A unique look behind the badge of a police officer. A journal chronicling my pursuit to become a cop. Also featuring stories, observations, opinions, news, and issues in law enforcement.
This is the 10th installment in chronicling my journey into law enforcement. If you'd like to read from the beginning, it is best to start at The Foundation.
We have been working 8 hour days since we got sworn in last week. For the most part we have just been doing a whole lot of sitting around. We were issued our duty weapon as well as our duty belt and uniforms for the academy that starts next week. I have never really shot a hand gun in my life besides a .22 so this was pretty new to me. We never had guns in the house when I was growing up so I was a little timid at first and took me a while before I started to feel comfortable just with loading and putting in the mags and practicing getting the gun out of the holster, and we were only practicing with dummy rounds! Eventually we shot off live rounds at some targets just to familiarize ourselves with the weapons so that it isn't completely new to us when we shoot in the academy. I didn't do too bad, but I definitely have a lot of room for improvement! It is not as easy as they make it look in the movies.
They have been rotating us around so that we are able to meet different people and see different parts of the department in these two weeks before we head off to the academy. I spent an afternoon in the dispatch center, watching them work and experiencing the things that they have to do on a regular basis. As much as police officers like to complain about dispatchers, I could never do their job! There are way too many computer screens, phone calls, and just tons of information coming from everywhere.
One day I spent the day with the detectives. I sat in on an interview with one of the detectives. We were interviewing this 16 year old male who was "sexting" with a 13 year old female. The young man was straight forward and honest about everything, so the situation was used more to educate the teens than anything else. I'm sure they will be charged with unruly or something of the sorts, but its mostly just a thing to learn from.
I also have spent several days riding along in the cruisers with patrol officers. In those instances, I was on day shift so we didn't have anything too crazy happen. We made some traffic stops, wrote some tickets, found a little marijuana once, found a couple different people driving under suspension, and stopped one guy for speeding who had a warrant and was then arrested.
Tonight we had Taser Training! Tasers are used by police departments as a way to gain compliance from resisting individuals in a non-lethal way. The photo to the right is actually the model we carry and used in our training. Tasers use an electric current (50,000 volts) to stimulate the sensory and motor nerves to cause involuntary muscles contractions throughout the entire body. The cartridge on the left end of the taser pictured holds two small dart like electrodes which are connected to the unit by a conductive wire. There is a small barb on the end of this dart like probe, like what you would see on a fishing hook. Those are fired out based on the propellant from a small nitrogen charge in the cartridge. When someone is shot, their brain's ability to control the muscles in the body is interupted, called neuromuscular incapacitation. This is extremely painful and cannot be overcome. However, once the electricity stops flowing, the subject regains control of their body and pain ceases. When you turn it on, pull the trigger and shoot someone, the cycle will last for 5 seconds. The idea is that during these five seconds, your backup should be getting a hold of the suspect to gain control of his/her hands and get them cuffed. Contrary to what some may think, the officers holding on to the suspect will not be shocked just because they are touching him/her...they are safe.
We sat through a long slide show presentation and had to learn about all of this stuff and practice with empty cartidges. It is the South Place PD's policy that all officers take at least a one second long shock. Several of the officers I talked to took the full ride (5 seconds), so I decided that I would take the full ride as well. You can do this one of two ways. Either by being shot with the probes I described or they can clip alligator clips to you and you can do it that way. The clips burn your skin and the probes is like being shot with fish hooks so it's your own preference. I chose just to be shot with the probes. When people are tased they fall to the ground, so two officers held on to me and helped lower me to the ground when my body lost control. The instructor had two cartidges that had broken blast doors on the cartidge and he wanted to use those for the training. I did not know this and there is a chance that the cartridges could malfunction without the blast doors, causing a "dud". This happened to me of course, not just once, but twice! I stood there in anticipation, scared to death as the officers hold on to me. I told him I was ready, he said "taser, taser", and then tried to fire. Nothing happened. I was like what the hell? I breathed a sigh of relief, regained my composure and we tried this process again. Nothing happened. Ok I could not take this! He grabbed a brand new cartridge and we repeated again. This time it worked.
