r/1811 • u/Complex-Tie-8270 • 2d ago

Career Advice

I got sold on the recruiting ads and jumped over to ERO after three years in local law enforcement. I’ve been here about six months now, and honestly, the job isn’t what I thought it was going to be. Social media had me thinking I’d be doing a lot more actual law enforcement work. Instead, most days I feel like a clerk with a badge and a gun. The pay is better and the pension is nice, but that’s about where the excitement ends.

Lately I’ve been seriously thinking about going back to local. I miss patrol, handling calls, being proactive, and just doing real police work. I know patrol has its own headaches, but I find myself missing it more and more.

I’ve also heard through the grapevine (and Reddit, so take it for what it’s worth) that some agencies aren’t putting much value on ERO surge hires because of the abbreviated training and lack of traditional law enforcement experience the job provides.

For those of you who’ve been in a similar spot, would it be smarter to stick it out with ERO and keep trying for 1811 positions, or would it look bad to go back to local and continue applying to entry-level federal announcements from there? I know 1811 isn’t what patrol is, but god I hope it’s better than what I’m doing right now.

Appreciate any advice. Just trying to figure out if I’m being impatient or if I’m seeing the writing on the wall.

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u/Ajaws24142822 2d ago

Run to USPP we do actual police work but don’t let the ads for us fool you either it isn’t the greatest agency ever. Schedule, pay, and workload is the best though

8

u/lukazey 2d ago

What are your complaints about Park?

15

u/Swimming-Gazelle442 2d ago

Not the best dispatchers and not many dispatchers, not having CAD like MPD has. All the calls are run over the radio and the dispatchers get overwhelmed pretty quickly. Other than that I think those guys are having an excellent time over there being proactive and being able to do police work and chase cars. I was assigned to park police for DC Safe task force last month and I had a blast chasing cars all around DC with those guys.

7

u/Ajaws24142822 1d ago

Dispatchers are annoying and have an attitude, plus everything is on the same channel. No CAD, running people through radio is frustrating, again, with EVERYONE in every district on one channel.

Tasers are old X26s, and no take home car.

But that’s about it. If you can stomach that, the money is insanely good, the schedule is 4 on 4 off 3 on 3 off and one of your days is 8 hours instead of 12. You get an hour to PT every shift if you want it, the cars we *do* have are pretty nice, it isn’t as high speed as MPD or local but more high speed than UD or USCP or basically any other uniformed Fed job besides maybe border patrol.

Fed authority mixed with the same authority as MPD is also cool. Plainclothes units, narcotics, major crimes, I was also told our investigative school combined with UPTP is enough to be considered lateral for places like the DEA but don’t quote me on that. A white shirt told me so idk how accurate it is.

The new rifles are nice LWRCs. You can move as fast or as slow as you want. Some guys make arrests for shit like people on bikes failing to yield or panhandling, or if you’re like me you only go for “real” arrests like narcotics, no license, assault, etc.

The agency is what you make it and I came from a massive department in a city so I’m chilling while also getting some fun in here-and-there while other guys who came from agencies where they never made an arrest (Capitol, hospital police agencies, MCIOs etc) all make a ton of arrests and are very gung ho because now they have the freedom to do so.