Originally Posted by
Zirk208
For the Academy:
-Don't be a clown. You represent a department, and how you act reflects on them and their decision to hire you and take a chance on you.
-Take care of yourself physically. If you bust your butt 200% every day and you aren't ready for it, injuries may follow.
-Take a laptop if allowed. I was one of the few taking notes with pen and paper, and that was 12 years ago. Most lectures have powerpoints slides to download and follow along with or study later. Don't get caught playing solitaire in class or looking at sports scores or nudie pics.
-Turn your phone off. Say good-bye to your family/friends/loved ones, and apologize ahead of time for dropping off the radar.
-Don't post stupid stuff on facebook. That includes work related sensitive stuff, and drunk pics from your trip to Mexico. If you can't trust yourself, disable or delete your account.
In FTO:
-Apologize ahead of time to your wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, or loved ones. You have a job that will bleed over into your personal time and require all of your time during the training phase. You will spend time off duty polishing boots, squaring away a uniform, studying codes, studying maps, and prepping for the next day.
-10 hour days will become 14 hour days when you muck everything up and have to re-write a report 6 times. Apologize to friends and loved ones ahead of time, the time sacrifice will hurt them, they may not understand, and if they aren't supportive it will hurt you at work and at home.
-Take it one day at a time
-Keep your mouth shut and your ears open. If you act like you know it all, prepare to be humbled.
-FTO can be a stress game. They need to see how you will hold up and how you make decisions under pressure.
-Talk to people on calls and on traffic stops. Learning how to carry yourself and how to interact in a uniform is a whole new ballgame for most people.
-The school teacher who smiles every day will lie through her teeth about using her blinker, and the guy who just beat his wife will be cool as a cucumber while blaming the overreacting neighbors after he puts her head through the drywall.
-Decision making and report writing are the two big killers that are hard to overcome. You can be taught most everything else, but making a decision and putting it down on paper come from you.
I think this really covers it. Think of the academy as your prep course and FTO as your graduate course.
Philippians 2:10-11
To argue with a person who renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. ~ Thomas Paine
“The greatest conspiracy theory is the notion that your government cares about you”- unknown.
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