, Rankhorn took me through his beat, yelling at the loiterers over his intercom, stopping at a gas station/Blimpies to eat, driving to the jail to fill up his gas tank. As we weaved through the streets near MLK Blvd, he got a call about an armed robbery at a Church's chicken. As we drove there, I asked about when it was appropriate to use the sirens/lights. He explained that there were guidelines, but it was up to him. "Well," he said. "We can do that." So he turned on his sirens and lights (also known as a Code 3) and we sailed down the road, watching the stupid cars make dead stops right in front of us, pull out and block our way or just ignore us completely. Midway there, the dispatcher said it was a false alarm.
While we drove, the officer explained that it was common practice to use the computer mounted between our seats to run license plate numbers. So every time we stopped at a light or drove behind someone, he would enter their tag number and see if it or the car were stolen. He ran one for a white Chevy and the tag came back to a MItsubishi. Stolen tag. We pulled the guy over in the parking lot of a KFC. I stayed in the car and watched Rankhorn talk to the guy, and a minute later assist the man out of the car and handcuff him. He brought him into the back of the squadcar and Roy, the driver, starts his sob story about how he just got out of jail and that he didnt know the tag was stolen and he just bought the car for $70 and could he call his girlfriend and he just split from his wife and had a baby with this new gal and no he didnt know anything about the empty crack bags in his glove box although he did smoke crack in the past and officer you have my life in your hands and i would do anything not to go back to jail and i just had a stroke last week and oh shit why am I so stupid because I was trying to get my life back together and could he please call his boss to bail him out? As it turns out, Roy had a stolen tag, a suspended license, no insurance, improper transfer of tag, unpaid child support and a failure to appear back in 1999. He was going to jail. I helped Rankhorn fill in the citation sheets while he called for the van to take Roy to jail and the tow truck to take Roy's Chevy to the impound lot. After over an hour, we had to bring a few of the items from the car to the propery department down at City Hall East, then fill in the report online. The whole thing took two full hours.
As we drove back to the beat, I asked him about some of the buttons on the car (flood lights, sirens, etc.) and explained that I loved gadgets and buttons and it took a lot for me not to touch the stuff in his car. He laughed and asked how I felt about guns. I said that I was equally attracted to and repelled by guns and that I had just gone to my first gun show. He asked, "Do you want to hold my gun?" I laughed and said, "well, i better not do that. Dont y'all frown on that?" I added that guns were surprisingly heavy. He said, "yeah, mine is pretty heavy. Here." And he handed me his gun. I though, holy shit, is he really supposed to be handing me his gun???????!!!!! Yeah, its pretty heavy, I said, before quickly returning his gun to him. Good lord...do I just look harmless and trusting enough to hold a loaded police officer's weapon or is this common practice????
We had a few more minor calls....an abandoned vehicle, a woman who had called in two previous robberies and had noticed that someone had taken her wet/dry vac sometime that day, a few more traffic stops for expired tags. Not too crazy, but that was okay. Parts of the process made me really anxious, and other parts made me want him to find an exciting crime. The whole thing was incredibly interesting, and I always felt incredibly safe in the police car.
Soon it was time to drop me off at the precinct. I thanked him and the sargeant, we did one final drive past the station and then Rankhorn dropped me off at my car. As I drove home, I thought, that was pretty cool.
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Words can express how much this place sucks. I had dinner with a friend last night (shes an association survivor..she quit nearly two years ago) and we talked about how corrupt and messed up this place is, how its such a joke, and it makes me so mad. What am I even working so hard for when the programs we try to do are overshadowed by incompetance, nepotism and poor business principles? I cant wait to get out of here.
We're in the final stages of interviewing. The two are coming in to meet the rest of the staff. Its going to be a hard choice because they are good and bad for different reasons. Both are similar to me....but one is like I was three years ago (fresh, eager, nice and hard working) and the other is like I am now (more experienced, jaded, slightly surly, only wants a straight nine to five). I dont want to make the final choice because I wont be around to live with the decision. But it will all be done by Friday and then, maybe, hopefully, I can sleep without being haunted by this shitty job.
Monday, October 21, 2002
What is bliss? Bliss is reading through the 46 resumes of people applying for my job and LAUGHING hysterically at the typos, grammatical errors and overall strangeness contained in both the cover letters and resumes. I've compiled snippets of the worst of the worst to make one giant awful cover letter and resume. It makes me laugh just thinking about it.
I have 2 interviews today, 2 tomorrow (along with my police ride-along) and one on Wednesday. I just want this process to be over with because I want to get a good night's sleep. Im tired of dreaming about interviews and my job and procedures manuals.
18 days. That is waaaaaaaayyy too scary.
