Why would you ever be a High Court judge?! Ok, well obviously there's the pay...and the sweet annual leave, I can't back that up but it seems they take lots of holidays! Apart from that you've got to have a pretty steely resolve, a streak of empathy and the willingness to give back to the community (as sometimes you're the only one who cares about it). The lack of desire to sit on the fence, also a plus!
By no means am I comparing myself to a court judge, or even someone who has solid morals (my early 20's come to mind), but I was a judge over the past few weeks. Don't worry, they didn't let me anywhere near a courtroom or a gavel, I also didn't have my own 'chambers', disappointingly. I was a Judge in the Bay of Plenty Times Person of the Year.
It was an awesome and awful job, all the same time! Firstly it was really quite eye-opening to see how many people had been nominated, their caliber and the things the finalists have done for humanity, let alone this community! But I'm a fence-sitter, that and how do you decide who is the best out of a top bunch of people? Some who are wildly successful in business and have donated so much time and coin to the BOP, others who give all their spare time to charity, yet others who have overcome terrible accidents and created a situations to help others. But decide we did, after a few passive-aggressive inter-judge conversations and good hard looks at ourselves.
The winner was a cop that pulled a lady out of her burning home. Any arguments on that? No? Didn't think so. Especially when you hear that he was just driving past, saw a house on fire, pulled a window pretty much clean off its hinges and had multiple goes at getting to the lady through the thick smoke. He never gave up, she is still alive purely because of it. He wins.
Sometimes you get a little sign that you might have made the right decision, at the award ceremony last week I got that sign. At the Bay of Plenty Times offices on Cameron Road, in a room full of finalists and their supporters (and people who were there for the free feed and booze...ahem) there was a little nervous tension. Adrian Oldham's name was read out. As the police officer came up to get his award what should drive past but a police booze bus! What are the chances that at that exact time it would be driving past?! It also made me put my second beer down, remembering the new drink-drive limits. So somehow Adrian pulling a lady out of a burning building in July, stopped me drinking in December. Now that's good policing! Haha!