No words will ever make you understand the pain that you feel. It was definitely the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life. You tense up, have no control, fall to the ground, and 5 seconds feels like an eternity! It doesn't just hurt where the probes go into your skin...the pain shoots through your whole body from your head to your feet, if I remember correctly at around 19 pulses per second. When the 5 seconds was up, it was done..no more pain. For a few minutes I felt a little bit tingly and I laid there until the other recruits pulled the probes out of my back. Your body is still sort of numb so you really don't feel them coming out, and even if you do...it is no comparison to the pain you just experienced so you don't even care. In the minutes thereafter, my body felt extremely drained. Imagine how you feel after runnning a 5K or working out really hard, that is the sort of sensation that my body was experiencing after I recovered and was back on my feet.
It was so painful, it sucked. I can honestly say I hope I never have to experience it again. If we have to do it in the academy, I am only taking the minimum time and that is it. I can't imagine having to do it again....once was enough for me.
Attention Law Enforcement Officers Who Have Attended College:
This may be old news, but it is new to me and I thought I would share with anyone interested. As a full-time law enforcement officer you qualify to have your Federal Perkins Loans cancelled. A borrower may have all or part of his or her loan (including interest) cancelled for engaging in public service and a law enforcement career is one of the qualifiers. The provisions vary based on the date that your loan was disbursed. I would encourage anyone who accepted a Perkins Loan to look into this to see if you qualify.
A borrower may be entitled to receive cancellation benefits for full-time service as a qualifying law enforcement or corrections officer. To establish the eligibility of a borrower for this benefit, the school must determine a) the borrower's employing agency is eligible and b) the borrower's position is essentials to the agency's primary mission.
A local, state, or federal agency is an eligible employing agency if it is publicly funded and its activities pertain to crime prevention, control, or reduction or to the enforcement of the criminal law. Such activities include, but are not limited to, police efforts to prevent, control, or reduce crime or to apprehend criminals; activities of courts and related agencies having criminal jurisdiction; activities of corrections, probation, or parole authorities; and problems relating to the prevention, control, or reduction of juvenile delinquency or narcotic addiction. Agencies that are primarily responsible for enforcement of regulatory, civil, or administrative laws are ineligible.
For the borrower's position to be considered essential to the agency's primary mission, he or she must be a full-time employee of an eligible agency and a sworn officer or person whose principal responsibilities are unique to the criminal justice system and are essential in the performance of the agency's primary mission. The agency must be able to document the employee's functions.
Individuals whose official responsibilities are supportive, such as those that involve filing, typing, accounting, office procedures, purchasing, stock control, food service, transportation, or building, equipment or grounds maintenance are not eligible regardless of where these functions are performed. A borrower employed as a public defender also does not qualify for this benefit. Note: Borrowers serving as campus police or military police do qualify for this benefit. The cancellation rate is as follows:
15% of the original principal loan amount and accrued interest for the first and second years of service.
20% of the original principal loan amount and accrued interest for the third and fourth years of service.
30% of the original principal loan amount and accrued interest for the fifth year of service.
Eligibility - Perkins loans made on or after November 29, 1990 or NDSL loans made before November 29, 1990 for service performed beginning October 7, 1998
Maximum Amount Canceled - Up to 100%
This is the 9th installment chronicling my journey into law enforcement. If you would like to read from the beginning, it is best to start with The Foundation.
The goal was to be in bed by 23:00, I think I was there by 00:30, but I know I saw almost every hour there after. I have never been so happy to be up at 5am. The 90 minute car drive went surprisingly smooth, I plan to rotate between commuting, staying at a friend's, and splitting a hotel with another recruit because we still have two and a half weeks before the academy starts.
We were sworn in by taking the oath of office. I was excited because my parents, youngest brother, and grandparents were going to be in attendance for the ceremony! When I got downstairs to the first floor of the Municipal Building I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they also brought along a close friend and mentor of mine. He has been in law enforcement for some time and has helped me out tremendously throughout all of these hiring processes, so it meant a lot to me that he was there.
The mayor said a few short words and then called us three recruits to come up separately to take our oaths. IDressed in a black suit with pin stripes, a light blue shirt, and a tie, I can't describe how I was feeling just before I was called up. I was trembling just slightly in a state of nervousness, but it still didn't feel "complete" yet. We hadn't gone through the academy yet and would still have to make it through 18 weeks of basic before our graduation date in July. It is required that all recruits are sworn officers before they are sent to the academy so this explains why it may seem a little backwards to some of you. I think I will finally feel that level of accomplishment that I've been longing for when I graduate from the academy and can finally say that I am a certified police officer. However, the swearing in ceremony was still very exciting for me and there was definitely a sense of accomplishment in knowing that the hiring processes were over with!!
