Ashlie: (00:17)
Welcome back to another episode of Tactical Living by LEO Warriors. I'm your host, Ashlie Walton.
Clint:
And I'm your co-host Clint Walton.
Ashlie:
In today's episode, we're going to talk about how sometimes the people that you work with unexpectedly wind up being your best friends. So just sit back, relax and enjoy today's content. Clint, you've been pretty fortunate to build some really sustainable relationships with the people that you've worked with throughout the years. And I have to say that I too have become pretty close with a lot of the people that you work with. And I want to talk a little bit about how much we genuinely cherish those friendships and how, I don't think there's anything wrong with building friendships with the people that you work with.
Clint: (01:09)
You know, for me, I've always been one to really want to separate, you know, home life and work life. But you can't. It's near impossible to do that in our line of work. You know, everyone we work with is a brother, a sister, a family member per se. But over the years, I've worked with a select few number of guys that I've just grown very fond of and they've become some of my really close friends. We still hang out on a regular basis. I mean, pretty soon we're going to be going to Universal Studios with one of my partners and his girlfriend. We went last year with him and it was a lot of fun. With him specifically, I worked with him for a couple of years and you know, we rode two man units for the special detail that we're in and he's a very stern individual. And what I mean by that is everyone always asks him why he's mad all the time. We just, of course say it's his resting bitch face, but it's something where he's really not. He's really a jolly guy and he's always that friend that you can kind of lean on if you needed it. And a lot of people see him that way.
Clint: (02:42)
Him and I don't always agree on our approaches in instances. And one of my other friends, actually, him and I had a safe word. We pretty much to tell each other to fuck off. We would say, 'hey big guy, come here.' And so to this day when I see them, I go, 'what's up big guy?' And he says the same to me. And that's us kind of just telling each other to fuck off in a friendly way.
Ashlie: (03:12)
And Clint, you had said that we tried to separate your work life from our personal life and in retrospect that stemmed from a situation that we dealt with really early on in your career as a police officer by trying to hang out with another couple to where both of them were police officers and it turned out in a really unexpected and healthy way. So as you listen, Clint, if you could just take the listener through the story of what happened.
Clint: (03:47)
So this guy, him and I went to the academy together and we just hit it off. We were close. His girlfriend at the time was a deputy and we just all got along very well. Over the course of the academy as those who went through it know, you form a certain type of bond with the people you actually went to the academy with. And him and I just clicked. So we decided to go out to Sushi with him and his girlfriend and we really liked hanging out with him. We were going to plan on more kind of double dates or just going out and doing things together over time. When we went to our station and got on to patrol, we were both in the same phases. We were going through the whole FTO program and we were both in phase three and then all of a sudden one day he was gone.
Clint: (04:54)
We hadn't worked together for most of our training, just how it worked out. So I started asking around what happened. Come to find out, he assaulted his girlfriend and did things that I won't even go into further details on. That was vary uncalled for, unprofessional and illegal. He was going to face his own criminal battle now. And like I said, his girlfriend was a deputy. She didn't show up for work and her friends were worried about her. I never would have thought that this guy would have done something to that nature and I was completely shocked. And when I told Ashlie, I know she was completely shocked as well.
Ashlie: (05:50)
Just so that we don't want to get into too much detail because a lot of it of course was never made public but did have something to do with domestic violence. Once you have a charge of domestic violence as a police officer…
Clint: (06:06)
You're done. You can't work anymore because if you're charged with felony domestic violence, you'll get arrested for that felony and you can no longer carry your firearm. And as we learned what occurred, I actually called him and found out what happened and he kind of skated around it and didn't really tell me the details in it. But he still kind of brought up wanting to hang out again. But I'm now to this point, I'm like, I don't want to hang out with you anymore. I'm doing good in my career. I want to make sure that I keep my career going. So to this day, I haven't talked to him but maybe one or two times after that incident specifically.
Ashlie: (07:00)
Yeah. And that was early on in your career and of course any red flag is one red flag to many. And that started to set the stage for us to completely disassociate any kind of interaction that we had with people that would invite us to go out as it pertained to anyone that you worked with.
Clint: (07:22)
Yeah. And I think another factor involved with it is, you know, when cops get together they normally get together to go out to drink. And that's just not our scene either. And for you listening, if that is your scene and you enjoy going out and having a few beers with a buddy, more power to you. That's just not what I like to do or what we like to do together. But in looking at these friendships that I've formed with my partners and one specifically…he has gone fishing with me numerous times and him and I have been really close for years. I really look at the value I get from each of them. I mean, my old sergeant…him and I are really close as well. He just always trying to give me advice, tries to help through any situation and share his knowledge that he's taken on through the years.
