“Don’t quit when you’re tired, quit when you’re done”

“Don’t quit when you’re tired, quit when you’re done”

These words hang in the workout area of the gym I go to twice a week. I have read and re-read them and thought they sounded good but I wasn’t sure how they actually applied to me.  I don’t work out a whole lot but when I do, I go until the workout is over.  Stopping before that just doesn’t make sense to me.

Then I began to think of how I could apply this to other areas of my life.  I started to think about my career, or now the lack thereof.  Those of you that know me personally know that I was a cop in California for about twelve years. If I’m not related to you and haven’t worked with you and you knew I was a cop, chances are you heard about it from someone else.  I never really told people myself.

 Toward the end of my career, I was angry all the time, I hated going to work, I was so sick of working my ass off and seeing other, lazier people, get the hand-ups that they hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve.  I called in sick a lot for mental health days and was deemed unreliable.  It was not my best performance but it was what I could handle mentally at the time.

My husband’s job was transferred from California to Idaho at a time when I was really mentally and physically exhausted.  It was either get a divorce or quit my job to follow him to Idaho.  I am a person who does not like the unknown.  I have anxiety of the worst order and part of the way I combat that anxiety is to think of all the “what-if’s” and scenarios that I can come up with and work through them to a resolution, good or bad.

Quitting my job and leaving my stability was not beneficial to me but I also knew I couldn’t stay where I was without ending up an alcoholic, or worse.  So, I put in my letter of resignation and four weeks later we were in Idaho.

I applied for more jobs than I care to remember; secretarial, administrative, law enforcement.  No one would hire me.  My husband tried to placate me by saying that I was over-qualified for the positions I was applying for, but I really don’t know why I never even got a call back. 

I had a total of four interviews in the ten months I spent looking for a job.  I got pretty close a couple of times but the end result was that they either hired someone else or they decided not to fill the position after all. 

I was finally hired at a gun shop in Boise for about 1/5^th of the amount of money I used to make in California.  I only get paid once a month and, after taxes, it would not be enough to live on if I didn’t have my husband to help.

Recently, I found out about a job with a local police department coming open and I had a month to prepare for it.  I didn’t study for the written exam but I began going to the gym to get ready for the physical agility.

The department was only taking the top 25 applicants from the written test and sending them to the physical agility test a few days later.  I have a fairly good command of the English language and I just knew that I would qualify, so I focused on the physical aspect of the exam since that was the area I was weakest. 

As the test got closer, I began to have misgivings about it.  I was pretty sure I would not be able to pass the push-ups and vertical jump aspect of the test even after working on it for a month.  I continued to focus on those areas but the doubts lingered.  I never questioned my ability to pass the written.

The morning of the exam, I started driving out to the civic center where the test was being held.  On my way, I began thinking about when I was a cop back in California and the things the “Unchosen Ones” had to go through and put up with.  The Unchosen Ones are the group of people who work their asses off but don’t get anywhere because they don’t know anyone of any kind of rank that is willing or able to commit nepotism for them. 

About half-way to the test, after thinking about that, I began to have an anxiety attack; my pulse raced, my breathing was rapid, I started to sweat.  I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach like I had eaten bad chicken and had to get rid of it.  Luckily, I was able to calm myself down but I kept asking myself this question over and over again as I drove to the test: Is this really something I want to do again?

I got to the test site, checked in and then turned around to find a place to wait for the doors to open.  If you’ve never been to one of these things it’s actually quite interesting.  You can always tell who’s who in the waiting area.  For example, the recent academy graduates always congregate together and talk to each other about past instructors and “hardships” they had to deal with in their academy class.  They shout across the room at each other to make sure everyone knows just how important they think they are.  They talk too loud about other tests they’ve taken recently like they actually know what’s going on, letting other people know that they think they’ve been there and done that, when really, they haven’t done anything of note.

Then there are the geeks.  They don’t necessarily congregate together but you can tell who they are because they totally stand out.  They are socially awkward and try to have conversations with the non-geeks but these talks don’t last very long and usually end in an awkward silence.  These are also the people who dress like they are an off-duty cop even though they have no idea what that should actually look like.

