by Sue Z

Created on: March 15, 2010   Last Updated: March 16, 2010

Did I hate my job? I so completely hated it that I walked away last August. Foolhardy? You bet. But I have never been as healthy and happy.

I have worked in law enforcement since I was 18 years old. I was good at it. But once I had two children a year apart, I decided that my priorities had changed so much that I did not have the heart to be a police officer any more. I did not want to have the same attitudes that my older colleagues had: the distrust of the entire world and hardened outlooks that you develop in that line of work. I didn't feel like I was really made that way. So when my kids were very small, I resigned from my agency and went into another field. This proved to be a mistake and I began searching for the elusive "something" that I wanted to do with my life. Since I didn't know what that something was. I drifted back into policing. I have been trying to get out of it ever since. I want to add that I am very successful at it; I just didn't really feel the "blue flame" anymore, but few people knew that.

In 2004, I started a new job with a new sheriff. He had no experience as a sheriff and it looked like we had a good team. Well, as in every job, there is the guy who is the hungriest for approval, and willing to throw anyone who threatens him in any way under the bus. Unfortunately for me, "this guy" was a higher rank than I was. And he was in charge of the unit I was assigned to. I found out very quickly that because I was dependable and good at my job, he was more than willing to exploit me and work me to death. Although I had people willing to give me a hand on some things, he would not allow it. It was also obvious that my being female grated on him terribly. I was not used to knowing this, either. I was the first female officer in the history of the department at my first agency, which was a large active city police department, and that was in the 80"s. My guys there were good to me and trained me right. I never dreamed that I would be treated this way in the 21st century. And in a tiny department, to boot.

I endured 5 years of increasing hell under this command. I asked to be reassigned and it was granted, but I found out later that this guy had ordered the other members of my new unit not to work with me. For four and a half straight years I worked a steady diet of child abuse and sex crime cases that really took its toll on me, and I was also the crime scene officer, so I was at every death case, as well as every other

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