"I, Thomas S. Towers, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of this State, and the Ordinances of the City of South Place and will faithfully, honestly, and impartially discharge the duties of Police Officer for the City of South Place."
My Dad has been on the Fire Dept. back home for over 30 years. The last 10 years or so he has been serving as Chief. He was there to pin my police badge on me for the first time. I felt that it was a pretty special moment for us both.
This is the 8th installment chronicling my journey into law enforcement. If you would like to read from the beginning, it is best to start with The Foundation.
I grabbed my jacket and made my last walk down the long wooden hallway and outside to cross the street to where the hospital security office was located. It was still dark and pouring rain as it had all night long. In fact, it had rained so much that I had to use a different exit because the main doors were lined with sandbags. I took off my duty belt and radio and hung my keys up in the closet. I ran out to my car to get the large white trash bag full of uniforms that I would no longer be needing. It felt so good to be getting rid of all of that stuff. The other officers on my shift shook my hand, congratulated me, and wished me luck. I turned in my badge and ID card just after I clocked out for the last time. It was the end of my last night of work at the hospital.
I will start work for the South Place Police Department on Monday. Since the police academy does not start for a few weeks, I am told we will be getting paid to do a whole lot of sitting around and hanging out. I figure I can manage that. It is likely that we will be taking care of some administrative things, meeting our Field Training Officers (FTO's), and we'll probably get out in the cruisers a little for some ride-alongs.
I was employed as a security officer at the hospital for almost exactly 5 months, however, it seemed like a lot longer than that. When I started, I figured I'd be gone by Thanksgiving. Then I figured at least by Christmas I would definitely have an offer from one of the departments I had applied to. I guess sometimes things don't always go as we plan.
Before I start at the SPPD next week, I figured now would be a good time to reflect on my experience as a security officer at the hospital. I was fortunate to become friends with a few officers that I think I will stay in contact with. My schedule sucked. I had Monday and Tuesdays off and only had 2 weekend nights off in the 5 months I was there. My boss was known for his strict ways and there were times when I felt like he didn't believe that I would achieve my goal of becoming a police officer. So many people start out there saying the same thing and then get stuck. Despite being a difficult man to work for, however, I did get to know him well enough to know that he was a decent and good man.
I was definitely put in a position to see many different types of families and how they function. Unfortunately, we didn't come into any kind of extended contact with many 'ideal' families, because security is only called when there are problems. There were two specific instances I can remember where a child came in, in a very critical condition, and most of the extended family would be down in the lobby all night. They would be ordering take out, hooting and hollering, laughing and joking, and basically having a party sometimes until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. When someone in my family is in serious condition in the hospital, it is a much more somber environment, but I guess everyone grieves differently.
A lot of times after dealing with some of the parents, or hearing the stories that we heard, it made you wonder why people do not have to have a license to have children. Like driving, for example, you learn about driving safely and all the laws, and then you get your license and you are able to drive. Parents should have to be educated about how to raise children safely before becoming parents. I don't really believe this will ever happen, but it's an interesting thought.
One young child was brought in clinging to life because a family member had given them methadone to help relieve their upset tummy. Methadone is essentially a synthetic opioid, most commonly used to help recovering heroine addicts!
In another incident we had a couple who's baby was brought in for some sort of severe health complication, I don't remember what exactly but likely a respiratory issue because I specifically remember that this was brought on because the parents smoke in the house around the baby. This was the second time this baby was hospitalized for the same reason and the parents spent more time outside smoking and playing on the Internet in the media room than they did visiting their baby. Then they decided to make best friends with a homeless couple, give them their old parent passes, and then we had a homeless couple living in the hospital! It took several days before this was discovered because they always wore their passes and we came to know them by the last name on the pass.
I've seen parents standing outside the ER, smoking a cigarette and holding their infant in their other arm while they are waiting to be seen. Luckily smoking on property is prohibited so we can say something but it's never what you really want to say to them.
