<blockquote>Quote<br><hr><i>Originally posted by: <b>65rosessamurai</b></i><br>Odd!! I could pronounce "Shawn-a" as soon as I saw your name, Seana!! (Must be an Irish related thing!)
Sean, with your degree in criminal justice, and background which suggests becoming a police officer, doesn't your CF cause a problem with becoming one, or can a CF'r pass the physical tests without disclosing their CF? Why I ask is because next to military, I was contemplating on becoming an enforcement officer when I was 18, but was discouraged due to the physical qualifications. (Just curious)
Regards!<hr></blockquote>
I passed all their tests with flying colors, especially the physical assessment course/test, which is pretty rough on people. When I ran the course, out of maybe 20 or 30 people who ran it, maybe 6 failed to complete it, or failed due to taking way too long (and many of those who failed looked to be in great shape, including muscle building jocks). It starts out where you are seated in the vehicle and they start the time. You have to start with your hands at like 3 o'clock and noon, and when they start the clock you have to put the car in park, remove your seatbelt, and leave the vehicle in a particular way, run around to the trunk, open the trunk, retrieve imaginary cuffs, close the trunk, and then start the physical part of the course. You have to sprint a very long distance (cant recall how far, can't recall the #'s, but it is a VERY long sprint), go around a parking cone, and then sprint back to where you started. Then you have to traverse an annoying course consisting of hurdles, a side stepping rope course, and then belly crawl quite a ways and then run some more to go and touch the wall, and then turn around and go back through the course the same exact way, the way you came (exactly the same, so you gotta do the whole course over again, including both long runs). Then when you get back to the car (if you havent already run out of time or fallen over due to exhaustion/not being able to breath) you have to run to the trunk, open the trunk, take the imaginary handcuffs off the back of your belt, put the imaginary handcuffs back into the trunk, shut the trunk, return to the drivers seat of the vehicle, put your seatbelt back on, take the car out of park, and then return your hands to 3 o'clock and 12 noon. THEN that is the end of your course test.
The statewide limit on it back then was like 6 minutes and 10 seconds maybe (been a while but I know it was atleast 6 mins). I finished the course @ like 4 mins and 20 seconds. I could have finished faster, but i ran the course with a stopwatch timed to the instructors start of the course, and when i came back to the final second part of the second run part, I saw I had a TON of time left, so I said screw it and briskly walked the last part to the car. Noone was going to reward me with sex or a cookie for finishing faster, so I didn't care.
Before you even are allowed to take the test you have to do a ton of civil servant testing, and a brief physical assessment before the course (consisting of a few questions/form to fill out, and blood pressure/heart rate checks...two people failed just to those checks). Before that there is the initial interview, and then quite a few civil servant county tests you have to pass, like math, reading comprehension and other cognitive ability tests (for the most part, idiot tests). The real big one that is a pain though, just due to it's sheer amount of questions and reading is the huge detention deputy test you take at your local jail (here anyway). You get something like 3 hours to take a test that has something like 800 (just an educated guess, I can't remember exactly, but it was gigantic) questions.
I've always been a pretty bright guy, and good at test taking, so I thought nothing of it and figured to get done with tons of time to spare. Overconfident was I. The test (due to you probably working in the jails to start out cause you are a noob) consists primarily of reading gigantic multi page prisoner sheet information, and trying to figure out who can't do work with who and who has certain personalities and history with others who shouldn't be cell mates and all that crap. One question can take you a long time to read the question, read the ton of information following the question, and then take a ton of time to cross reference the data to the particular question. That was the most annoying part. Aside from that massive time sink part, the other parts are about military time recognition, and some other questions pertanent to what your job would be.
Then after that you have to go to a local college (or wherever it's offered for you) and the county pays for you to take an audio/visual test, that asks you questions, and flashes crap on the screen and you have to respond within a quick time and be accurate with your answers. The whole jist of the test is to test your perception and common sense judgement calls regarding prisoners trying to "pull one over on you".
Then after that (might have the order out of whack, but it's all needed regardless) you have another interview, and atleast one lie detector test to take. The interview with the polygraph conductor before the test is enough to make you change ambient traces of carbon on your winky into diamonds. Then the test goes on, and you can either be 100% honest (depending on how bad of a s*ithead you have been in real life), or use certain techniques to trick the polygraph machine. I didn't have much to fear, the majority of my misdeeds (pretty much all of them) were vandalism/destruction of private property type of offenses, so I didn't concern myself with the techniques to fool the polygraph.
I performed and passed with flying colors, everything they threw at me. I didn't get any of the positions I applied for, even though I was WAY beyond qualified (theres some real crappy detention deputies and even worse community services officer which I also applied for) with a degree in criminal justice where I graduated with high honors (cum laude), had a very successful collegiate internship program with the sheriff's dept, and several glowing letters of recommendation from a very well known officer (now detective), and a successful lawyer I have known for a very long time (for character affirmation), and never having done anything beyond petty juvenile things, I didn't get crap and I became very depressed afterwards. I was also treated by my background investigator like I was always lieing, because he didn't believe how an almost 34 year old strapping guy never had a job before. That's what I told him at the original application turnin/interview, because I hadn't had a "regular job" before, only 3 or 4 jobs that were mostly restaurant work and "under the table". I told him it wasn't me attempting to be deceptive, I was just basing it on a "real job" as in I never turned in a W-2 form before.
