View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2006 > February > 28
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Odes to going corporate, Barney Fife
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I haven’t had to start a new job in over 26 years so this transition to the new Sandy Springs department has, to say the least, been interesting in many different ways. I’ve been on the job for one week now. Everything has been really good, but there is one side effect that I believe no one saw coming.
Everyone in the city of Sandy Springs government is new. So many new acquaintances. When you start a new job and are among new faces in the workplace, what is the one thing you do around other people?
Smile. Smile a lot.
Yep. I’ve been smiling almost non-stop for over two weeks. Children, listen to me. When your mother says: “If you don’t stop making that awful face, it’ll stay that way forever.” Well, apparently there’s something to it.
Since that first day, a rather grotesque version of what should be a pleasant look has grown to my face and I can’t get off. When you meet someone for the first time, its OK to smile but, frankly, I think I’m starting to scare the other people in the building.
(The neighbor’s cat died the other day. I went over to express my sympathy. It didn’t go well.)
I admit I have never been among nor comfortable around the corporate environment. Police people are a bit different and, as I am finding, not easily mixable with normal folk.
First of all, we wear guns. It makes a lot of the people nervous. We got an e-mail from the safety guy about workplace violence. They worry about people bullying us. We haven’t seen any problems.
Standard operating procedures are very different in the corporate environment.
For instance they really like doing flow charts and printing other charts just for simple things.
For instance, I asked where the bathroom was. The next thing I knew I was watching a PowerPoint presentation followed by the very popular video “Bathroom Etiquette” narrated by the late Broderick Crawford.
I like the corporate people. They have a lot of rules. though. They like you to use happy words to show others how happy you are in this company. As you know, happy people are nice and they tend to be more helpful. I like the happy words and I try to use them often but the effect is lost after they see the guns and hand grenades on my belt.
Corporate people like balloons. They like balloons because balloons, for some reason, are an important element in the fiscal strategy of most big powerful businesses. In Alan Greenspan’s 2001 annual report he wrote: “Over 750 major commercial real estate corporations reported a significant rise in housing starts due to balloons.”
After a few days we moved from the really corporate area to the semi-corporate area of the Sandy Springs city Hall complex. We now have a row of cubicles where we can be in our own area. We’re close enough to the nice people but now we can retreat to the back end of the row of cubicles and say (%$&$^$!!) in a low tone when we want. You can tell where our cubicles are. The balloons are wrapped in crime-scene tape.
Tribute to Barney Fife
Don Knotts died Sunday at 81. “One-bullet Barney Fife” was one of the most beloved characters known to the ranks in law enforcement agencies across the country. There were a lot of police officers, over the years, with some Deputy Fife in them. Most of them young gung-ho and naive.
None were completely like him but his mannerisms and predicaments he got himself into were, in some form or fashion, recreated by many a rookie. He was the Elvis of police nerd-isms.
In his honor, the entire Sandy Springs Police Department, all 11 of us to date, wore a bullet in our pocket Feb. 27 and proclaimed it “One-bullet Barney” day.
As I am sure that Barney Fife’s picture will forever don the walls of precincts everywhere, I am equally sure that sometime this week many a dry-cleaning owner will scratch their heads after finding a bullet in someone’s laundry.
For now, it’s time to get back to work. Crime is up. Time to nip it in the bud, folks.