Ashlie: (08:32)
How would you say, Clint, that having those relationships with the people that you work with plays a role in your relationship together being a partner and when you're at work?
Clint: (08:44)
It's kind of funny. It's, there's that old mindset of when you're out at work, you talk about home. When you're at home, you talk about work. And I think that's the reason why I've always wanted to kind of exclude myself from that. Because I don't like talking about work at home. But when we're together on duty, I know how they're going to react. They know how I'm going react and I can trust one of them. And when we're off, I know it's the same thing. If we go into an environment where we could lower our guards a little bit because we are sharing the burden of scanning everything all the time. We know how to be on such high alert it seems like, but we're able to disconnect and just have fun as well. One of the guys I am specifically talking about, he loves being a police officer. So much to where he talks about it a lot. But that's him. That's what he enjoys. That's what he lives for and that's okay. But when we go somewhere with him and his girlfriend or we just hang out with him, it's not a 'whose dick is bigger show.' It's just us hanging out and having fun. No strings attached and we know we don't have to worry about one another and we don't have to share stories nonstop all the time.
Ashlie: (10:19)
Yeah, and I think another thing to point out is that in having these friendships with people who also understand and live this lifestyle behind the badge, they know what it's like. They know how it is to have such few opportunities to even have those times to connect outside of the workplace. They understand the scheduling struggle. They understand the fatigue. They understand all of the dynamics that go into living in a home with a first responder or being a first responder and there's no judgment and it's this completely open platform of understanding and acceptance. You use the word trust and that's really key when it comes to anybody that we introduce into our inner circle.
Ashlie: (11:12)
The truth as you listen is that our tribe isn't very big and it's that way on purpose because we are so detail oriented when it comes to how much slack we're willing to give to other people before we let them in that close. Close enough to certainly invite someone into our home. Close enough to take someone out in the middle of the ocean, for example. It's not easy to do that with just anybody. When you understand the reality of how people are in the real world, the things that they carry, the things do behind closed doors, their habits, their negative lifestyle. And this is no judgment. If that's you as you sit there or if you know somebody who's into any of those things that maybe you yourself don't like, it's okay to be choosy with what you do and do not want around you.
Ashlie: (12:14)
And generally speaking, when you're around a first responder, they've all gone through such vigorous background checks. They know what's at stake if they turn the table and they get into a bad path. So it's not very likely that you would come across a partner and then get to know them very well and then later find out, wow, I wouldn't have wanted to be around that person if I knew that about them. And that's why there is this sense of comfort when you have a friendship that's built stemming from the people that you work with in your line of work. Even for me, as the spouse of a police officer, I'm very vigilant, be it a male or a female. Be it your partners are their spouses or friends or siblings. It's very important for me to know who's around us. And the other side of that is it's such a privilege for me to get to know the people that you work so closely with on a day to day basis because I know that they do have your back and I know that you have theirs.
Ashlie: (13:24)
And when it comes time to truly meeting somebody in a dire situation, especially in a very highly active city like the one that you work in, it brings me a lot of peace and comfort to know that you're genuinely working around such amazing people. And then to get to know somebody at work versus getting to know them outside of the workplace. Sure you bring some work with you when you go and do things independently and outside of the community that you serve. But some of that persona, some of that, that armor that you guys carry all of the time is let down. And then it allows you to truly see who they are and then incorporating pieces of that into your work life. You know, having that camaraderie with one another and having that sense of humor that just helps as another driving force to build that bond and to build that brother and sisterhood.
Ashlie: (14:22)
And I don't think it really matters what profession you're in because the dynamics of that are pretty universal. When you're able to incorporate a friendship into a working relationship with your colleagues, it all around just makes the functionality smoother and it allows the teamwork, which every employee that works with somebody else has some level of teamwork working so much more unison. It's okay for you to be a little bit more harsh, let's say if one isn't picking up enough slack or you know, just having that open communication that starts to blossom. Whereas if you're not that close with somebody that you work with, it makes it difficult. And even some animosity might start to build up when somebody isn't picking up the slack per se. And I think when you're open to be able to building those relationships and extending them outside of the workplace, and then have those friendships and carry them with you and to see how they transform over time, then you're really able to enjoy your Tactical Living.
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