Challenging

Today was my first day on my new job assignment.  New post.  New days off.  I'll be off on Tuesdays and Wednesdays now so I'll have one day off a week with the wife.  That is cool.  We haven't had a day off together in quite some time.

Last week we had a Supervisors meeting on our shift.  All of the Sergeants and most of the Lieutenants and the Major were there.  Being one of the newest Sergeants in the room was a little bit intimidating.  But then I find group situations a little intimidating anyway.

Anyhow, one of the things the Major said was that we should "challenge" our people.  He said "Give them 'what if' situations and make them think.  Don't let your people get complacent."

I thought that was a pretty good idea.  I'm going to try and do that now and then.

The night on the yard had gone much better than the one last week.  About the most exciting thing we did was make fun of a Kleenex box.  (It's a long and stupid story.)  So I decided to open a small debate with one of the Major's 'what if' scenarios.]

KP and Anakin were sitting in the shack.  Since they are both as sharp as a pair of ginger snaps I decided to give them something to chew on.

"Pop quiz." I said.
"You are standing on the yard and the yard is open.  You are down by A-dining.  Everyone else custody-wise is all the way across the yard and you see one offender seemingly punching another one in the back.  But when he moves you can see blood so obviously he has a weapon.  What is the radio call for that?"

Neither one of them knew what the actual radio call for a stabbing (10-50) was, but KP said "I'd call a 10-49 (fight) or a 10-5 (officer needs assistance) and say he had a weapon."

That was a pretty good answer.  Considering in almost ten years I have never heard a 10-50 called and probably 99% of the people would not know what that meant.

"And then what would you do?" I asked.

"I'd stand back and wait for help to arrive.  I don't want to get stabbed!"

I said that he earned a little gold star for his forehead.

That opened up a debate and discussion about some of the radio calls we have never heard.  If any of those were ever called we would all be scrambling for our radio code cards to figure out what was actually going on.  We decided that hopefully if one of those rarely heard situations ever arose, whoever was making the call should be as calm and concise as possible on the radio so there wouldn't be any confusion as to what was going on.

But that probably won't happen.  Historically they will yell into the radio and babble some nonsense and we will all be scrambling to find out who what and where.  Ah, well.

At least it got us thinking for a few minutes.  I'm sure the Major would be proud.