On January 16, 2014, Chief John Pickens was due to swear in the three new officers who had successfully passed their AZPOST test. These new officers were very desperately needed in the department to alleviate ongoing staffing concerns. After the swearing in ceremony, one of the three officers presented chief with something he should be well acquainted with–a letter of resignation. The chief was enraged. Shortly afterwards the issued equipment–the new clunky and garish badge, uniform with new patches–were all being turned back into the property room to await their new owner (who probably wouldn’t be hanging around long either).
As esteemed members of the ASU Police Department, we would like to extend a special thanks to this officer for embodying the department’s toxic state into one singular action. It serves to illustrate the disturbing reality we live with daily which is putting more bodies into a lousy workplace won’t fix any of the problems at the department, it will only perpetuate them.
This latest lateral officer isn’t the first officer to do this by any stretch; there have been plenty who have quit in short order once they were exposed to our workplace. Chief Pickens is too proud to acknowledge the problems, too inept to understand and fix them. How many more employees must we tear through before Pickens realizes poor morale is the cause of the staffing problem??
Wow chief, I guess you didn’t do anything to improve the people problem in our workplace, new lateral guys keep leaving before they hit the road. Maybe it’s the generic air fresheners, the lack of motivational posters, maybe supervisors need more pay raises to watch over new hires? What could it be?
You and your happy joy joy O faced bobble heads keep thinking you can say, “If you don’t like it then leave.” hoping that nobody will call your bluff.
Guess what, another bluff was called! Ha ha, it’s hard to be taken seriously when everyone is laughing at you and they were en mass when this happened. Did your angry bean munch a hole in your duty slacks when you handed him a badge and he handed you a resignation letter? Oh I bet that pimp palace you have up there was ripe, whew!
Can you seriously think you will just, “weather the storm” by getting more bodies? That’s fine as long as we are the only game in town, but surprise we’re not.
I laughed so hard it hurt on the 3rd paragraph. Now I have to get that visual out of my head. Thanks for both.
It says volumes about a leader and his organization when you get a middle finger this big, this soon, this way. I’m sure some bruised ass from command will be making phone calls to the better organization bad mouthing their decision to hire him.
A city agency needs a guy with balls, that’s a good place for him, wouldn’t want him falling asleep from boredom here. If you are here long enough you are too pissed about the workplace to fall asleep.
Can anyone but the chief blame him? If this was a good work environment, but the pay wasn’t as high, people might stay. If it was a supervisor light and a friendly place to work, people might stay.
If we had step increases that kept pace with inflation instead of receiving raises once every 7 years unless you promote or leave, people might stay. If this wasn’t a us against them workplace, people might stay. Guess what, it’s not that good, it’s all those negative things and it’s obvious, so guess what? People don’t stay.
You don’t have the balanced workplace it would take to retain enough of the numbers. The be patient, be nice today campaign is smearing excrement in a wound to help with the infection, the same problem people are here, everyone knows who they are, this is a lull.
Experienced lateral officers come here and say, “These guys don’t have a clue on how to run a police department.” OR “I have a retarded know-it-all university cop FTO criticizing, failing me after being a cop for 20 years working the street in shit holes.” OR they say, “I don’t have to put up with this shit. Bye Pam, Katie, thanks for working hard to get me in trouble with the commander, you miserable people suck. I’ll go elsewhere for a pay raise.”
Brand new officers out of the academy never want to stick around for all the above reasons. You have other officers, corporals, sergeants, commanders, creating obstacles for retention and then belly aching about numbers, like they can’t figure out why officers continuously say, “F this place, I quite!”. Why would you expect anyone to stay? Chief’s answer…”We got more people.” In two years…”Uh we had more people, we’re getting more people”
Based on the chief’s strategery to solve our infinity and beyond staffing problem we should partner with the AZ unemployment office and take on unemployed, out of state officers, until they are able to find a job being a police officer and have to forget what a 39, 803, 804 is. Hats off to the new guy for giving our failed despot chief the bird! Now you have to worry about street gangs ending your career, not an IA paper happy ASU supervisor.
And the best part, all of this isn’t an ASUPD dirty little secret any more. More and more of the law enforcement community, state wide, know about the blog and are asking us questions about it when they see an ASU Officer.
What’s the controversy? This isn’t the first lateral officer who told the chief he’s quiting, just the first who quit so abruptly, so soon. Outstanding move, he just dodged the biggest bullet of his law enforcement career.
Command baits these guys into coming on board, but once they’re here all bets are off. Command lied to laterals about money, potential promotions based on experience, you name it. They assume people will roll over and forget about it and they are wrong. If you can’t keep your word that’s a problem because nobody in this business wants to work for a lying piece of shit they can’t respect.