Many hospitals are partnered with a separate organization that provide housing for families to stay at for free when their child is in the hospital. The rooms are free, food is free, Internet, cable, they really have a nice set up for the families. This, however causes many problems for us that many people would find surprising. So much goes on in the one where I worked that it would not be uncommon to find drugs, weapons, fights, and other scandals such as swinging couples! I do not want to give the impression that all home away from homes are like this and do not want you to think that many of the families that stay there are involved in these things. It is really only a few bad eggs, but they are always replaced by new bad eggs when they leave so it is something we deal with often.
I do believe I have taken my communication skills to a new level thanks to the situations that I encountered at the hospital. Security was responsible for enforcing hospital visitation policies and at night those are very strict. The last thing family members want to hear when they come to visit a relative is that they are not going to be able to go up to the patient floors. This specific policy forces us to deal with angry parents all the time, which since it is something you deal with everyday, it can be easy to develop an attitude. I was fortunate, for the development of my own communication skills, to be able to observe one senior officer on a daily basis, set the perfect example of how you should not talk to people.
This guy just had a very intense personality. He lacked the ability to be able to read people. He saw things in black and white and to him it's all about policy and doing his job. He is known throughout the entire hospital by all of the staff because of his attitude. He would say that he is blunt, but I'll be honest...the only real way to describe it was rude and arrogant. Whenever someone would begin to question why they were not allowed to go up to visit, he would automatically jump to intensity level number 7. This only forces the person you are dealing with to match your level of intensity in communicating. Some nights I just wanted to say, "Relax man, let's not forget where we are and why these people are here to begin with. They are trying to visit a loved one in the hospital for crying out loud. Try to be a little more sensitive." Observing this allowed me to perfect my own skills, such as being cognizant of word usage, tone of voice, and facial and body language you use when talking to someone. I am a much stronger communicator and can de-escalate situations more effectively because I had to work with this guy and learn from his mistakes.
I know that I sound like a horrible person, describing only the negative in families at the hospital. It is mostly just because we never have to deal with families who don't cause problems. However, several weeks ago I was kind of caught off guard in my interaction with one family. I was having somewhat of a bad night and not in the best of moods. This young couple asked me to help them get access to a certain room. They were a very young couple, couldn't be much older than 30 and they had the most adorable little blond haired girl with them. She was maybe 4, definitely not older than 5 and had the brightest smile and was full of life. I noticed that when she was skipping along she would sort of lose her balance often but I didn't think twice about it. I am very outgoing and love talking to people so I began to talk with the mom as we all walked down the hall, the father and little girl being a short ways a head of us. I was not prepared for the conversation I was about to have.
"How are you guys doing tonight?" I questioned to make small talk.
"Oh, we haven't had the best of days" she said, but in a rather positive sort of way that seemed strange to me.
"Oh, I'm sorry" I replied "Have you guys been here very long?"
"No, we just got here earlier this evening. We found out that she (their daughter) has a brain tumor."
"Oh my gosh, Did they find it early?" I questioned.
"We don't know, we are waiting for the test results to come back."
I looked at her not even knowing what to say, "I am so sorry, I can't imagine what you are going through."
Right then the young mother looked me in the eye with the biggest smile and said, "Oh! Don't you worry about us...we have so many people praying for us and God is good!"
I smiled, opened the door for them and walked back toward the lobby.
What is wrong with me I thought? Here I am in a pissy mood because my dream job hasn't come along yet and this family has been dealt the worst situation imaginable and they can still hold their heads high and see the silver lining. Needless to say, I felt so guilty. It really makes you look at life in a different way and realize that your problems are so small. I don't know if I will ever forget that, and I hope for the sake of the lesson I learned that I never do.
This is the 7th installment in chronicling my journey into law enforcement. If you would like to read from the beginning, it is best to start with The Foundation.
Since last week I have made several trips back and forth to what I will call South Place, USA, to wrap up what is remaining in the South Place Police hiring process. I have been told that I am to start working full time as a city employee in 10 days! Apparently we will be taking care of some administrative things for a few weeks before the academy starts. Yesterday I had to go to the doctor for a physical and stress test. This part of the process is new to me, as I had not gotten this far into the process yet with the other departments I had been applying to. I had to make the 90 minute drive after working all night and to make things more difficult I had to fast for 12 hours before the physical. This was challenging since I had to be up all night at work, so by morning I was exhausted and starving.
