My name is Sanford Swanson. I know it’s hard to believe with this baby face, but for 18 and a half years, I’ve been a police officer. For the last 8 and a half years, I’ve been in West Lafayette, Indiana, where I get the privilege of raising my family alongside my wife. In November, I was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant within the police department. Currently, I’m a sergeant, but in November, I accepted that promotion.
On the outside, it looked shiny, right? Glitz and glam, high fives—it was a personal accomplishment. Every time you move up in the organization, there’s a sense of accomplishment, a measure of success. I became one of five lieutenants in the police department, so kind of the top 10%, if you will.
But what it looks like isn’t always what we envision.
What it felt like? It was lonely. It was exhausting. And, quite honestly, for me, the way it was framed, it was unfulfilling.
Let me give you a little backstory. In our department, every shift has a lieutenant and a sergeant. Think of them like co-captains. The lieutenant gets the opportunity to mentor the sergeant, build them up, and help them make that leap in their career.
Shortly after I got promoted, I received a text message from my sergeant that said, “Can I tell you something?” Immediately, I picked up the phone and called her, thinking, “What’s up?” That’s not usually the beginning of a healthy conversation. There was a pregnant pause, and then she said, “I’m pregnant.”
I congratulated her and was happy for her. But then she told me she was going on light duty and moving to the day shift. I thought to myself, “Now I don’t have a sergeant.” The way the organization handled it was to just ride it out until she returned from maternity leave. She just had her baby last week—that was seven months ago.
For six months, I was by myself, doing the work of two people. I worked 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and at 2 a.m., when I needed to bounce an idea off someone, there was no one to turn to. That’s where the loneliness came in.
It was exhausting because, as I said, I was doing two people’s jobs. I had to create a “have to” and a “want to” list. I’d say, “I have to get this done, this needs to get done, I want to get this done,” but the “want to” list was never completed—ever.
That’s where the exhaustion hit me. One day, I had to take work home. I was sitting on the couch on a Saturday, my family was in bed, and there I was, watching TV and doing payroll at the same time. In 18 years—six as a supervisor—I had never taken payroll home before. It was draining.
But the most unfulfilling part was realizing that, over the last six months, I couldn’t think of a single day where this position brought me joy. I had to ask myself, “Why are you doing this if it doesn’t bring you joy?”
I was being a hypocrite, telling my kids not to do things just to go through the motions, yet here I was doing the same thing. So, I had that real and raw conversation with myself, then talked to my wife, talked to God, and prayed about it.
I went to my boss and asked for a meeting with the chief. During that meeting, I made a bold move—I told him I didn’t want the position anymore, and I gave it back.
In business and in policing, there’s this mindset—I’m also on the SWAT team—about taking tactical ground. Once you gain ground, you maintain it. You take it, you own it, it’s yours. But sometimes, we have to make a tactical retreat. We decide it makes sense to step back, to give it back, because it’s what’s best for us.
If we’re not careful, we work so hard that we allow our grit to betray us. We grind, grind, grind, until it’s raw and there’s nothing left. And in doing that, we risk losing the people most important to us—the ones who have supported us all along. Because if we’re not careful, we turn around and they’re gone, simply because we worked so hard and forgot to bring them along for the ride.
