Missed Opportunities: Could have Improved Morale

 Morale in a police department is a tricky thing.  Most of the time the budget is set a year and a half in advance and has little flexibility to add something incredible for the officers to enjoy, unless it costs nothing.  Morale builders that cost nothing are unicorns.  In my department, the Chief missed an excellent opportunity to improve morale and, in reality, decreased it.  My father-in-law (who has since passed) was the chief of two police departments in my area.  Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, on his own dime, he would buy each shift a meal, knowing that they were sacrificing their families and holidays to be patrolling the streets.  Most departments in our area do it or get with their fire department colleagues and share a meal.  It makes a bad situation, better.

The PD has never provided anything for Thanksgiving or Christmas in my department.  The Chief would give out small gift cards, and we would partner with the FD for special meals.  Somehow, with time, we no longer eat with the FD.  So this Christmas, the chief did not bring dessert, provide a meal, give a gift, give out cards, or anything.  He didn't even wish the sworn a Merry Christmas, either in person or through email...I mean...nothing.  So that, our course, was the talk of roll call for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day.   The consensus was that the chief cared little or not at all for the wellbeing of his patrolmen and patrolwomen.  That idea was brought home when it was discovered that he took our social workers and support staff to Christmas lunch.

Before I was promoted, I worked closely with the Chief, and if I had told him his employee's feelings, he would have been shocked because he believed himself to be the "Chief of the People."  A quirk of this chief is that his likes and dislikes he assumes are also everyone else's likes and dislikes.  He will even argue with you when you say you like something, anything he doesn't like, he will tell you no, you really don't like that.  He doesn't care if someone does something nice for him on a holiday or even wishes him a merry (holiday here), so he doesn't think to do anything for the officers away from their families.  It also doesn't occur to him because he is home for the holidays.

So, for the price of a few meals, there was the opportunity for a real morale builder, but instead, it was a morale killer and won't be addressed because the head of our organization would never even think about it.