Then there is the lateral group, my group.  We all stand around, no one talks to each other, no one makes eye contact.  We don’t need to.  We just stand around and wait, watching the other groups, listening to their wannabe war stories that they haven’t earned the right to tell.  By the way, if you have to qualify a story with “most cops would laugh at this, but” then it probably isn’t a very worthwhile tale of your assumed prowess.

Finally, they opened the doors and let everyone in.  There were six people who didn’t show up which left seventy-four applicants and only nine of us were female.   I thought those were pretty good odds.

The first disappointment regarding the test was that it was a group test, meaning that each phase of the test was timed out and no one could skip ahead without the rest of the group.  The longest, most grueling portion was the video scenarios. There were nearly fifty questions based on various scenarios, all with multiple choice answers.  They said to mark the response that we would give if we were in the actual situation, but some of them didn’t offer the right choice, in my opinion.

I watched each and every one of these poorly acted scenarios (Have you ever seen a scenario with good actors in it?  Probably not, because there’s a reason we’re cops and not actors). By the third scenario question, I could feel the anger, resentment, and bitterness that I had thought was gone resurfacing.  I had to start over in this department and I didn’t feel like I could do that properly with the bitterness of a veteran cop simmering just under the surface.

It took 2 ½ hours to finish that test.  They gave us a reprieve at the last section of the test, the reading portion, and said that we could leave as soon as we finished.  Thank goodness because I get the feeling that I would have been there a lot longer if that were not the case.

We were told as we were leaving that we would be notified via email whether or not we were moving on to the physical agility test.  Let the waiting begin….

And that’s really where my downfall began to pick up speed.  Because all of the questions that were swirling around in my head would be enough to drive me crazy if I couldn’t find out the results of my test soon: What if I get hired? What will I do for child care if I have to work graveyard? Will I get to spend any quality time with my family again? The world will pass my by again and I’ll be immersed in the world of law enforcement….again.

These questions and more were swirling around in my head like a toilet that had been flushed and would never stop.  I have been told that this is where my OCD tendencies lie, not being able to move on from one thought to another.  I don’t know, sounds kind of like normal worry to me.

I had a hard time sleeping that night so I prayed to God that He would help me decide if this was the path I was supposed to continue down.  I asked for guidance on what to do next.  Having given up my worries to Him, I was finally able to sleep.    

Nothing happened on Tuesday and on Wednesday I had to go back to work at the gun store.  I’m not supposed to have my cell phone on the sales floor but you can bet that I disregarded this rule that day.  Every time I felt it vibrate, I checked it to see if my test results were back.    

Around 1:30pm the email finally came.  It said “Thank you for the time and effort spent testing for the City of ******* Police Officer Register.  We regret to inform you, you did not place in the top 25 on the written examination; therefore, you do not qualify to continue the testing process.” Huh….well, it didn’t say that I failed it, just that I wasn’t in the top 25.  Was I upset?  Nope.  I was actually quite relieved. What I learned through this process was that I was done with being a cop.  It brings me back to that statement at the beginning of this post.  Here is how I translated it for myself:

My head was willing but my heart was no longer in it.

I had been tired for a long time but my head wouldn’t let me realize it, so I didn’t quit. But now, I was done; both my head and my heart were finally on the same page.  There was too much anxiety and too many negative emotions associated with law enforcement for me to continue in that line of work.

It’s kind of bittersweet for me.  There were so many things that I wanted to do that I didn’t get a chance to try.  I wanted to be a detective, then a supervisor, then, who knows? I wanted to go to my kid’s school for career day and make her proud.  I wanted to lead discussions on gun safety and tell kids to “Just say NO” to drugs.  Now I’m just waiting for inspiration to strike and lead me down my next path. I’m biding my time at the gun store, waiting for the next opportunity.  I can still be a supervisor somewhere, it will just take time.  For right now, I know that I am exactly where I need to be, and I am happy where I am.