Not So Super-visors

Sometimes, a business is only as good as its supervisors. In a major metropolitan police department, supervisors can make or break a squad. Unfortunately for me, some of the supervisors in my platoon are about as popular as Bill Lumbergh from "Office Space" (pictured, above left). Why? Because they haven't got a clue.

My sergeant is useless in the same way that many ineffectual parents are: he wants to be everyone's friend, and not their boss. The problem with this line of thinking is that when one of the platoon's screw-ups (and there are a lot of them) does something idiotic, nothing is said or done about it. The workers (like me) are left to pick up the bums' slack. Allow me to give you an example:

Two nights ago, the wagon crew (one bum male and one uber-bum female officer) exited roll call at about midnight. The policy is that when you are available, you notify police radio. They refused. Radio, not knowing any better, kept them listed at headquarters. In the meantime, the solo cars (like myself) were running around the district answering 911 calls. The wagon was on the street, but they weren't telling anyone. I know because they passed me while I was rushing to an alarm. Radio kept the wagon listed at HQ until 4:47am!!! Basically, the two officers (and I use that term loosely) got to kill more than five hours of their workday because the sergeant wasn't paying attention to the status screen. Five hours! While the rest of us were busting our humps. Now that's leadership worthy of the DNC.

Last night, the male bum was on a solo car (assigned next to me as my primary backup - scary) and his first mission out of roll call was to tell radio that he had to take his vehicle to the garage for service. He never specified what was wrong with the vehicle. Go figure. He leaves the district at midnight, and comes back into service at 3:31am!!! Three-and a half hours at the garage! One of my co-workers asked if he was getting a new engine. And where was the supervisor in all this? Silent. He had to know what was going on, since everyone else did, right? I mean, take a friggin' interest, will ya? (Oh, in case you were wondering, I had to answer two calls on this bum's sector, and had to wait five minutes for a backup on a car stop because toad-boy was checking his wipers or something equally inane.)

I'm sorry for the rant, but until my sergeant gets the toads in line, I am at greater risk of getting hurt. And that had better not happen. If my police department is only as good as its supervisors, then we're in very big trouble.