PT - Good for Me

Any good plan is only made better with a good back-up plan. In our case, the back-up plan came a few weeks ago when a local police department down our way sent me a notice saying they were looking to hire a new patrolman and I had been selected to try out for the position.

This isn't to say that the police department randomly dragged it's finger thru the phone book and landed on my name. Months ago, as I was getting out of the CG, I had dropped applications and resumes off with various PDs looking for part time or seasonal work while we waited for the Army to get my shit together.

I tried calling every PD back after a week or so, but was told no one was hiring, and I forgot all about it.

So when this particular PD came a calling, imagine my surprise. I filled out the necessary paperwork and had a doctor sign off on a slip saying I was fit and able to complete a PT test and off I went.

My experience in trying out for police positions is great. Back before the CG I was a cop, and as a cop, I was constantly trying to move from my .... how do I put this politely.... rinky-dink department into a bigger department where I wouldn't literally have to wait for someone to die to get promoted. I interviewed and PT'd for some of the biggest departments in Southern Maine, only to get so far in the process before receiving a rejection letter.

At the time, I was losing out to a lot of veterans who were just coming home from Iraq and A'stan. They got preferential treatment, which they totally deserved. So if I was the best candidate in say... one area, I was already bumped by a vet, no matter what.

And the hiree pool was always limited to maybe five or six guys. You would PT, which would consist of X amount of push-ups and sit-ups you could do in one minute, and a mile and a half run under 13 minutes. Nothing terribly back breaking. But still, even then, of those five or six guys, maybe 2 wouldn't make it past this stage.

Then would come an interview with a panel of higher-ranking officers at the department who would ask you a battery of questions to test your knowledge and moral standing. A lot of this was mind games.

I've been told my answers were "too text book" before. What the hell does that mean? That they're right? I wouldn't think a WRONG answer would be in a text book. ....not that I'm still bitter or anything.

So anyway, yesterday was the PT test for this particular department. Normally, in my experience, the PT test is usually held at the department proper. But this wasn't the case. Instead, the test was being held at the State Police Academy WAAAAY off Cape. Like a three hour drive. The test started at 8am.

So at 330, I was up and getting my things together. As I drove, it began to snow, and snow hard it did. At times I believed that, instead of getting lighter out, it was getting darker due to the snow cover.

I finally reached the academy, after a ten mile trek thru unplowed switch-backs and greasy four-way intersections... I was the second to arrive, of nearly 75 applicants.

And this was the second day of the PT try outs. The first day was held the Friday before when it was sunny and an unseasonably 60 degrees out. For us, there was already a solid two inches of snow and slush in the parking lot.

I had an opportunity to speak with some of the other applicants as we waited. A lot of guys were older, in their mid-30s or early 40s... (one guy was in his 50s). No one I talked to lived on Cape Cod. I was told by more than one person that this current job opening was the only police officer opening in all of the state of Massachusetts right now. There was this odor of desperation that hung over a lot of the other applicants, which made me feel exceptionally guilty for being there.

Let's face facts: I'm the ideal candidate. I'm still young, but I'm married, so that means I'm grounded and have responsibilities that will keep me from fucking anything up, too bad. I'm in incredible shape. I have BOTH police and military service under my belt, both well within the last ten years.

Most of the other men I spoke to were career-something-elses. One guy, who was worried about the body comp test (how fat you are based off of body-fat %) was a liquor distributor. Another was an Athletic Director for a private school. Both desperately wanted this gig, but I had the feeling that they would find themselves low on the list.

I also spoke to one female, 23, who was very pleasant and bubbly and smiled a lot. I've seen a million like her try to get their foot in the door of the male dominated world of professional law enforcement, and be turned into bitter human beings because of it. I wished her luck.

As things got rolling along, they took all the applicants into a waiting area and went thru the paperwork we were supposed to bring along with us. This is when I discovered I had left a crucial document at home: my doctors note.

