Years ago, I was accepted to be a Field Training Officer for my old Police Department. Before I got my first student officer, I spent days organizing my training plan, memorizing policies and procedures, and looking through the training manual. I wanted to be PERFECT. I thought about what makes a good law enforcement officer and what I would expect out of those I trained.
For hours, I wrote out all the things that made a good officer. I remembered some of the bad apples that have tarnished the badge and made people distrust the police. I thought of the officers who taught me and got me to where I was. I considered the men and women I respected…and reflected on the fallen.
The list resulted in pages of information that all pertained to four main groups. Though the pages contained hundreds of character traits, skills, and knowledge, they all could be categorized under these four things. I ended up writing the following statement on the outside of my training folder.
“Striving for perfection. To be a good officer, you need to be PROFESSIONAL, PROACTIVE, CONFIDENT, AND COMPETENT”.
We should all (no matter what your profession) work hard to learn and understand the different facets of our career, be confident in our skills and decisions, have a strong work ethic, treat our co-workers and clients professionally, and strive for perfection. I’ve found perfection is much easier to talk about than actually master but is good to work toward. Excellence takes focus, desire, and a lot of hard work.
We here at Overwatch Designs are always striving for perfection with everything we do. From our patches to sticker designs, our goal is excellence and customer satisfaction. We realize that everyone has a different vision when it comes to custom designs, so if we can make changes to something in order to help make you happy…let us know.
For those of you out there that continue to walk that thin blue line between the communities we love and the predators out there looking to capture those that we defend, I tip my hat to you. Much of the world sees law enforcement as a necessary evil in a world of changing views. Keep watch…and strive for perfection.