Sean, with your degree in criminal justice, and background which suggests becoming a police officer, doesn't your CF cause a problem with becoming one, or can a CF'r pass the physical tests without disclosing their CF? Why I ask is because next to military, I was contemplating on becoming an enforcement officer when I was 18, but was discouraged due to the physical qualifications. (Just curious)
Regards!<hr></blockquote>
I passed all their tests with flying colors, especially the physical assessment course/test, which is pretty rough on people. When I ran the course, out of maybe 20 or 30 people who ran it, maybe 6 failed to complete it, or failed due to taking way too long (and many of those who failed looked to be in great shape, including muscle building jocks). It starts out where you are seated in the vehicle and they start the time. You have to start with your hands at like 3 o'clock and noon, and when they start the clock you have to put the car in park, remove your seatbelt, and leave the vehicle in a particular way, run around to the trunk, open the trunk, retrieve imaginary cuffs, close the trunk, and then start the physical part of the course. You have to sprint a very long distance (cant recall how far, can't recall the #'s, but it is a VERY long sprint), go around a parking cone, and then sprint back to where you started. Then you have to traverse an annoying course consisting of hurdles, a side stepping rope course, and then belly crawl quite a ways and then run some more to go and touch the wall, and then turn around and go back through the course the same exact way, the way you came (exactly the same, so you gotta do the whole course over again, including both long runs). Then when you get back to the car (if you havent already run out of time or fallen over due to exhaustion/not being able to breath) you have to run to the trunk, open the trunk, take the imaginary handcuffs off the back of your belt, put the imaginary handcuffs back into the trunk, shut the trunk, return to the drivers seat of the vehicle, put your seatbelt back on, take the car out of park, and then return your hands to 3 o'clock and 12 noon. THEN that is the end of your course test.
The statewide limit on it back then was like 6 minutes and 10 seconds maybe (been a while but I know it was atleast 6 mins). I finished the course @ like 4 mins and 20 seconds. I could have finished faster, but i ran the course with a stopwatch timed to the instructors start of the course, and when i came back to the final second part of the second run part, I saw I had a TON of time left, so I said screw it and briskly walked the last part to the car. Noone was going to reward me with sex or a cookie for finishing faster, so I didn't care.
Before you even are allowed to take the test you have to do a ton of civil servant testing, and a brief physical assessment before the course (consisting of a few questions/form to fill out, and blood pressure/heart rate checks...two people failed just to those checks). Before that there is the initial interview, and then quite a few civil servant county tests you have to pass, like math, reading comprehension and other cognitive ability tests (for the most part, idiot tests). The real big one that is a pain though, just due to it's sheer amount of questions and reading is the huge detention deputy test you take at your local jail (here anyway). You get something like 3 hours to take a test that has something like 800 (just an educated guess, I can't remember exactly, but it was gigantic) questions.
I've always been a pretty bright guy, and good at test taking, so I thought nothing of it and figured to get done with tons of time to spare. Overconfident was I. The test (due to you probably working in the jails to start out cause you are a noob) consists primarily of reading gigantic multi page prisoner sheet information, and trying to figure out who can't do work with who and who has certain personalities and history with others who shouldn't be cell mates and all that crap. One question can take you a long time to read the question, read the ton of information following the question, and then take a ton of time to cross reference the data to the particular question. That was the most annoying part. Aside from that massive time sink part, the other parts are about military time recognition, and some other questions pertanent to what your job would be.
Then after that you have to go to a local college (or wherever it's offered for you) and the county pays for you to take an audio/visual test, that asks you questions, and flashes crap on the screen and you have to respond within a quick time and be accurate with your answers. The whole jist of the test is to test your perception and common sense judgement calls regarding prisoners trying to "pull one over on you".
Then after that (might have the order out of whack, but it's all needed regardless) you have another interview, and atleast one lie detector test to take. The interview with the polygraph conductor before the test is enough to make you change ambient traces of carbon on your winky into diamonds. Then the test goes on, and you can either be 100% honest (depending on how bad of a s*ithead you have been in real life), or use certain techniques to trick the polygraph machine. I didn't have much to fear, the majority of my misdeeds (pretty much all of them) were vandalism/destruction of private property type of offenses, so I didn't concern myself with the techniques to fool the polygraph.
I performed and passed with flying colors, everything they threw at me. I didn't get any of the positions I applied for, even though I was WAY beyond qualified (theres some real crappy detention deputies and even worse community services officer which I also applied for) with a degree in criminal justice where I graduated with high honors (cum laude), had a very successful collegiate internship program with the sheriff's dept, and several glowing letters of recommendation from a very well known officer (now detective), and a successful lawyer I have known for a very long time (for character affirmation), and never having done anything beyond petty juvenile things, I didn't get crap and I became very depressed afterwards. I was also treated by my background investigator like I was always lieing, because he didn't believe how an almost 34 year old strapping guy never had a job before. That's what I told him at the original application turnin/interview, because I hadn't had a "regular job" before, only 3 or 4 jobs that were mostly restaurant work and "under the table". I told him it wasn't me attempting to be deceptive, I was just basing it on a "real job" as in I never turned in a W-2 form before.