The Diary of a Guardian Angel

People are generally inherently good and nice, which is fortunate because otherwise I’d have a whole stack more work to do. Normally you just need to nudge someone to keep them on the straight and narrow. A kid’s first warning from a stern police officer about the dangers of drugs can often keep the kid straight for his lifetime. Seeing a friend get punished on your behalf by a teacher can instil a sense of responsibility in someone that lasts years. Having kids of your own helps, having responsibilities forced on you generally makes a person more responsible.

But sometimes you get people who are just plain bad; every one of us generally has one or two on our books at any given time. Which, considering our workload makes them pretty rare. Most teams have weekly meetings where strategies for coping with these reprobates are discussed, formulated and dissected. It’s usually not impossible to keep these guys on the right path; it just takes a lot of work. Every so often there’s one who refuses to see the light. You can litter their life with moral lessons and warnings, but they blinkeredly refuse to learn.

There’s a term for these guys which has been in use amongst us for generations: Total Asshole. It’s not a clever term, or even (heaven forbid – and we do when we can) Latin. But it’s descriptive.

Currently I’ve got a total asshole on my books, and he’s causing me the same amount of grief as all the rest of my cases put together. I’m down to the last line now, the very final measure before I abandon any attempt at saving him, and go into damage control mode. I’ve collaborated with a few other guys, and I’ve arranged for him to get the shit kicked out of him. It’s a little more sophisticated than that, there’s a reason he’ll get beaten to within an inch of his life, but whether he sees in time, or learns the lesson only time will tell… I’ll let you know how it goes.