Well, Thank You

 “Health isn’t about being “perfect” with food or exercise or herbs. Health is about balancing those things with your desires. It’s about nourishing your spirit as well as your body.”

Golda Poretsky

 Don't you just love election time? Aside from the blessed absence of "(Fill in name here) is too extreme for (fill in state here)" from every...fricking...YouTube video you want to watch, the People have spoken. Soon, those that were once candidates for office become the dreaded Elected Officials.

One person, recently elected to be the CEO of a local law enforcement "outfit" announced that the agency is going to embark on a wellness drive for their employees. I think this is awesome, marvelous. Necessary. I have a few "wellness" suggestions for any agency who might be inclined to think that their employees either aren't well, or could be, I suppose, weller. To wit:

Don't lie to your employees

This would seem to ascend to Captain Obvious status, but... Often, agencies try to couch bad news, or controversial positions, with the kinds of circumlocutions that depart reality within the first couple of words and never are seen again. It's fine to want to soften some blows - "There is no money for annual cost of living raises" isn't pleasant to contemplate. But consider this.

Every police officer, sheriff's deputy and state trooper is taught, from day one, to understand that people with whom they interact on the streets will lie to them. They are trained, specifically and often, how to detect lies and to diligently seek the truth. Do you think they turn that off when they enter the police building and start listening to command staff?

Don't remind them how it was "Back in the Day"

When life has dealt lemons, being told the lemonade twenty years ago was more bitter doesn't help anyone. I know, I know... You didn't have portables. You had six-shot pistols and the academy was shorter, the trainers harsher. You did more things alone and blah, blah blah.

Didn't you just...just...make them sit through a class on deescalation where you taught that everyone's travails are worthy of respect? It's one thing to remind them that tough times don't last, but tough people do. Be anti-fragile. Right. Roger, that.

Do you know how much the average officer cares about how tough you had it? Apparently, there are sightless fish who live in ponds in limestone formations a mile below the surface of the Earth. They are sightless, and never experience the surface, or feel the sun. Those fish care more about what happened "Back in the Day" than the young officers in your agency, and a lot more than the veterans.

Don't expect the officers to take training seriously if you don't

How do they know? Okay, be honest with yourself. PowerPoint has its place, but when you get a hundred cops in a room together and someone reads PowerPoint slides to them, or plays the same tired talking head clips year in and year out... What do you think they are learning? Frankly, whatever is on their phone.

Not everyone is Kevin Gilmartin, or Jamie Brower. But, spend a few bucks, bring in an outside professional from time to time. And when the training is supposed to be running and gunning...let them run. Let them gun. Don't make everything a test. I know it's expensive.

Did you read how much a couple of poorly-trained cops cost a department in Northern Colorado?

Finally

"We can't recruit people to be cops!" "They won't stay!"

Really. Wellness isn't about treadmills and trauma lectures. It's about understanding that you can't treat cops like there is always someone else out there who will take the job if the cop doesn't want it. Treat them like a perishable commodity you can't replace at any price. Because you can't.