One of the guys in my police academy class would rib me for being less of a man because I didn’t drive a truck.

A couple months later, he would go on to commit a felony on duty in front of a half dozen of his peers, including me. Nobody bothered to report him but me, even after we had a meeting about someone from a neighboring agency doing nearly the exact same thing that had been fired and arrested for it. Being a brand new deputy, I thought it was an integrity test so I was more than willing to report it. IA dropped the case.

In hindsight, that was a clue I should’ve started applying elsewhere or quit, but I had three more years to put in before I wouldn’t have to pay back my academy pay, not to mention I naively trusted there was some other interpretation of what happened I hadn’t considered that the agency’s brass and legal team had; I wasn’t about to be the Apprentice telling the Master he’s full of shit.

Years later they’d fire me for some complete BS. He still works there as far as I know, and the US Army promoted him to Captain.