**Calypso**

Re: **Calypso**

• Calypso1977 member

  

  June 2010 edited December 2011

  that is awesome!  you are lucky that the days off are fixed - my husbands department does 4 days on, 2 days off - so your 2 days off are always together, but are never the same.  the only  nice thing is that ever 7 or 8 weeks or something, you do end up with saturday-sunday off - but then often he woudl get ordered in anyway!
  
  2nd shift is a great shift.  hubby actually preferred that when he was on patrol, as that has the most action.  day shift SUCKS (more administrative and stupid stuff) and the midnights in a small town are very quiet once the bars close - its mostlyl door checks and the like.

  
  

  they do shift bids every July 1.  he has been on for 7 almost 8 years.  I believe by year 4 he had enough seniority that he got the shifts he wanted.  now, for the past 2 years, he's in his specialized position which is a fixed schedule so i dont have to deal with any rotations, etc.  however, he still does OT as a patrolman so he is subject to order ins and the like.  he only had to work 1 midnight in the past year tho.  he never signs up for those, adn the one he worked was an order in - not much you can do there.

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• KatieJL121

  

  June 2010 edited December 2011

  Yeah, I'm very happy about FI having a set schedule now with the same 2 days (Mon. and Tues.) off every week!  It's easier for me to remember, lol, and we can actually plan around work a bit.  The only thing that has really bothered him about it so far is that court usually takes place on Tuesdays, and he's constantly having to go in for something so he doesn't really get a full day off on Tues.  
  
  My FI said the same thing about the shifts as you described.  The only reason why he would have prefered 1st shift over the others is because it's during the day and our schedules would most likely be the same.  He said day shift definitely sucks sometimes though because someone is constantly looking over your shoulder and very picky about how you do things.  While he was in training he got in trouble a few times for stupid stuff (basically paper work and other things) that his FTO (who was kind of flaky) was supposed to show him how to do and never did.  I think he will enjoy 2nd shift more.  He said he likes the other people who work on 2nds and like you said, there's more action to keep him busy and make the shift go quicker.
  
  That's great that your husband was able to get the shifts he wanted after 4 years.  FI has already been working some OT because of court, but right now we're okay with that as we're saving up for a house.  I'm just hoping that after a few years he might be able to have a little more say about which days he gets off and holidays once we start having kids.  I can dream, right?       

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• Calypso1977 member

  

  June 2010 edited December 2011

  he should work towards a specialized position (i.e., detective, prosecutor, juvenile officer).  those shifts usually are M-F days - and  holidays off, at least around here.   but, you have to pay your dues to get there, and how long that takes depends upon size of department and seniority.  h's department has about 21 guys.  so by the time to take out the chief, the lieutenant and the 4 sergeants, that leaves 15 guys vying for the 3 specialized positions.  however, bigger departments may have more detectives, for example. 
  
  there's a good reason that most police wives either dont work, or work as nurses at night, or they are school teachers.  any other profession is very difficult for a family life.  that's a big reason we dont have kids and probably never will.  is it possible?  absolutely, but you have to have a network of last minute sitters that you can call. for example, if your H has mon-tue off, so you dont line up day care assuming he will be home, then he gets ordered in at 7am tuesday -  you either have to scramble to find someone or you have to call out sick.  its tough.  out of the 21 guys my H works there are only two of us spouses with demanding full time jobs.  the other just had a baby, and currently they have family helping them with the baby, but its hard.  all of the other spouses dont work, or have part time menial jobs, and i think 2 are nurses and one is a teacher.

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• KatieJL121

  

  June 2010 edited December 2011

  What type of specialized position is your H in?  My FI has briefly mentioned working toward another position eventually, but he knows it will be a long time before that opportunity comes around.  The good thing is he has a Bachelor's degree with a double major, so hopefully his schooling will aid him a bit in working his way up.  He has even talked about going back to school at some point for his Master's degree if he gets the chance.  FI works at a fairly small department.  I'm not quite sure how many patrol officers and other positions there are, but it's a pretty small town...not tiny but not very large at all either.   I'm not positive about how many people live there because I'm not familiar with the area yet (we're moving across the state), but I know it's MUCH smaller than the town I'm from which has about 60,000 people.  However, the town we're moving to (where FI is working now) is a major college town, but they have their own law enforcement for campus.  
  
  That is a good point you have about family life being difficult.  We've talked a lot about this also.  We plan on having kids eventually, but not anytime in the near future.  We both consider ourselves young (we're 24) and we'll probably wait another 5-6 years or so.  Hopefully by then we will have a little more balance, depending on what career path I choose to take.  I have a Bachelor's in psychology and I'm debating on going on to graduate school.  So what type of job do you have, if you don't mind me asking?
  
