As my retirement (mini-retirement, sabbatical, career pivot?) date approaches, a good portion of me is in total fear based mode. This became clear as the possibility of staying on the job part time came up.
At my department, it’s pretty common for a retired officer to stay on as a reserve. Reserve officers around here work 3 shifts a month covering shortages on the street, of which they do for free. They’re also required to work the major events(mostly directing traffic) that go every other month in our city, all of which is also unpaid volunteer work for them. Why would anyone willingly work as a cop for free? Previously it’s baffled me, but now that I’m about ready to leave the job behind, it started making sense.
Reserve officers are issued take home police cars, standard patrol equipment, and are granted the same police powers that full time officers have. They’re required to meet the same level of initial and continuing training, and must adhere to the same policies. This leads to reason 1 of why people volunteer to be a cop for a few days every month: money. There’s a constant stream of what we call “part time” work in our city, which makes up for the lack of officers overall. Companies hire off duty cops for part time security, and since reserves meet all the same requirements, this stream of income is open to them as well.
For example, a friend of mine runs security for a bank. He and half a dozen officers rotate working at the bank every day it’s open, outside of their normal shifts. They get about 40 bucks an hour to sit in the parking lot or lobby, while in uniform with their patrol car parked out front. Banks pay them because it’s cheaper than getting robbed, which is a somewhat frequent occurrence. It’s primarily a deterrence; the hope is the robber sees the marked car and will therefore decide to rob somewhere else. Our department vets all businesses that employ off duty officers in order to insure that the business is legit and isn’t currently being investigated. There’s all sorts of businesses that use this type of security; movie theaters, bars, private schools, scrap lots, etc. We’re not allowed to work part time at places that would hurt optics, such as strip clubs. If there’s alcohol on the premises(bars), we are only allowed to work the parking lot. Usually at bars if someone is causing a problem, the bouncers will bring them outside to the waiting cop, who may or may not arrest the troublemaker dependending on what went down.
Theoretically, as a reserve, you do your three shifts a month for free, and you can then work as much part time as you want. If you bust your ass, you could probably make low six figures off of this alone. Do I have any desire to get paid to sit in my car outside a bank all day? Fuck no. But my chicken little side is attracted to having that stream of income open. I could do my free volunteer shifts, and then work 1-2 days a week of paid security and easily cover my expenses, thus allowing my investments to coast even more, and not worry so much when the economy inevitably takes another shit. This definitely sounded good to me.
As I thought about it more, I also realized reason 2 that people become reserves was also tugging my ego towards this option: reserves are still cops. As much as I’ve struggled with it, I must admit that being a cop has become a big part of my identity. Still being in the know of what’s going on in the underworld of our city is appealing, as it strangely makes me feel safer(knowing is half the battle!). Still occasionally seeing my old coworkers would be nice. And I like that the department would continue to train me. I would feel a bit safer knowing that I’m still up to a decent level of self defense aptitude.
Finally, as I thought about it, my ego was a big pull in my subconscious as well. I’m looking forward to telling people when I retire that I’m a stay at home dad. My ego is not. It’s used to telling people that I’m a cop, or at least that I work full time. It likes the easier idea of telling people that I just transitioned to part time cop. Much easier to explain than the 4% rule, and then feeling slightly emasculated when I describe how I’ll be letting my investments coast as my wife makes enough to cover all of our expenses and then some. Ego imagines that people immediately discount any of the work I’ve done to build our net worth for the past decade, and jump right to thinking that I’m a deadbeat living off his wife’s dole. I don’t care what people think, but man, my ego sure does.
With all of that said, the idea of staying on as a reserve seemed appealing. In fact, for a few days I had all but decided to do it. But then I started to realize that staying on, even as a reserve, is contrary to why the hell I’m leaving in the first place. Yeah, sure, a good chunk of my why is to spend more time with my family and not work crazy hours anymore. But a bigger part is that I don’t want to be a cop anymore. If I’m honest with myself, I haven’t wanted to be a cop since I hit hardcore burnout a few years ago, and I was never too keen on the job when I got hired. I just wanted a secure job.
This realization came slowly over the last year, as I went through some pretty tough VA provided trauma therapy. That could be a whole series of posts in itself; long story short I became a cop because the trauma I experienced made the career seem weirdly safe, not out of any desire to actually do the job. I’ve essentially been faking it to make it for my whole career, and I’m about done with that shit. All the reasons I would stay a reserve are a blend of fear and ego based reasoning. They’re just me holding on to what is familiar and stable. But they would severely limit my growth. I’m quitting to try and explore who I am, and what I actually want to do.To try to become a better version of me. I bought myself some space to figure that shit out by saving more than 25x my expenses. If I just continue on with some half assed version of what I’m currently doing, am I really growing? What the hell was the point of all that saving?
Look, I’ll admit that maybe I’m completely wrong. Maybe in a couple years I’ll decide to get back on the job. I think the probability of this is extremely small, but I’m pretty on board with never saying never to many things in life. I’m not going to burn any bridges because of this. But staying on as a reserve seems like leaving the ships intact on shore. I’d rather go full Cortes-destroy those fuckers and figure out how to make this new world work.
