LeonardSkinner said:
20 years ago, the agility tests I had to do were something along the lines of: getting out of a police car, getting stuff out of the trunk, doing those minor obstacles that we see in that video, drag a heavy mannequin away from danger, and run a hundred yards… and do the whole thing in reverse on the way back before ending up with your seatbelt buckled and hands on the wheel.
Not to toot my own horn, but I regularly did pretty well on that type of test, and aced the written exams as well.
And still got rejected because I was not the size of a high school linebacker (and probably rightly so).
My experience was actually worse, if you can believe that.
Early/mid-90s. On a whim, I decided to go to the civil service pre-exam in a nearby DFW city for a police job. Didn't know if I wanted to do it or not, but thought I'd at least give it a try. At the time, this place went through the physical test first, but before that, they did the height/weight stuff. This was right about the time BMI became a thing. My only concern was my back (I had been having trouble with it in recent years) and my lack of flexibility. But I did weigh in at around 210 at a height of right at 6'. Mind you, my waist size at the time was about 34".
So I get off the scale, one guy is doing the weight/height measurement, another is writing it down and doing the BMI calc. The guy doing the BMI thing says, FAIL. I'm like, WTF? I was no body builder but at the time was pretty well defined, played some serious softball, and could hold my own in other things. I made sure my mile and a half time was WELL under the requirement (I think 14-15 minutes).
"What do you mean, I fail? I can do the run, all the push-ups you ask for," I said.
"Your BMI is obese. Sorry."
"Do I look like I'm obese?" I said.
Finally, the guy doing the measurement speaks up and says, "dude, he's right. That chart is ___ed-up. This guy is in shape. At least, he isn't anywhere near obese."
The guy with a pen, who I think was a Sgt. or Lt. says, "Next..."
I left without saying another word. I was like, "who in their right mind would want to work with anyone this stupid." What was maddening was that a few years later, Dallas SWAT comes on TV. Half of those guys were stacked and probably had a far higher BMI than I did. I wasn't anywhere near the shape they were in, but some of those guys were 5'10", 230 or more.
