Seasonal Officer

[Maxtek]

Hello All,

I'm in the process now of getting my application together to apply for a seasonal police officer position with the Ocean City, MD Police. Just wondering if any members here have any insight what this position holds for me and if you have any opinions of seasonal officers overall.

Any feedback would be great,
Thanks

[peppers8]

I was a seasonal officer at Dewey Beach, DE (which is about 15 minutes north of OC Maryland)2 summers ago. I applied there in order to obtain college credits for completing an internship and to gain experience. I also was able to earn money and spend the summer at the beach. In my own experience as a seasonal officer as well as my conversations with friends that were seasonals at OC, I can say that OC is a great place to get experience. From what I have heard they have the best training out of any of the Mid-Atlantic seasonal trainings. They carry also, which is rare for seasonal positions nowadays because of liability issues. As far as Dewey or Rehoboth, they are also great departments and I would recommend applying to these departments in case you don't make it through OC's application process. They have downloadable applications which you can print out and mail to them. I am also from PA so this is convenient. The streotypes of the different departments are as follows. Rehoboth is generally quite and not too much action; mostly families go there- few bars. Dewey is only a mile long and 2 blocks wide but is loaded with bars. You will have plenty of action there, but the department gets ticket hungery when things are slow so be prepared to write a lot of tickets for both parking and disorderly type violations. They are lax in their supervision so you have a lot of freedom but also have to learn by trial and error which is the only real way to learn anyway. OC is by far the largest and seems to be a mix of both Dewey and Rehoboth with a lot of families but also a lot of the bar scene also. If for some reason you were able to do car patrol and conduct traffic stops, Route 1 has plenty of drug trafficing. It seems to be the most organized a professional of the three. Thought I would offer you some insight and good luck. Feel free if you have anymore questions about seasonal work, I'll be happy to offer whatever help I can.

[kirch]

A few thoughts on seasonal officer positions.

When I first started looking for PT LE work, I considered becoming a state conservation warden. The work is nearly 100% summer. I happen to live within easy driving distance from several state parks and riverways. Upon further investigation, I learned it wasn't really the kind of police work I personally wanted to be doing. But really sealed the deal for me was the fact that they pay only $9.00 an hour. Hell, at that rate it'd take me 3 summers just to pay back what I spent on the academy. No thanks.

One of my academy mates got her start as a seasonal employee working lake patrol. She did it for about a year before attending the academy. Since her FT job was as a teacher, it was a perfect fit for her. She really liked the job and it had just enough action for her to get a taste of policework without too much in the danger department.

There is a tourist city less than an hour away from us that has an off-season population of about 2000. In the summer, it can have as many as 100,000 people milling around. They hire a LOT of seasonal help. I've been told it's a good place to get a lot of experience in a short time period (one of their officers was just featured in a Calibre Press e-newsletter after being boxed in by suspected gangbangers while on a traffic stop). Unfortunately, it's just a little too far away for me to consider picking up some PT work there.

[Maxtek]

Thanks for the feedback.

Peppers, did Dewey provide you with your duty equipment or did you have to purchace it? Ocean City provides the uniforms but says it might be around $400 to get the nessesary equipment needed (ie. cuffs, baton, flashlight, OC spray, ect). They issue sidearms and radios on a day-to-day basis.

Thanks

[3/4s]

Be prepared to have to beat back the bikini clad babes with a stick.:eek: :D

[peppers8]

