How I First 'Blew It' with a Job in the Police
I want to warn you: my experience of getting a job in the police should not be viewed as some kind of postulate instruction. The requirements put forward by police departments for candidates for the rank of "sheriff" may differ from state to state.
For example, one German acquaintance of mine — an avid bodybuilder, who, oddly enough, graduated with honors from a Realschule — never became a policeman: they turned him down immediately, because the guy fell two centimeters short of the required 165 — the minimum height. But a Turkish friend of mine, who only reached 160, has already been serving for two years in another city — in an area where his compatriots live compactly.
Now, after having been at least a little bit involved in the subject, I find it very curious to listen to myths and legends about police service circulating in the Russian-speaking community. People argue about the age limit for joining the service, whether wearing a police uniform accelerates, so to speak, the granting of German citizenship. In fact, most answers to such questions can be found by visiting the all-German website www.polizei.de. And if your knowledge is insufficient for such an "excursion" — consider that you have no business in the police: you will simply fail the very first literacy test. Well, some explanations that you will not find on the official page of the German police, I will try to give the reader myself, based on real life experience.
I honestly admit that at first I also fell for the assurances of acquaintances that "Germany is not America, and therefore a foreigner has nothing to do in the police here. It's easier to do something else than to try to break through the local burghers. All local police officers are civil servants, which in itself implies having citizenship." Fortunately, my doubts, as has happened more than once, were dispelled by "Russkaya Germaniya" ("Russian Germany"), in one of whose issues I read an interview with my compatriot working as a press attaché in the police. "Aha! I rejoiced. So not only civil servants work in the police, but also employees!" And I immediately submitted a Bewerbung to my... district department, indicating that I can compile such databases that would allow me to "check against the card index" in an instant any vile scoundrel who robbed, say, a local bank.
I don't know what exactly influenced the polite refusal I soon received. Perhaps the fact that the position in the computer department to which I had applied was top-secret and therefore implied citizenship (which was quite officially pointed out to me). Or maybe the "dog was buried" in my untimely (and proud!) mention of collaboration with the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs back in my student years. But no, I wasn't doing what some might immediately have thought — it's just that one day a police major came to our course, asked the teacher to pick the "smartest student" to compile for him a database of local enterprises selling building materials.
How I Found Out That a Contingent Refugee Can Become a Civil Servant
Be that as it may, they didn't let me in as an employee, and I decided to raise the bar higher by trying to get a job in the police as a detective. This position was already an official one, and therefore acquaintances were quite skeptical about my chances of getting it. "Misha, don't you think that a Jewish policeman sounds no less funny than a Jewish collective farmer?" — some wits sneered, and then wondered: "And in general, even if you succeeded, why the hell would you need such a job?"
Here I will explain for everyone who believes that work, first of all, should be profitable. Indeed, any local detective has all the rights of a "lifelong civil servant", which, I think, makes no sense to explain. In addition, a policeman in Germany is not like today's poor cop who gets a meager salary and, because of this alone, only thinks about how to "rip off" the controlled territory. It's not just about well-paid vacation, not just about mandatory "Weihnachtsgeld", health insurance for which you don't pay a cent, and 100% sick pay until recovery. It's also about the possibility of accelerated citizenship (within, say, two years, not six, and certainly not eight, as usually happens). In the fast, if you will, acquisition of citizenship, which the police will take care of for you, if, of course, you do your job well.
In short, I firmly decided to "put on the uniform" and become a Beamte auf Probe ("probationary civil servant"). Well, as for the assurances of acquaintances that "a contingent refugee by definition cannot be a civil servant", I decided to spit on them — just as, according to Ostap, they spat even before historical materialism. In this "spit", by the way, an anecdote helped me, which I will also tell you, because it is on topic. So, the year 2050, a typical German town, two policemen are walking down the street. After searching a lying drunk and taking out his documents, one policeman shows them to the other in bewilderment: "Look, Petro, what a funny surname — Mueller!"
But tell me, how is Mikhail worse than Petro? In short, I went to the city police headquarters, where I asked a direct question: "Can I, a Jew and not yet a German citizen, become a detective?" Some won't believe it, but they not only told me, but also wrote down on a piece of paper what formalities I needed to go through in order to get a job that I supposedly "couldn't get by definition". First of all, I had to obtain from the local self-government body a so-called Ausnahmegenehmigung — an "exceptional permit" — allowing me to be admitted to the "status of a civil servant". I won't lie: this document was not given to me automatically. In addition to requiring documents confirming my status of residence in Germany, I also needed certificates from my homeland stating that I am a fully law-abiding citizen who has not been prosecuted criminally. Is it easy to get such papers from the former Soviet Union while living in Germany? Let everyone answer this question for themselves.
