Preserving memories of bygone times.

Driving around today listening to the radio talk about riots in Baltimore they were interviewing an ex-police chief about the Baltimore police. The guy was talking about administrators making decisions that some don't think were the right decision. Well, that got me thinking about some pretty stupid decisions that were made around my work. Don't get me wrong, I had a bunch of great bosses over the years. But, I thought it would be interesting for my grand children to see some goofy stuff too, and to see what a rebel difficult to supervise patrolman I was. I also know that my memory is not getting any better and when those memories are gone they're gone. So, how about I make a note of some of them once in awhile for some interesting reading? I'm not going to identify anybody by name. Pretty sure nobody is going to read this that will be able to figure the names out either. I intend to note all sorts of history somewhere on this blog but for starters I figured I'd note the turkey orders. How about the supervisor I had that didn't like me, period. He always seemed to find things to challenge me on. I had a pair of Rudy Project sunglasses that were given to me by Jim Ochowicz, then manager of the 7-11 cycling team. They were expensive high quality glasses. They were wrap around kind, red frames. Well, this boss certainly didn't like those glasses. He told me so. I told him there was nothing in the manual about what sunglasses we were allowed to wear. I also told him there were no sunglasses provided in our uniform allowance. I told him if he wants me to wear a particular sunglass he would have to provide them for me. And, everybody else would have to wear the exact same glasses. Since that's one of the reasons he told me I shouldn't wear them. He said they don't go with the uniform. They are "... of a garrish color that clashes with the conservative nature of our uniform." Wellllll, he sure didn't like me. So, on a day the Chief was coming to roll call to give me a commendation (for an off duty arrest) he told me to take my sunglasses off my head (I always wore them up top while inside the building and then on my eyes when going outside) before roll call. Shame on me for not following that "lawful order." I left those glasses up top, and got my award from the Chief. On a side note, the Chief handed me the letter and said, "this is a copy of the letter that will be going into your permanent personnel file, along with all the bad stuff about you." Hahahaha, that was one smooth Chief there. My wife and kids were watching. Nice huh? After roll call that boss yelled at me at the top of his lungs about my insubordination. He wrote me up and recommended suspension. I got a written reprimand for "insubordination,  failure to follow a lawful order."  Dang that hurt. I did keep wearing those same sunglasses for quite some time after that incident. My Union representative told me as far as he could tell that order was just for that particular time. He never said, "never wear those sunglasses again." That boss was rather disliked (a nice way to put it, hahaha) and retired not all that long after that incident. I had other run-ins with him. Maybe I'll relate one or two more some day. That's all for now I guess. Thanks for reading.