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The physical test ended up being rescheduled due to a bad storm, some flooding, and a power outage. Which was probably for the best, because it would have been a total waste of time, anyway, since the LAPD rejected me.

The way it works is that you get a letter in the mail. I didn’t expect it before the interview, I figured they would, at least, want to meet me, but no. They decided they didn’t want me without ever meeting me.

This was the letter I received:

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They had concerns with my maturity and discipline, honesty, integrity, and personal ethics, and employment record. Ironic, since anyone who has met me knows that I’m too mature and disciplined for my own good, I can’t lie to save my life, I believe in integrity to a fault, my personal ethics are pretty damn strict, and my employment record is awesome.

The best part was in the third paragraph, where they told me I could appeal if I wanted to, but that they had no staff to deal with appeals. In other words, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Ouch.

One of the most ludicrous parts of the whole thing was that document I spent hours filling out, the one that was twenty-plus pages of my background info. I had to get contact information for everyone who had played some kind of role in my life in the last fifteen years: landlords, colleagues, friends, supervisors, etc.

I was curious which of these people they had contacted, and, in turn, which questions they had asked. After all, this was the information they used to reject me.

They hadn’t contacted anyone.

Which meant they either rejected me because of information they found on the Internet or they rejected me for not being an ethnic minority. Whichever it was, I was disappointed that they had rejected me without meeting me in person.

In the years that have passed since all this went down, I’ve come to several conclusions:

  1. Their loss.
  2. It’s for the best.

But occasionally I think about what might have been. Life is funny like that. There are so many paths we can choose, so many lives we can lead. And yet here we are, living this one.