Defend and Serve (The Donuts)

I might've lost my chances at the town job when, in my interview, I made a 'cops-love-donuts' joke in front of two uniformed officers and the dispatch supervisor.

"It can be quite different on the overnights, which is the position you would be filling," the supervisor, Kenneth, told me. "At night, you have two officers and one dispatcher, and that's about it on the PD side. Compare this to the mornings, when the station is full and you see police everywhere."

Dunkin' Donuts Asset Protection patches, according to
my Reg trainer who used to work for them.

"Well, sure," I said, my big mouth moving faster than my common sense. "That's when all the Dunkin' Donuts are open."

The bald officer, whose face had been a mask of indifference if not outright disapproval until now, sat back and moved as if to toss his clipboard to the side, sending my application papers fluttering.  

"Welp," he muttered, a previously unseen yet unmistakably playful gleam in his eye. "You can just throw this one out now." He turned and gestured at the door, as if to beckon in an imaginary next candidate. "Next!" 

The other officer was laughing so hard you might have thought we were at a stand-up audition in a basement comedy club rather than a job interview at a police station.

"I mean no disrespect," I added quickly, though I sensed no real offense had been taken. "I mean, heck, I'll be the guy bringing the Dunkin' Donuts."

Baldy seemed to be sizing me up with new appreciation. "Well, we'll just see about that."

The fact that the remark instead seemed to endear me to them, especially to the crankier of the two cops, was my first clue that this was a good place for me. 

My second clue was their response to my cover letter. 

"I have to say, it's unlike any I've read before," the supervisor said about the letter. The officers flipped the top pages on their clipboards in perfect unison, and I realized they'd each read it.

Swallowing hard, I suddenly wondered if the letter had been a mistake. Well, it was too late to rescind it now. I'd better commit if I wanted this to work out.

"It was a risk," I admitted. "But I feel that what I submitted was a far more honest depiction of who I am, both as a person and as a candidate, than a more traditional format allows for." 

"It certainly did," the supervisor agreed. "I don't think I've ever read anything like that in all of my years in this position."

I walked out of that interview with a confidence I hadn't had walking in. Kenneth shook my hand warmly and told me as I left, "Well, the officers and I will be meeting after you leave to discuss things, and of course nothing can be official until the Chief signs off." 

But I heard the unspoken approval underlying his parting words, and I grinned back, feeling for the first time since the Regional job fell through as though maybe, just maybe, I had a chance at a dispatch career after all.

"I appreciate your time," I told him. "And I look forward to hearing from-- and perhaps working with-- you very soon." 

"You as well," Kenneth said. "Hopefully we will be seeing you very soon."

As I walked out the glass door to the parking lot, I thought back to the donut joke from earlier. "I'll be the one with the donuts," I called behind me. 

The sound of his genial chuckling followed me outside the station as I made my way to my car.

A few hours later, I got his email, which was all but an official offer. As soon as my background check cleared, assuming the Chief approved of me, I would be the fourth member of this town's dispatch team.

When I got home, I reread my cover letter with new appreciation.

To whom it may concern,

There are the rules by which cover letters are written. They are meant to be succinct summaries of employable skills and perfunctory vows of company loyalty, should the candidate be hired. These are the rules I was told to follow when drafting one of my own. 

But as a member of Generation Z, the generation of rule-breakers, and as a writer, I could not bring myself to write something so traditional at the expense of it also being so impersonal and ineffective. If a company wants to hire a robot, that technology is just around the corner. The organization that hires me is welcoming more than just a warm body to their team. 

I am young, but I have lived many lives. I was raised by a Marine in an environment that tolerated no excuses. At 13, I was independently running the youth baseball league snack shack in town while my father coached. By 16, I had kept my family together through a near-disaster that put me in the position as primary caretaker of my two younger brothers. By 18, I received my Diploma and Associate’s in the same week. A few weeks later, I survived shattering my jaw and 20 of my teeth. By the end of college, I had made it through 14 root canals, and now have more crowns than a royal museum. I have faced injury, illness, rejection, failure and more; these have been not malefactors, but some of my very best teachers. 