I was pulled aside and explained that without this document I wouldn't be able to participate in the evolutions and my three hour drive and 100 dollars in gas would be a total waste. I had this inkling then that I should bow out of the competition. I glanced over the shoulder of the LT who was addressing me and looked at the remaining applicants. This bundle of nervous energy, hope, ... it wasn't right that I was competing, knowing I would crush probably 99% of the people trying out, when I didn't really want the job.

"Is there anyone at home that can fax or email us a copy of the note?" The LT said, bringing me back to earth. I then set about waking up Jill, who was non-too-happy to be woken up to have to fiddle with the temperamental scanner, because I forgot to pack something the night before.

"We're going to have a very, very, very, very, very, very long talk when you get home," said an email she sent me after sending me a CC of the document. Just what I needed after a very, very, very, very, long drive home.

The tests began, which lent itself to lots of waiting around. Body fat comp was first, an we all queued and waited for someone to pinch our tits and legs and figure out how much fat we are. A lot of guys got cut from this portion, as the minimum standard is a body fat % of 19.6. One guy, the booze distributor, got by with a 19.5%, he told me with a relieved smile.

I came in at a lean 9.3%, down nearly 2.5% from when my fitness and wellness class instructor took our body fat comps in class two weeks ago.

This was followed by the sit-up and push-up test. We were all instructed on proper form and went in groups of six, as that's how many proctors there were. We were told to exceed the minimum, which for me was 27 push-ups and 38-sit-ups. A lot of guys were huffing and puffing, failing after around their individual minimums. This is likely because a lot of these guys weren't used to working out to a maximum rep count, or to failure.

I consider myself an "endurance athlete" so I know something about setting a good pace and how important breath control is. In the end, I finished strong as the chief of the department looked on, with a solid 70 push-ups. Sit-ups came in at 85 reps.

"I was watching you over there," another applicant would say to me a short while later, "how many push-ups did you do?" I glanced down at my paper and read off the number to his astonished face. I didn't want to be a douchebag and told him that when I PT'd for the Army, I scored 19 more before being TOLD to stop.

For people were sent packing after either failing or only doing the bare minimum. They couldn't be expected to compete further if there were people exceeding their numbers. Our pool of 75 was now down to about 60-something.

Up next was an agility run test. We had to start prone on the deck and sprint to a line about ten yards away, sprint back, weave thru some cones, and sprint back to the start. Maximum time: 18 seconds. Most everyone made it thru this section. My time was "ok'' as I'm not terribly explosive anymore and being weary of my left knee and any super impact lateral movement, such as weaving thru cones. I had a time of just over 15 seconds.

Now came the run, outdoors. By now, the elements had kicked up a bit and the ground was covered in this sheen of wet, cold slush. We were brought to a section of the parking lot that was roughly oval shaped with an incline on the front half and potholes dotting the second half. We were required to run our hardest for four laps and then sprint the last hundred yards or so to the finish. They started the clock and we broke out.

Again, I'm no longer all that explosive, but I figure that the minimum I run in a given session is 5K of incline, so a mile and a half shouldn't have been that big of a deal. I sprinted out ahead of the pack, with only one guy pulling away from me. A younger guy who was all legs. He would beat me by about 15 seconds or so.

Given the elements and how much I had exerted myself throughout the earlier evolutions, pulling a 9.15 1.5m time isn't all that bad... on a flat course on a nice day with full rest, I could've possibly beaten my long standing record of 9-flat, but whatever. I came in second and was handed a card that an a date and time on it for an interview.

Half the field managed to get in under the max-allowable time, which was just under 13 minutes. I don't think the course was a full 1.5 either, but my time seemed to dictate it as so, but still, that leaves half the applicants not making time.

I'll treat the up-coming interview as a dry run for my OCS board which, to my knowledge, is still scheduled for Mar 21. This will at least give me a chance to try on my "new" suit, which I bought back in October.