The fun doesn’t stop after probation. At my old department, I had a MINOR fender bender with a Department vehicle. Troopers were called to process the scene (no other vehicles were damaged, but a metal yellow post might have taken a bit of a beating). I was already in deep with the bosses because of this, but my esteemed colleagues never let me forget! I had tiny bags of paint chips placed on my desk every day for a week. The nicknames were fun, too.
I started with L.A. County in 1980 and we had similar “hazing” back then, I can remember as an Explorer Scout on ride alongs seeing rookies in the trunk of units as punishment for screwing up. Oh the good olds days, thank you for talking about them and showing the tools we had to use..
We had shift sergeant that was a prankster he looked like Dave Thomas from Wendy's no joke . Per dept policy whenever you're out of the car you had to wear your hat . If you got out of the car and left your hat or your pr24 . Mentioned sergeant satterfield would come by see your car and unlock it and remove said items or anything else that you left in the car and eagerly sit by and wait for you to radio call for a supervisor . Another thing he would do if he caught you out of the car with it running he would lock the keys in it or he would get in the car and turn on the lights and siren so when you start the car you get a nice little surprise then you get a strong verbal warning for leaving your car unsecured
These are much more creative ways of messing with a new guy. In the army it was much more juvenile as most sgts were no more than 21 years old and not very creative. Great story. Respect for old school policing.
These are great...and yeah probably long gone, too many hurt feelings nowadays. All the hazing built character in my opinion and definitely great memories looking back at it.
One day some group of scientists that study human resilience will start advocating to bring these tactics back. That good old pendulum. People that choose not to perform resiliency exercises typically reach for excuses. It’s simple, you either do the task or you don’t. If you don’t ...then bye. Mental resilience training: crawl, walk, run. Crawl: stand there with the donuts. Run: be in SWAT. Walk: everything in between.
Yep, our day is over. I talk to a lot of the new Centurians and they wished they still pulled the shit we used to but now they're worried about getting sued or fired.
Yeah they still do it this was in '98 I was with my fto sgt Pierson . He sent me into to this restaurant combo soul food fish place ( very good catfish ) for our lunch this was in a very rough part of town if anybody knows anything about Cincinnati it was an over the Rhine . It was like Moses parting the red sea when I went in there needless to say my present company was not very welcome there as I was leaving we got a call I ended up giving our lunch to a homeless person close by fun times