As told by my work experience, I have the qualifications. But what an employer may not see behind the resume is the tenacity I have built up, a dedication to progress demonstrated by my refusal to quit even when life has given me every excuse. Like coal left to sit under the Earth’s crust, I have been put under immense pressure, and it has made me into something strong enough to cut steel. 

Yet, it was not an unyielding material forged within me, either. It has been the kindness of others that has kept me human. From the nurses who cared for me with cheerful faces and kind words, to family members making immense sacrifices to fund my dental work, to friends who will drop everything to be with me when I am hurting: I have always been surrounded by people who made the difference. It is in recognition of these individuals and their collective impact on my experiences that I model my behavior, professionally and personally. 

In line with Dispatch, I have spent the majority of my life striving to understand and master the art and science of communication. I chose linguistics in college for this reason, and American Sign Language as a focus in order to sharpen my intuitive ability to procure and impart information from and to third parties with a variety of mitigating factors impacting their capacity for functional communication. It is through these experiences that I have developed as a communicator, an advocate, and an ideal candidate for such important work as emergency telecommunications. 

These are the qualities that I hope will set me apart. Many candidates can also type effectively, organize data into spreadsheets, or maintain a positive working environment. But what I have is something deeper than trainable skills. I have indomitable strength, and I have compassion. My trials and tribulations have not made me cold or ruthless; quite the contrary: kindness and compassion, rather than hardness or apathy, make me strong. I can (and have had to) endure much, and this has taught me that while life is full of challenge, the best armor is not cold isolation, but embracing the fact that we all share in our struggles as people. I believe that all we can do is try to make the world a better place, and it is my sincerest hope that I may find a place on your team to do just that.

On the day I was asked to come in to meet with the Chief, I was true to my word, leaving my apartment fifteen minutes early so I could made a stop on the way. I felt a little silly walking in with the big white box, but it proved worth it when, upon seeing the dozen colorful treats lined up in flat Dunkin' box, the Chief's face cracked into a grin. 

"Smart girl," he said, carefully lifting out a chocolate frosted donut with two fingers.

It wasn't the first time that I'd bribed-- ahem, I mean, sweetened the deal for-- a hiring committee with baked goods. The date that Reg interviewed me had coincidentally been my birthday, something I decided to believe was a sign the job was meant to be. At the end of that interview, they asked me if I had any last questions they could answer before we concluded. 

"I do have one more," I admitted, pulling the cloth grocery bag out from beneath my chair. "Is this the kind of working environment where people celebrate with each other, when one of your own has a milestone or life event?"

They looked at each other quizzically, but the general consensus was positive, so I brought the bag up onto the table. 

"That's good," I said, "because I've always been the kind of person to bring cupcakes to work on my birthday. If you noticed the date of birth on my application, you would have noticed that it was twenty-two years ago today."

A murmured chorus of "Oh, happy birthday" rose from the interview panel, fading into surprised silence as I pulled out the pastry box.

"Now, I know that this isn't my work-- yet," I said. "But since I'm hoping it will be soon, I thought that I might as well get a jump on things, seeing as how it will be a whole year before I get the chance to do it again."

The lead interviewer's eyebrows knitted together, and she studied the box. The pastry shop seal was intact, and a gift or favor was only considered in breach of conflict of interest laws if its price exceeded fifty dollars. I assured her they had not cost me that much, so she allowed me to pass them out to the panel. They were pretty vanilla cupcakes, opulently decorated with elegant white frosting and tiny edible pearls.

Once, while I was on an evening shift at the Reg center, I mentioned the cupcake story to a coworker, whose eyes widened. 

"You were cupcake girl?" he asked. Then he laughed and shook his head, eyes rolling good-naturedly. "Of course you were. Maybe that's why you able to get hired without any prior experience."

I know that I wasn't hired at either job because of confectionery bribes. It wasn't even for my cover letter, poignant as it might be. I was chosen because of the potential I showed, and for my attitude. The fact that I wanted to be here, that I was willing to work as hard as it took to be successful as a dispatcher, was the main reason they were willing to take a chance on me.

Even so, I did learn one thing. As with most situations in life, cupcakes and donuts never hurt.