Slow Down, With Judgment

 "When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself." -Wayne Dyer

Not much to say, today about this story. 

It's one I've been thinking of writing for a while. My perspective on others has changed over time, as I've expanded my view, and in particular, as I have gotten to know them. The chance to work closely with Police Officers, lately (as a janitor), has helped me see them as people. As I've served them, and observed them, laughed with them, and talked with them, I have grown more understanding and appreciation. I have grown to connect, respect and love, rather than to distance and to label and judge. 

I was 'on duty' when they got the call at the station for the recent Bank Robbery of the BMO (What we know about the deadly bank robbery in Saanich, B.C., by Josh Grant).

I used to judge others to make myself feel safe, cool, or part of a group. Or to make myself feel better about being imperfect. Well, that kind of thinking only gets me into isolation, denial, and returning to addiction.

Part of being free from dysfunctional thinking and being emotionally independent, is to form my own opinion. When it comes to judging others, I have decided to stop. Stop closing my mind. Stop generalizing. To open my eyes and my mind. And my heart. Something that helps me with that is to humanize others. See them as people. See myself in them. As I become more self-aware, I learn more about others. I become less judgmental.

Names have been changed; I just wrote this piece, this morning.

Warming up to the Heat

By Elias Orrego

 

Edwin knocked on the bulletproof glass, and was buzzed in by Carl, at the front desk.

“Good morning!” Carl announced, offering a welcoming grin.

“Morning,” he echoed.

“How are you doing, today?”

“Pretty good. You?”

“Good. That’s great. We’re doing great.”

“Yup, can’t complain,” Maggie said, at the next desk over. “Here you go,” she bowed her head, slightly, handing him the keys and visitor’s badge.

They felt like old friends at this point, but it was only Edwin’s second month cleaning the station. That was just the way these two stout gray-haired receptionists were. Whether someone was coming to frantically report meth users in the park, or just needing a criminal record check for work, they were warm, mild-mannered, and respectful. From time to time a tradesperson, or city worker would come in and they would gab with each other as though they were family.

“Hey,” Edwin said with an upturned head-twitch, as he walked past the open door of the inspector.

“Hey,” he said back.

Yup. They were saying “hey” now, and giving ‘the brother nod’, having moved on from formal ‘hello’s’ and timid ‘hi’s’.

How did the floor look today? Ooo, some mud footprints. A good mop was in order, Edwin thought as he strutted down the hall like he owned the place.

He would sweep the ‘patrol room’ first, where the patrol officers sat on computers filing reports (and sometimes making a mess with coffee and snacks). Sometimes they would be ‘in the zone’, deep in a report, but other times they’d be casually joking. He thought of the time he saw an unusually tall and goofy male cop purposely bump into a tough-looking female cop, with her head shaved on one side. They wouldn’t always move their chairs out of the way for him to sweep under the desks, but often, they would. He slid his swivel chair right into hers.

“Do you really want to start that?” She goaded the tall officer, giving him a playful shove.

“Hey, I have a taser,” he joked.

“Oh, I’d like to see you try,” she brushed off.

“Yeah, you’re right. You’d beat me up.”

Edwin chuckled and kept sweeping.

“Thank you,” many would say. Young ones, male ones, female ones. Tough-looking, sweet-sounding, ones with accents, ones with red hair, blond hair, black hair, brown hair and no hair. Thin ones, thick ones, quiet ones, bubbly ones.

They were all polite, and mostly, grateful.

“You’re doing such a good job.”

“Thanks for cleaning our mess.” Sometimes they would apologize or try to help out by handing garbage not yet in the trash.

He tried not to listen to the walkie talkies that were on in most of the rooms.

“We found heroin.” (They weren’t talking about a female role model).

“A B & E.” (They weren’t talking about a ‘bacon and egger’ from McDonald’s).

“A stabbing.” (That one was unmistakable).

How rough is this city? He really didn’t want to know. But it was their job to know. To help. To enforce the law and keep the peace.

He had had tickets before, but far more warnings. The last time he got a ticket he actually thanked the cop. “They are keeping the road safe from idiots like me. And keeping me safe, from myself,” he thought as he drove away, his daughter bouncing away in her car seat in the back, “and protecting her.”

Since working at the station, that fear shooting through his heart when he saw those intimidating black and white Dodge Chargers pop up around corners, was gone. Instead, he would peek in, thinking, “do I know them?”

But that day any jokes about donuts, or blanket statements about the Force would be pushed far away.

Beep. Buzz. “We’ve got a bank robbery,” he heard on the walkie-talkie as he mopped in a room.

“What?” he thought. “In Victoria? No.” He pushed it aside.

“Cocaine and firearms found.” What?

“A worker is trapped in the vault,” Maggie said.

“Shots fired,” he heard Carl say to an officer, as he mopped near the front desk.

“Shots fired,” he heard again on the walkie-talkie.

He went downstairs to get garbage bags, trying to manage his emotions. This was exciting in the sense that some action was happening. But this wasn’t one of those shows on TV, where “Law and Order” was just a catchy title.

When he got to Jess and Evan’s office to change the garbage, he found that the door was left open, which they never did. And he found the chairs in weird places around the room, as if both had left in a hurry.

“I just heard the screaming, and thought, ‘oh no, someone is hit,’” Officer Camille said to Carl, “then I saw them running out of here, with Maggie.”

“Yeah, Maggie went to the command center to record,” Carl explained.

Edwin was glad he had been downstairs for that. He slid the chairs back in their place.

Next, he heard, when he was taking out the recycling, that there were two suspects dead. Five officers wounded. What a nightmare. How could this happen in our little city?

“They had full body armor. These guys had been trained,” he heard Carl explaining to Camille.

Edwin caught his gaze as he walked past and gave off a somber look to the two of them.

“You heard, there’s been some excitement?” Carl asked.

“Yeah, I try not to listen,” he responded, “a bank robbery?”

“Yeah,” Carl said, lowering his head, “not good,” he said as he made the ‘guns’ sign and shook his head. “Anytime, you hear ‘shots fired’, it is never a good thing.”

He heard them still talking when he was leaving. “I just want to know who these guys were,” Carl exclaimed, “and I hope our officers are okay.”

The rest was history. It was in the news. Edwin went into a café for a poutine and heard, it was “all over Facebook,” from the owner. “The whole block is blocked off.”

Six officers wounded, overall. Lives changed. There was talk of therapy and trauma going around. And surgery. Extensive surgery for a couple of them. Critical shape.

“I just feel so powerless,” he remembered hearing Camille say, “I just want to help. I can’t do anything.”

“No, you can’t blame yourself. You know, we all want to help,” Carl comforted.

“I’m going to go for a run and have a shower,” she said.

“The next time I see a group of cops on a break around a table at Tim Horton’s, I won’t think,” Edwin thought, “they are lazy, they are gluttonous. They are probably talking about how they busted some speeder and got a big fat ticket for their bonus. I won't picture them laughing about abusing their power. No. I’ll think. Maybe, they are processing—I hope they are processing—how they walked in on an overdose, how they told off a parent who neglected and abused their child, how they were first on the scene to a horrific car crash. How their buddy was shot.”