My appointment was at 10:00 am. After arriving and filling out the packet of paperwork that was waiting for me, they drew my blood and tested my hearing and vision. I think I have mentioned before that I am a pretty competitive person, so those hearing and vision tests are kind of fun because I always try to really focus so that I can hear the extremely quiet tones on the hearing test and see the smallest images on the vision test.
I also had to take some sort of breathing test. I can't remember what it was called for the life of me but I had this tube that I had to blow into that was about 4 inches long. I was instructed to take in a very large breath of air and then blow into the tube as hard as I could for as long as I could. Then when I was all out of air, and while keeping my mouth around the tube I was to take another large inhale. The data from this was recorded on a computer screen. It was more difficult than it sounds because when I thought that I had blown out all the air the I could, the nurse still urged me to "keep going, keeping going!" Toward the end it felt like I was blowing and no air was even coming out. I had to to three sets of this little exercise and she assured me that I did really well.
After that I had to have your standard physical done where they make sure you use all parts of your body without any pain or real discomfort. The last thing they would do that day is have me take a stress test, but this was not before I had to drop my drawers down to my knees and have my man parts violated! That was just pleasant (sarcasm).
The stress test was kind of fun but extremely awkward. I took my shirt off and they attached 12 electrodes to my body with cords running from each one back to an EKG machine to collect all kinds of data about myself. Then I had to get on a treadmill and run with all this stuff hooked to me. I also had a blood pressure cuff on my arm, which they used to take my blood pressure every 3 minutes while I was running. It was very awkward to try to run with all these wires coming off of you and some lady turning your arm sideways to get your blood pressure. I definitely looked like a robot! To make things even more uncomfortable I had to run in khaki pants and dress shoes because I was not informed about this stress test at all. They record all this information to make sure you have a healthy cardiovascular system and that your body can perform well under stress.
Before I could head home I had to stop by the South Place Police Station to give them the paperwork from the doctor. On Monday I will drive up there again to get fitted for our uniforms and bullet proof vests. I am told that the 4 of us that are being hired will be sworn in sometime during the second week of March. Everything is moving so fast, it's crazy!
This is the 6th installment in chronicling my journey into law enforcement. If you would like to read from the beginning, it is best to start with The Foundation.
The day after the interview it was back to work at the hospital for another day of training. It was defensive tactics day and boy was it fun! I have had defensive tactics training a couple different times, but it is one of those things that you need to continue to practice if you don't want lose it. I'm sure you could handle yourself if you really needed to, but practice makes one smooth and I hope someday that is how I will conduct myself. In most of the training I have had, the instructor shows everyone a technique and then you practice it one or two times before you go on to learning the next technique. On this day the instructor put on the red man suit and created realistic scenarios that we might and probably will encounter in the hospital at some point. Later in the day, he created more scenarios, only then we were to use everything we had learned that day and put it all together. That is when things really started clicking and you started to feel a little more comfortable and confident with the tactics and techniques that we had learned that week.
On one of our breaks I went to check my cell phone to see if I had any text messages from anyone. I didn't find any text messages but I did find that I had a missed call and a new voice mail. Could it be one of the police departments I'm in the process for? Hopefully, but clearly it couldn't have been about my interview the day before because it had only been 24 hours. I still had a few minutes left of break so I listened to the message.
"Hi Thomas, This is Chief Smith. I have good news...you did very well on your interview and we would like to make a conditional offer of employment to you. What will happen from here is that Lieutenant Jones will be getting in touch with you probably Monday or Tuesday. You should be getting a letter here on Saturday or at least by Monday that you will need to sign it and send it back to us with either your acceptance or denial of the offer, which I'm assuming you will accept based on the fantastic job you did on the interview and all the lengths you took to get to us that you will accept. Then they will schedule you for a physical and a psychological evaluation and they will do a background investigation on you, which I'm sure will come back stellar. After that they will schedule you for an academy and we can get the ball rolling. Anyways, Congratulations, we really hope you accept it and let us know."
Wow!! Needless to say I threw my hand up in the air in excitement. I don't know if I had ever been so excited. This had been one crazy week with so many extreme emotions. I immediately called the secretary and verbally accepted the offer on the phone. Over the weekend the paperwork came in the mail and I signed the offer and mailed it back almost as soon as I opened it.
I am currently waiting for the Lt. to contact me to schedule those last few things in the process.
