Can You Handle It?

Every Monday and Tuesday morning I take buckets of child support case files from my office to county superior courtroom eleven.  The court complex is right next to the county jail and I drive my van around the back of the jail to get to the parking area.  After loading the files onto my cart I make my way through the plaza between the jailhouse and the courthouse to the entrance.  In recent weeks I’ve found myself eyeing the jail facility a little more intensively than I have before and in fact as I waited for court to finish the other day I found myself just staring out of the second story picture window in the hallway outside courtroom eleven at the massive red brick jail just across the plaza.  I spaced out for a minute or two trying to imagine what might be going on inside and if I could ever handle whatever it was.

I have applied for a position as a correctional officer.  If hired I will be working in the ominous looking red brick building pictured above.  Not coincidentily, the ominousness of the red brick building has increased in recent days.  From one day to the next when I think about a career in law enforcement I have wild swings in my confidence level.  One day I’ll think, “Yeah, I can totally do this.”  The next day I’ll think, “What am I thinking?  Can I really do this?”  Its so unlike anything I’ve ever done before that its really a complete unknown.  A lot of guys go into law enforcement after they’ve served in the military or maybe they’ve grown up in tough neighborhoods or they come from a family of lawmen.  Any of those scenarios, I would think, would give a person an added measure of confidence.  They’ve either experienced or at least witnessed situations similar to those they’re likely to see on the street.  I have none of that.  I’ve never served in the military (unless a few paintball sorties count), I grew up in suburbia, and I come from a family of pastors.  Nothing wrong with any of that, but none of it really translates to police brownie points.  I’ve been in one fistfight my entire 31 years, and though I think I comported myself pretty well I don’t think putting The Lyons Affair on a resume is really going to help me either.

There’s no rule that says any of those things I mentioned (military experience, hard knocks neighborhood, lineage of lawmen) are a prerequisite to working in law enforcement and no doubt many have come from backgrounds similar to mine.  But for me, since I don’t have any of that in my history, my composure in the kinds of stressful situations that are common in police or corrections work is an unknown.  I think I can handle it, but how can I really know until I’m facing it?  Time will tell.