In the end, I did get the Ausnahmegenehmigung. As it turned out later, I was lucky again with the state: in my case, two years of residence in Germany was enough for it to be considered a "long-term residence" necessary for issuing such a document, while in others this period could be three years or more. Be that as it may, after receiving the Genehmigung, I considered the matter half solved and thereby completely... botched it.
How I took the police exams
Arriving at the police department two days later with all the necessary documents and placing the very same ill-fated and cherished paper, on which I had spent the most time and effort, in the most prominent place, I asked the local employee about the next steps on the career ladder.
"Now nothing particularly complicated! The commission will determine your professional suitability!" the interlocutor reassured me. "You have a very decent command of German, you have a higher education, you look physically developed, so, apparently, you have good chances." "And how will the commission determine my fate, and how long will it take?" I asked.
"Well-ell-ell, this is a standard and routine procedure," the police department employee shrugged. "It usually takes three days. On the first day, they will check your knowledge of the language, intellect, and ability to argue your professional choice. Then you will be invited to an interview, after which you will undergo a medical examination. By the way, I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with this brochure about the tests!" - and the policeman, who was already writing out the term, handed me a small book. "And don't forget to bring your sports uniform on the first day!" - the guy shouted after me. He shouted at me, who was rushing on the wings of happiness to rub the noses of my friends with my "almost enrollment in the ranks of the valiant German police."
Oh, how wrong I was, how prematurely I rejoiced, while reading over a mug of beer moralizing to my friends that "any conti can become a police Beamter, if, of course, he shows the will to do so"! No, the point is not that the mentioned status of Beamte auf Probe, available to you after obtaining the "exceptional permit", still needs to be changed to simply Beamte, deserving it with hard work. And not that in a couple of days I lost the honorary status by appearing at the test with a beer breath unbefitting a policeman's status - that was not the case on my part. The fact is that, having celebrated with friends, who had managed to joyfully rename me from "Miller" to "Müller", I simply lost somewhere... no, fortunately, not my documents, but just the little book about passing the tests. "Oh well," I waved my hand. "There's something about language, intellect... And I also need to bring sports clothes."
My carelessness, plus the fatal mistake of the employee who mistook my beer belly for "physical development", crossed out all the efforts and weeks of collecting all sorts of papers. Had I read what exactly the test would entail, I would surely have postponed the date that day and now would be posing before the editorial photographer in a brand new, spick-and-span uniform. But as it is...
I passed the first exam on spelling, grammar, and the ability to adequately express thoughts with flying colors, as they say. All there was to it was to whip up an essay based on a picture in which a male police officer and his female partner were explaining to a young guy, pointing at the red light of the "Ampel", that the "Knabe" had crossed the road incorrectly! Depicting how "the employees politely, in accordance with all the instructions, point out to the violator his mistake", and even naming the amount of the fine awaiting the hasty fellow, I, for lack of anything better to do, embellished "The Ballad of the Policemen" with numerous modifiers. Embellished it and - with a triumphant look, stared at the pair of two typical-looking southerners, sweating over the sheets they had been given... "Very decent indeed!" the tired employee, the owner of "executive" horn-rimmed glasses, finally approved my scribbling. "Especially in comparison with other Ausländers, who completed the work at best with a "satisfactory". Well, congratulations, and kindly proceed to the gym."
The invitation to the gym turned out, upon examination, to be an "invitation to an execution". And now the southerners (Italians? Greeks?) were almost openly guffawing, watching your humble servant, dressed from head to toe in "adidas-reebok", struggling to pass the so-called "Cooper test". As for what the Cooper-Test, which every candidate for detective rank must pass, entails, look up the information yourself. I will only tell you that I probably resembled a giant toad, trying to jump from a standing position at least 1 meter 98 centimeters, required for candidates of my age. Well, when I shamefully failed the "coordination of movements test", stepping on the ball on the third lap that I had to run around from left to right, my fate was sealed. In short, the matter simply never reached the second exam day - the day on which I intended to dazzle the commission of three officials with my profound knowledge of political life "within Germany and beyond", as well as to shine with my knowledge of the language, reflecting on the "specific features of police work".
"Don't despair, you still have time by age!" the examiner consoled me in farewell. "Come back next year!" And almost intimately added: "Police are unlikely to be needed less in the future than they are now!"
Perhaps you will ask: will I try a second time to achieve my goal? No, I will not. But not at all because this goal is so unattainable for a foreigner, as idle tongues chatter about. It's just that now I have found another, moreover managerial, job not related to maintaining order in the country. Did the experience of seeking employment in local law enforcement agencies help me in it? Apparently not. True, subordinates who do not know about my "detective epic", when I reproach them for their negligence, sometimes indignantly retort: "Why are you yelling at us as if you had joined the cops?!"