This is the 5th installment in chronicling my journey into law enforcement. If you would like to read from the beginning, it is best to start with The Foundation.
Despite being a professional procrastinator, I actually started preparing for the interview as soon as they called to schedule it with me. This saved me because since I was so busy trying to sort everything out at work, I had little time left to devote to actually preparing and practicing in those last few days before the interview. I would be willing to bet that few people put as much time into preparing for interviews as I do. A lot of people at least practice some questions they think they might be asked, but I would say that few, especially young people, actually put enough time into doing the research.
When you interview for a new job, no matter what the career field may be, you need to devote some time to research and learning as much about the agency or company as you can. I was always told to spend at least an hour just learning about the agency, but I spend a lot more than that! When you are applying for police departments there are a number of places you can look to gather information about that department. Obviously a good starting place is to visit the department's website. I always make sure I have a basic understanding of the structure of the department, and the different units or task forces they may have. For this particular interview I wrote all of that information out on note cards and then I studied it as if it was a test for school or something. Another good way to learn about the department is to read the annual reports. These are often found right on the website, but these will give you more details about some of the most important happenings for the department in that year. You will really have a good idea of what kinds of calls they deal with because a lot of the crime statistics are listed or at least summarized. Make sure you visit the city website and learn a little bit about the community as well! I like to search the local newspaper archives. That is the nice thing about police departments, they are always in the media so you should be able to gain a lot of useful information from newspapers online.
I also like to know the players, that is, who I think may be interviewing me. A lot of times you won't know who will be waiting for you in that room, but the websites usually list the different command staff leaders and some will even have short biographies included. I am not sure how much this will help you, but it helps me feel like I know who I am talking to so I feel a little more relaxed. It also can give you some clues as to what kinds of things may be important to them. If all the command staff leaders have college degrees, advanced degrees and a bunch of continued schooling listed...then I would make sure that you really highlight your educational credentials. Maybe you will be able to tell that they are all former military guys or something so you can highlight your military experience if you have any as well. Also, don't forget to pre-write some Thank You cards! In all honesty I have no idea how common this is in the world of law enforcement but in the business world people will send thank you cards after interviews to their interviewers. Go ahead and call it kissing ass but when I get the job because somebody remembered me over someone else who blended in with the rest of the applicants, I will happily accept that label. In the case of this interview I learned from online biographies that I shared the same college Alma mater with one of the Lieutenants, who then happened to be one of my interviewers.
Be sure to practice some common interview questions and review the different experiences you have had in the work place, but make sure you do some research. Once you have all those weapons in your arsenal then use them. I will give you some examples later.
It is about a 90 minute drive to get to the city where my interview was. I left about three hours before my interview time, which means I got into town extremely early and found myself bored out of my mind sitting in the Arby's parking lot. I just went through hell to get to go to this interview though so I wanted to make sure if my car broke down or something, that I would still have time to hitchhike the rest of the way.
When I was called in the room, I was greeted by a panel of 5 interviewers. The chief, the city's safety director, and three lieutenants. With the exception of the safety director, I knew the names and faces of everyone else in the room including what units they each oversaw and each one's career background. (Do your research) I will admit that I was nervous as all get out. I had interviewed at a couple different departments already, but it still is nerve racking.
I started out sort of slow, meaning I felt my answers for the first two questions were just OK. If I was interviewing me I don't think I would have remembered the responses to my first two questions. After that I started to get comfortable. The applicants that were called in for their interviews before me seemed to take about 20 minutes to go through the interview. I had to jump through multiple hoops to get here, not to mention I was sure that I had the farthest drive to the interview so I decided I was going to take as long as I needed to sell myself no matter how long it took. I know I was in that room for at least 45 minutes, maybe even an hour.
I thought I did a pretty good job and they even told me so before I left. One of the questions was "Have you ever had a disagreement with a supervisor?" I was sure to tell them in detail the disagreement I had just had with my supervisor and all of the lengths I went to in order to make the interview. I knew this was a good example because even though I was ticked off at my boss, I was still respectful in everything I did and I followed the chain of command. It also help them see how committed I was to their department. There were 13 of us who interviewed and they would be hiring 4. They told me that I would be getting a letter in the mail sometime soon letting me know the outcome of everything. I was able to drive back home feeling good about the interview. It had been a long week full of ups and downs and now all I had to do was wait.
