Thursday, May 24, 2018

What's in Your Expectations?


A police captain once told me about a frequent personnel issue he encountered with new lieutenants. He said that in the days when the department had an old-line police chief who felt unencumbered by pesky employment laws or HR nerds, if an officer got on the chief's bad side, the chief might say something along the lines of "Don't even think about buying any sunglasses. You're not going to be seeing daylight for the next five years." 

The implication, of course, was that the officer would be assigned to night-shift as a punishment.

The captain said, "When the officers who grew up under that environment got promoted, they thought they would have similar power. I have to explain to them that we don't do that anymore."

It may help if all of us search for our own out-dated expectations.

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