My Clock's Ticking

You hear women discussing it all the time - my biological clock's ticking, I need to get pregnant before I get too old. While the odds vary from woman to woman, the likelihood of conceiving and delivering a healthy child declines appreciably after 35 and more so after 40. There is a sense of urgency to "get it done" before it's too late, or risk facing a lifelong reality of thinking, "what if." What if I had a child...

Similarly, many of us face a time clock when it comes to the proposition of going from a local police department to a federal agency such as the FBI, DEA, ATF, or CBP, to name just a few. Since the federal system requires that anyone expecting to receive a pension work twenty years minimum to be eligible to collect one, it means the maximum age that one must have attained is no older than thirty seven.

That poses a huge dilemma for some of us, because it's not until we've been on the job for a number of years that our thoughts begin to wander in the direction of long range goals and plans. When we're young and brand new on the job, the only thing that we can think of is our next shift on the street. Indeed, if many of you are like me, I hated for my shift to end. I wished that I could stay out on patrol until I got tired enough to call it a day. Even if I was working midnights, made an arrest, and had to go to court that morning with the thug, I still hated when it was over. I never imagined that there was anything better out there, either in the type of work or the pay that I received.

Fast forward ten years into the job, and my thoughts began to center around what I might be doing in the next ten or twenty years. Would still I be pushing a squad car as a beat officer or sergeant, still rotating around the clock, having days off cancelled, working special events on weekends? The job had lost some of its luster, and I found that I wasn't as locked into it as much as I once was. So, like the case of the ladies' biological clocks ticking, the federal clock was ticking for me. I did not want to wonder years down the road "what if." I began to weigh my options and discovered that the federal arena had plenty of things going for it that looked attractive to me.

As with anything else, one needs to weigh the pros and cons when contemplating a major change such as one involving your career. A balance sheet is not only prudent in the financial arena, but also when exploring the possibility of moving on to a different employer. So let's take a quick look at what one might possibly gain, versus the likelihood of being in worse straits than before.

The Pros

• Being "Nation wide" versus being confined to a beat or sector
• Enhanced resources for investigations, i.e., money, equipment, manpower, and technical support
• Better salary and benefits
• A pension plan that never goes away (hint: it's the same plan that Congress has)
• Moving around the country
• The opportunity to work anywhere around the world
• Top-notch training
• Challenging long-term investigations

The Cons

• Moving around the country
• Becoming just a number, especially in large offices
• More guidelines and federal rules to follow
• Expectations from bosses and prosecutors that are sometimes unrealistic
• Extended travel and TDY assignments
• Layers of bureaucracy that impedes progress
• TDY in foreign countries that end with the letters "STAN"

Generally speaking you will find that there are more items on plus side of the balance sheet. And, as with any job, there will be things and people that you won't be particularly fond of. But given the freedom that a federal agency affords someone, especially one who may be working for a small department and is frustrated at either the pay or lack of advancement, joining the feds looks like a good option.

From my own perspective, the 21 years that I spent with the FBI was an experience that I'd never be able to duplicate. I worked in several field offices around the country, and was TDY in plenty of others. I spent almost three years working undercover, with so much independence that I sometimes felt guilty even accepting my paycheck (I did take it each payday). My training was some of the best available anywhere in the world. I worked on some of the biggest cases in the Bureau, and spent a couple of years teaching street survival internationally.

Could I have done all of the above with the police department I was with? Certainly not. But don't everyone rush right out and throw in your application with every three letter agency in the country. Examine where you are in your career, and just as importantly, in your family life. There's a lot to be said for staying where you're at, not disrupting your family every few years, and not having to learn your way around a new city and establish your "cred" with a new group of people. At most offices where I worked around the country, I relied heavily on the local PD to tell me who the bank robbers and other thugs were. They knew their town inside and out. And, while the pay will eventually exceed what you are making now, you will probably take a pay cut to start.

That old saying, "The grass is always greener on the other side," means caution - take a hard look. If you make the jump to a federal job without doing your due diligence, you may make a huge mistake. So do your research, talk to folks already working in that agency, and most of all have a fall back plan should you decide that you made the wrong decision.

Is your clock ticking? If so you may want to hit the snooze button. Stay safe brothers and sisters!