  By the way, have you and your husband experienced any negative comments (coming from others, I mean) towards the idea of marriage?  We have aready been having to endure very negative comments coming from a few of the divorced men at FI's department.  We try not to let it bother us, but it's discouraging and annoying.  We realize that the divorce rate amongst law enforcement is very high and it's a reality, but I can't stand the negative attitude about marriage from some of these people.  Just because their marriages didn't work out doesn't mean ours won't.  We have a very healthy relationship, we're very excited about getting married, and try to think positive, but it's a bit of a downer when he goes to work and someone says, "Oh, you're getting married?  Haha!  We'll see how long that lasts..."  I mean, seriously???  How rude!  There are a few other married men and women at his department who have had successful marriages and said this bothers them as well.  It's just frustrating....haha, I needed to vent!             

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• Calypso1977 member

  

  June 2010 edited December 2011

  My H is a detective.  He loves it.  Its what he's wanted to do since he got on the job.  he has no desire to be a sergeant in part because of the schedule - he'd be on splits for the remainder of his career (2 days 3-11pm and 2 days 11pm-7am).
  
  the education will certainly help.  more and more police (and fire) have degrees now.  i do think it helps not with intuitive aspects of the job but more for the critical thinking needed for things like supervising, report writing and investigations.  plus, here in MA, we have what's called the Quinn Bill which is an education incentive for police officers.  H gets an addtional 25% pay just for having his masters.  a bachelors' gets you 20% and i think an associates is 15%.
  
  definitely wait on kids particularly if you want to go back to school.  i went back for my masters at 25 - i am so glad i did this before i got married and before we even thought about having kids.  while many go to school, work and have kids i just dont think i personally could handle 3 major responsibilities.  i am a municipal manager so i have a lot of evening committee meetings and such so i'm out a lot.

  
  

  we havent gotten any rude comments about marriage.   but we are also an "older" couple.  we were 31 and 34 when we got married.  maybe its more your younger ages that's driving the comments?  we have experienced other oddities though.  for example, we dont often get invited to family events as everyone assumes H is working.  well, hello, i can still come!  and now, with his schedule, H probably is around too.  his family doesnt get the job or the schedule at all, and a few of his family members are very wary about cops in general.  one or two of them have gotten mad at him for not bending rules for them.  that's surely led to some of the ostracization (is that a word??).
  

  
  
  

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• KatieJL121

  

  June 2010 edited December 2011

  The education incentive sounds really nice and what a great way to get motivated to complete a degree!  My FI doesn't necessarily get a higher pay because of his education, but it definitely helped him get the job.  He has a degree in political science and Spanish which is very helpful since our Hispanic population is constantly growing here.
  
  We are definitely waiting awhile to have kids.  We often joke that we will never have children because we keep pushing the age back at which we plan to start a family!  I know we will eventually...just not anytime soon.  We will definitely wait until the time is right.  Our schooling will be completed, we will be more financially stable, and hopefully our work schedules will be more reasonable as well.  I 100% agree with you that I could not handle work, school, and kids altogether either.  I've worked with many people who try to balance all 3 and it never works out positively.  We also enjoy our freedom at the moment to travel and choose how to spend our spare time!  
  
  You might be right about the rude comments....it could possibly be because we are in our mid-20's.  But in our area the average age to marry seems to be 23-26, so we do fit into the norm around here.  But the men who give FI a hard time about it at work are probably older, so your theory does make sense.  I can definitely see why you would be annoyed with not getting invited to family functions!  They should invite you regardless.  I used to work a lot of overtime and similar things would happen to me.  As far as the bending-the-rules situation goes, that must be very difficult.  It seems as if police officers are always being discriminated against and people have strange expectations of them.  A lot of people admittedly hate cops, but yet when they're in trouble and know a police officer, they expect him/her to grant favors.  Sorry, I got a little off track...I'm not implying that your family members hate law enforcement...it just made me think of that strange cycle!                     

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• Calypso1977 member

  

  June 2010 edited December 2011

  haha, oh, no. h's uncle definitely hates cops.   H has said the relationship became somewhat strained the day he put on the badge.
  
  youd be surprised at the guys that dont take advantage of the quinn bill.  it was actually a pretty hot topic (still is, somewhat) around here.  state cut back on the portion they will fund, but towns can continue to fund it on their own if they choose.  many towns had to vote it out as they couldnt afford to pay the entire amount. we were fortunate, my husband will still get it.  but it was hairy for awhile as we thought he might lost 25% of his paycheck.  we might have lost our house.  if you get bored, google "quinn bill massachusetts" and you can read more on it. 

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