Feeling old.
So I was training my rookie, who's in Stage 1, where he just observes. The other night, we pulled over a car for a minor equipment violation. I hopped out, ready to show him how we either write a citation or write a written warning. I made contact with the nice elderly occupants, informed them of their equipment violation, and wished them safe travels, without bothering to run the driver's license. Total time of stop: about 35 seconds. Time to move on to real bad guys.
As we were walking back to the patrol car, I quipped to my rookie dryly: "'These are not the droids we're looking for.'"
Blank expression from my rookie. He doesn't get the joke.
Well, let's see-- he's 24, and that means he was actually born after the first Star Wars came out in '77. Well, actually, he was born after Empire Strikes Back. Wait. He was actually born after Return Of the Jedi. Hell, he was maybe 14 when that Phantam Menace movie came out.
Geez, I'm getting old. It had hit me hard enough, the first time I arrested a kid for adult jail, who had been born after I graduated high school.
Labels: day at the office, entertainment, movies, police, popular culture
posted by Matt G @ 9:33 AM
16 Comments:
I get the joke. I also get how bizarre it is that apparently I am aging. When I worked in the birth unit one of my lightbulb moments was when I cared for a labouring patient and then realized that I had been her Mom's nurse when she was born. Brrrrrr!
Yep. A dry sense of humor cannot be appreciated in a cultural Sahara.
I gleefully shook the hand of the first private, whose birthday was after my basic entry date, that showed up in my platoon, greeting him with, "Private, you are the man I've been waiting to see."
He was a reminder that time had passed and that I could start thinking about retirement.
Have you worked with the Kid of one of your first partners yet. I have the son of one mine in the jump seat of my engine today. I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday. Crap.
Age is no excuse for his extreme ignorance. You should rectify his lacking in pop culture references IMMEDIATELY. As a nerd, I can't really comprehend someone never seeing Star Wars.
I'm 22. It has nothing to do with your rookie's age, he's just hopelessly out of touch! The original Star Wars has been re-released so many times, my generation has still seen it in theaters.
Yeah this getting older isn't all it's cracked up to be. Just wait till you have grandkids.
Okay, I gotta ask: Did you 'splain the line to Rookie Lad, or just allow him to languish in the depths of his ignorance.
(Be tolerant. Police academy deals mostly with law and technical skills. They can't possibly cover all the CULTURAL aspects of society. ;) )
Watch that one closely. He probably hasn't seen Caddyshack either.
Matt,
I'm not (and never was) an LEO but I can identify with this. I was 'selected' to teach Customer Relations at a previous job (about 7 or 8 years ago) and one of the things I used to talk about was "Life Altering Moments" (that you would remember).
I knew most of them would not remember the Assassination of President John Kennedy as I did so I was using the Destruction of the Challenger Space Shuttle to illustrate the principal. Someone was 'kind enough' to remind me that several of the members of the class were in the 2nd or 3rd grade at the time (and probably had other things on their mind at the time)...
LOL- Now you're getting to know how I feel... :-) Sucks doesn't it? Glad you've taken on the TO role, the kids NEED a good role model on the street! Be safe!
On the other side, I'm 47. Despite being a patient in the ER, I responded quickly to apprehend a woman attempting to escape custody. I never saw any cops. I DID see some kids in coveralls.
For a real giggle, try to explain CB Radio to them...
I just turned 25 and I get it. "Move along."
To DouginSalcha;
I remember the Challenger Disaster and i was in Kindergarten at the time. We were watching the launch live because there was a teacher on the shuttle and the teachers left it on after the big flash for the whole day.
"Where were you when Jack Kennedy got shot?" (I was in American History class, in 8th grade. Seems appropriate.)
On the training officer and the newbie: I thank the Lord for my escaping my well-deserved punishment for the time I got pulled over by a DeKalb county (GA) car. I had just transported my boss to the lumberyard to buy a piece of plywood for his contracting business, and the p-wood got tied onto the roof rack of my Chevy Vega, not by me, not by my boss, but by the idiot doofus at the lumberyard, using the flimsiest and crummiest kind of twine.
Yup, I _assumed_.
I assumed that if it was Ok with the boss, it was Ok. The boss assumed that if it was ok with me, it was ok.
Well, the inevitable happened. There was some wind, and the piece of plywood flew off, directly smacking the windshield of the semi-tractor right behind us, right in front of the face of the driver's wife.
I immediately pulled off into the first parking lot, as did the truck driver who carefully blocked me in. He called up the DeK po-po which was good, as we had just escaped the city limits of Chamblee (shudder)
As it happened, we got two officers; one an obvious Old Dawg, one a pup being trained by O.D. That was very lucky for me, as the training officer obviously believed in letting the kid make mistakes, so a to learn from them while being yelled at later.
The kid did not notice that my driver's license was out of date.
O.D. was obviously trying to keep a poker face, and my obviously penitent attitude and my insurance card got me away from there unpunished, but, well, Thank You, Lord, for the freeby.
Nowadays, if I'm driving, I insist on securing all cargo meself.
I feel your pain. Not only do I work with several people that are younger than my kids, I work with the kids of people I worked with 25 years ago. I remember at least one of them running around his folk's house in diapers. Now I see him on calls.
When we get to swapping lies, uh, sharing valuable anecdotes, I start telling stories about people who have been retired or otherwise gone from the job for 20 years. I suddenly realize from the blank looks of my coworkers that there are now maybe 10 people out of 350 who know who any of these people were.
What is that saying about a hole in the water?
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