A love that I hate so much

I don't usually talk about my job but today I'm going to go deep on this topic so I'll apologize now. In my life, I have good days and bad days. The good days consist of being at home and playing with Lily and Chloe while spending time with my family and the bad days happen mostly when I reflect. I dislike using the word hate but I'll be honest, I hate my job and I hate that people have to do my job. I hate that jobs like mine even have to exist. If you don't know me, as a human being I'm someone who doesn't deal well with conflict. I hate it. I want to be everyone's friend and I don't want to live in a world where people lie, cheat, and steal. As a person, I'm about friendship, trust, and giving. When it comes to my job I can't be that guy and I hate it.

I work in the field of public safety and security. My job consists of dealing with individuals between the ages of 17-25 on a college campus. As you can imagine, in that profession there isn't much positive interaction. In fact, about 98% of it is negative. My job as a patrol officer is to patrol a small area eight hours a day and cite people breaking policy and on occasion have people arrested. It's almost like being a police officer with a small jurisdiction. I get called to incidents of theft, burglary, domestic assault, underage drinking, and marijuana. Pretty much, if you can think of it I've dealt with it. It's a high burnout job and the only reward that really comes of it is that you're protecting the people and property of the campus.

It's your family that makes the good days. They're what's most important in life!

The reality of it all is that about 10-12% of the people that go to school up on the hill are troubled while the other 90% are actually good well behaved students. The problem? I only see the 10-12% and honestly it's just gotten to a point where it's annoying. I'm sick of dealing with the same petty crap, the alcohol, and the obnoxious childish behavior. Being treated like an a-hole five nights a week takes it's toll as well, especially when I live my life as a positive person outside of the job. The job itself? I enjoy it. I enjoy my co-workers, I enjoy the paperwork, I enjoy making a difference. Everything that comes along with it, I hate. When I first started working there five years ago I had no idea that all of the things I have seen in the last five years even went on. I remember my first year being in disbelief after I had my first DUI. It just boggled my mind that with all we know about alcohol that people would drink and drive. Wake up call.

I'm a patrol officer on a small campus who deals with about one-hundred and twenty cases a year. It makes me completely respect the law enforcement officers and first responders of the world who deal with many more. As many times as I've told my wife that I was going to move on, quit, and find something new I just haven't brought myself to do it. I know that as disrespected as I am, and as much as I hate that my job even has to exist, I have to do it. I'm good at what I do. Every night is a challenge but I make a real difference. It's dangerous, but I've been fortunate to save two lives and numerous others by pulling them off the road before they could put their life and somebody else's at risk driving while intoxicated. Knowing that and having those yearly statistics in the back of my mind; as an officer, at this point, I don't think I could ever live with myself if I just walked away.

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