Dewey issues uniforms (except for shoes), and a full duty belt including cuffs and OC (if qualified to carry OC). The uniforms kinda suck when I was there but they were supposed to be getting campaign hats the year after I left, because we had to wear base ball caps which really ruined the uniform. The only thing I had to purchase was a flashlight, which I highly recommended shelling out the money to get a good one like a stinger, because you will use it constantly. If you choose to carry an asp you will have to buy that too. It is your choice, but everyone usually chooses to carry an asp. Another thing I forgot to tell you about the seasonal work is finding a place to stay. When I got hired, the chief stated that during our orientation training that I could meet up with others to find a place to stay which was common. To my suprise, when they asked at orientation who had not arranged a place to stay, I was the only one out of 40 to raise my hand. Fortunately, one of the full-time officers was looking for a roomate and offered to allow me to stay with him for the summer so everything worked out in the end. So if you are able to start looking for a place, try now to make things easier on yourself or to atleast have some ideas. Some rules to follow. You will not be able to afford anything near the beach and if you can they are probably already booked for the next 5 years. The best way to do it is find a place a couple of miles away from the shore where you can actually find some descent places. You will also need to live with roomates. So your best bet is to go to whatever department hires you and meet people as soon as possible to find roomates. All this talk about seasonal work reminds me of how much fun I had there. The fun that we had. Just about evernight when the beach was "supposed" to be closed we would hide behind the garbage cans and wait for the bar crowd to filter out and then just wait for several minutes. By that time everyone had already taken their clothes off and were in the ocean or doing other things. Of course it was our job to enforce beach curfew so we HAD to shine the light and find out what was going on out there. You have to be careful though, and don't let your hormones affect your job because it is very easy to get in trouble with women down there. anymore questions feel free to ask. This is fun!

[DMS 525]

I knew of a guy who was a Chief in a small ocean resort town on a seasonal basis. All was fine there, until he suspected a Great White shark of attacking swimmers and boaters there. The City fathers all accused the poor man of being completely off his rocker.

To make matters worse, thanks to the incidents, a large billboard welcoming tourists was vandalized, prompting the Mayor to demand to the Chief that he "wanted those little paint-happy bastards strung up by their Buster Browns!"

[Maxtek]

Thanks for all the advice Peppers. Housing has been one of the other things that I have been thinking about. I estimated I can probably spend about $400 a month on a place and I have been doing some preliminary looking on the internet without much luck. If I get hired when I go to take my test, which is on March 6th, I don't think I have to worry about finding a place or a roommate. What I'm worried about is being placed on the waiting list and not finding out if I'm hired or not until after the final testing session is done which is April 3rd, and having to report in about 3 weeks from that point. At that point I see myself calling a few places for I won't be able to make another 8 hour trip at the end of the semester to look at apartments and ending up at a he**hole by myself paying way too much. Hopefully it won't come to that...:rolleyes:

[cleetus0219]

Just a word of advice on being a seasonal-

I've done it and it was a GREAT time. The one thing that you have to keep in mind is that the place you're being a seasonal at is just a stepping stone. As hard as it may be, try to avoid getting too involved with the work there and just do your time until they put you into the full time academy. If you do get involved in something, and it goes wrong- you might jeopardize your entire career.

Do what needs to be done, don't go looking for trouble.

[Maxtek]

Hello all, just wanted to update all of you whom expressed some interest in this post. I tested with Ocean City, Maryland and also Rehoboth Beach, Deleware and was accepted to both agencies. I went with Rehoboth and I look foward to a fun and informative summer!!! I have had some luck finding a place to stay also, a returning seasonal from Rehoboth is trying to get some officers together and get a house, so looks like everything is rolling along!!!
Thanks for all of advice!!!

[OregonDirtbiker]

Seasonal officer? Is this somthing like a Reserve Position, but just in one paticular season? Get back to me.

[Nobody]

,

[Maxtek]

It is a position which is probably only found in some "resort towns". Ocean City has a year round population of about 7000 but can swell to about 200,000 persons in the summer, Rehoboth Beach has about 2000 year round, maybe 30,000+ in the summer, so these departments offer a position for temporary police officer during the summer season. OC hires about 100 seasonal officers, Rehoboth about 30, which about doubles their manpower. In both positions the seasonal officer is sworn in and has all the powers as the "full time" officers. The only difference is that most agencies that offer this position do not arm their seasonal officers, OC is an exception however, they do allow their seasonals to carry. This is a great position for college students to get to see if this is what they want to do for the rest of their life, as I am doing. If you have any more questions please don't hesitate to ask.