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zdashamberWell, that was discouraging. I showed up at the Oakland PD obstacle course location, and it was alarmingly empty. But then, at the end of the parking lot: a tiny knot of people! So I walked over and learned that this morning it was set to start at 8, not 9, and they'd just finished putting all the stuff back over in the corner. Moreover, the girl at the recruiting office who I talked to last Thursday to confirm the test date had been shifted? Was misinformed, in my case.
The lady in charge was thoroughly nice about it, though, asked where I'd had to travel from and apologized for the trouble even though it was only from Lake Merritt, took down my name and phone number and noted I was there 10 minutes before the supposed start time, noted my explanation. The guy I recognized from previous backgrounds investigation stuff didn't look too keen on any of this, but whatcanyado. I doubt they'll bounce me for this, so I suppose it's just a lot of needless stress on one hand vs more time to get strong on the other hand.
On the other hand, they may not call again just because they lose track of it all. I have been increasingly bemused by the difficulty of communicating with the recruiting office at the Oakland PD. When I was first starting my inquiry, I sent email to the recruiting email address about ridealongs etc, and got back a one-line message saying only to call; then the phones weren't being answered, and the answering machine/phone tree hung up on me without taking a message. Though I have found since that leaving a message is pointless: of about six messages left over four months, only one was ever returned, and in that they didn't hear which test I was asking about and replied with the dates for one I'd already taken.
As mentioned previously, after the written test I was given to understand my results would be back two weeks before they actually were; on the other hand, the physical test snailmail info arrived a bare week before the scheduled date. I showed up for the physical practice test listed on the website, and found no one there save four other guys who'd been likewise snookered... Though it was extremely fortunate I had showed up, since it turned out that the wall I had to get over was 6', not the 5' the information packet claimed. Those four guys all said, "Oh, didn't you get the email? They changed the test date to next Saturday." I saw no email, but it was entirely believable there had been one, since I seemed to recall getting an email from them previously that was from some random person's account, with a subject like "test results". Very nearly got deleted as spam, so I figured I'd probably acidentally nuked the email they sent.
But even so, I called to confirm, and finally got ahold of a live person, and asked if the physical test that was supposed to be that Saturday had been changed to Saturday the 26th, and got an affirmative answer.
Arg.
Anyway, like I said, somewhat daunting. Not so much the troubles now, but the concern that in the future if I decided to work there this sort of snafu would be par for the course.
I wish I could talk to an actual cop working currently in the OPD about this. I went to a question-and-answer seminar a month ago, and signed up there for a ridealong, but as with the questions back in April about ridealongs, they've never gotten back to me.
To be fair, they are doing a lot more hiring than they've been doing previous to a year ago, and all the cops are busy working overtime and can't manage supercargo. But seems to me they could get a good benefit out of hiring two more recruiting clerks.
The lady in charge was thoroughly nice about it, though, asked where I'd had to travel from and apologized for the trouble even though it was only from Lake Merritt, took down my name and phone number and noted I was there 10 minutes before the supposed start time, noted my explanation. The guy I recognized from previous backgrounds investigation stuff didn't look too keen on any of this, but whatcanyado. I doubt they'll bounce me for this, so I suppose it's just a lot of needless stress on one hand vs more time to get strong on the other hand.
On the other hand, they may not call again just because they lose track of it all. I have been increasingly bemused by the difficulty of communicating with the recruiting office at the Oakland PD. When I was first starting my inquiry, I sent email to the recruiting email address about ridealongs etc, and got back a one-line message saying only to call; then the phones weren't being answered, and the answering machine/phone tree hung up on me without taking a message. Though I have found since that leaving a message is pointless: of about six messages left over four months, only one was ever returned, and in that they didn't hear which test I was asking about and replied with the dates for one I'd already taken.
As mentioned previously, after the written test I was given to understand my results would be back two weeks before they actually were; on the other hand, the physical test snailmail info arrived a bare week before the scheduled date. I showed up for the physical practice test listed on the website, and found no one there save four other guys who'd been likewise snookered... Though it was extremely fortunate I had showed up, since it turned out that the wall I had to get over was 6', not the 5' the information packet claimed. Those four guys all said, "Oh, didn't you get the email? They changed the test date to next Saturday." I saw no email, but it was entirely believable there had been one, since I seemed to recall getting an email from them previously that was from some random person's account, with a subject like "test results". Very nearly got deleted as spam, so I figured I'd probably acidentally nuked the email they sent.
But even so, I called to confirm, and finally got ahold of a live person, and asked if the physical test that was supposed to be that Saturday had been changed to Saturday the 26th, and got an affirmative answer.
Arg.
Anyway, like I said, somewhat daunting. Not so much the troubles now, but the concern that in the future if I decided to work there this sort of snafu would be par for the course.
I wish I could talk to an actual cop working currently in the OPD about this. I went to a question-and-answer seminar a month ago, and signed up there for a ridealong, but as with the questions back in April about ridealongs, they've never gotten back to me.
To be fair, they are doing a lot more hiring than they've been doing previous to a year ago, and all the cops are busy working overtime and can't manage supercargo. But seems to me they could get a good benefit out of hiring two more recruiting clerks.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-26 06:12 pm (UTC)