Some quit only to be told the chief will pay them an extra 5k per year to stay, but they leave anyway. We are told to be patient and wait for change in the department. Whats the plan, we want to see it?
Pickens has been here over a decade and he’s still talking about all the same issues, Chief McFail Pickens. The man doesn’t get it. He’s too interested in paying for tail young enough to be his granddaughter, buying them lingerie at Victoria Secret. If he would just run this department effectively I wouldn’t care. If he was a great leader I would chip in for his Viagra budget.
He’s too interested in partying with the football team on trips, attending games, his interests are anything but taking care of his, our police department. Who cares the chief is upset about this officer choosing what’s best for him? Nobody.
You probably saw the chief with a call girl, which means he’s probably a reader of New Times and will eventually feature him in a cover page article. If half the third floor were arrested in a prostitution sting, slapped with sexual harassment lawsuits, I wouldn’t even flinch.
Is it really that hard for our people to figure out how to retain people? This has been going on how long? How many laterals left the department in the last five years? I lost track how many left since I’ve been here. I don’t even bother getting to know people unless they are here longer than their first probational year, what’s the point? Odds are they won’t be here very long.
Yes, it really is that hard for them to figure out, look at what they’re doing, absolutely nothing to fix the people problems and everything to ignore them.
I picture this going down one of two ways. While I idealize the heroic comic book version where Officer Bubye kicks the chief in the balls saying, ” That’s for attempting to fix the problems of the department by ignoring them again. I quit!!! Then he tosses his resignation letters…up in the air saying, “Let it rain up in here!”.
Realistically Officer Bubye probably slipped him the paper while chief was proud of no accomplishment whatsoever, so that’s still outstanding, and for that hats off to another Officer Bubye!
Any lateral worth a damn is going to look around, see the writing on the wall, and leave. If they don’t they are here for their kids only and will leave when that obligation is fulfilled.
They can make more money, more than enough to offset the tuition waiver with other departments because a lot of guys come here misinformed about tuition being, “free.” It’s a good discount for the employee, but not the same with dependents.
Another brand new officer gets this impression, flees like he’s on fire, and the chief runs around telling everyone we got more people, more people…ok…and…he’s doing what to retain, retain, retain?
Nothing.
How many times has this happened prior to a lateral officer getting out of training? Prior to a lateral officer completing their first year here? Plenty, plenty of times.
They know what the agency or agencies were like that they came from, realized what they got themselves into, and can’t leave fast enough. They thought this would be a stress free easy gig and they had no idea how messed up this place is.
He wants to fight the criminals outside the department, not inside. Why would he waste his career playing politics, not getting raises, and feeling under valued? It doesn’t take long for new employees to read the writing on the wall here. We need new command leadership.
Oh you dodged a bullet kid! Good call! Now you have to deal with job satisfaction, pay increases, and won’t have to worry about your command staff screwing with your career like so many of our officers here at ASUPD.
This one set a new ASUPD records for being the fastest resigning new officer, the youngest officer to resign, and the most amusing resignation I know of. The “Fuck you, I quit.” stories are far too common. They just get old after awhile.
Slipping the chief the resignation letter right after spooning, swearing in, was first class moxy. He’s going to need that pair of brass going to real police situations, not chasing bike thieves, MIP’s, 237’s, transients, and unlocking doors at ASU.
Why come here like everyone else and leave in 3 months, 6 months, year 1,2? Why do that when you can leave immediately and start your law enforcement career for an agency that gets taken seriously because they do police work and get paid for it? They show up, see all the miserable people, and get the hell out of here. Not too complicated.
INDEED! A brand new guy running for the hills, this never happened this fast before. Officer Expedite, good luck at your new agency! Hopefully our command isn’t calling your new department and filling their heads full of crap because that’s how they do business.
Let’s look at the facts. We have a relatively small police department.
1. Supervisors outnumber patrol officers 3 to 1 or worse. (The reward for promoting is more pay and less work to do.)
2. Management top to bottom “doesn’t know” what’s being done to employees. (Doesn’t know means doesn’t care because it’s your job to know.)
3. Management thinks of patrol officers as disposable units. (Look at all the talk about getting bodies in the door and none about keeping people here. You couldn’t make it more obvious if you painted it red.)
What should be a bastion of public safety, proactive on fighting crime, has deteriorated into a dog and pony show, full of show and no bite.
When people forget where they came from they are truly lost.
According to A. Einstein the chief may be insane, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
IF there was an intellectual in the group AND IF they were listened to you might get the department on the right track and keep it there. You get nowhere without leadership and we have none.
The problem is the chief listens to nobody no matter what their expertise and that is one of the largest handicaps of the organization. It’s not just the chief, plenty of issues with command who assisted in the ruination of ASUPD.