Balancing act

I am learning more and more that being an officer is a huge balancing act. On one hand, I need to build camaraderie, trust, and rapport with my underlings. On the other, I need to lay down the law and command respect. It's not an easy thing to do. They need to feel like they can come to me with everything from a great dirty joke to a very serious issue.

I had to lay down the law today on a probationary member. I may have scared him off a little bit, but sometimes I just have to take care of business. You see, this probie's uniform looked like utter shit. You would think that by now he would've learned how to tuck in a freaking shirt. Hell, before I joined the team I had never tucked in a shirt and I learned pretty fast how to do so all by myself just like a big girl. But no, this kid has his pants sagging down his ass and his shirt all muffin-topped spilling out over his belt.

I told him over the weekend... pull up your pants and tuck in your shirt. Others told him the same thing over the weekend. Today, before I snapped, at least 3 different people had told him politely on different occasions to fix his uniform, to no avail. So after I told him for the fourth time today and he rolled his eyes and ignored me as he walked out the door, I lost it.

"SMITH. Stop," I said in my I-mean-business-voice. He paused in the doorway and looked a little scared.

I pushed my own pants down to the delinquent-teenager-sag position and pulled my shirt out all funny so my uniform looked as crappy as his did, "This is not how you wear a uniform Smith." His fellow probie buddies watched on, wide-eyed.

I grabbed him by the waist band of his pants, pulled them up over his hips to the proper position, and tucked his shirt in bit by bit as I turned him in a circle. "This is how you wear a uniform. Understood?" I said firmly as I fixed my own uniform.

"Yes Lieutenant," he said before cowering all the way out the door.

You know what though? His uniform looked good the rest of the day. Maybe I sound anal about the whole thing, but I'm really concerned about professionalism. I sure as hell wouldn't want a bunch of punk-ass looking kids that look like they just rolled out of bed trying to save my life. It does make a difference, I don't care what anyone says.

We have 2 more days of intensive training for probationary members. We'll have to see if that probie will revert back to his sloppy uniform ways. I'll let you know.