Public Employee Press

Civil service job: “Stability, benefits and a career ladder”

By JANE LaTOUR

Five days a week, Chantel Atkins travels from her home in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant area to East Harlem’s 23rd Precinct, her first assignment as a new Police Administrative Aide. Atkins is one of the 90 PAAs hired by the Police Dept. in September. She works in the Roll Call Dept., processing reports and keeping track of personnel.

“You have to be a fast mover in Roll Call,” she says with a smile.

After she passed the civil service exam for PAA, she entered seven weeks of training at the Police Academy. “They prepared us well for our work,” she said. She also benefited from the mentoring program set up for the new class. “I was feeling frustrated during mid-terms and my mentor suggested that I get into a study group. It worked out well,” she explained. “Graduation was so nice. I got to meet Commissioner Kelly and I had my picture taken with him.”

Atkins applied for the civil service job because she needed “stability, benefits and a career ladder,” she said. She had been working at McDonald’s, serving fast food for low wages as a stopgap after the Housing Preservation and Development Dept. laid her off. Her three years there ended when HPD downsized after 9/11. “I really loved that job, and I kept looking for a career where I could apply my skills and college degree,” she explained.

After William Maxwell High School in Brownsville, she earned an associate degree at New York City Technical College. Now, she is determined to take advantage of all that her new job offers — including the possibility of moving up from PAA to Senior PAA to Principal Administrative Associate. “I’m trying to take every opportunity,” Atkins said.

In February, she picked up an application for the SPAA promotional test, which is scheduled for May. She’s hoping that a high score will help her climb another step up the career ladder.

The young woman projects a spirit of calm competence and has a powerful desire to succeed in her civil service career. She’s undaunted by the demands of her rigorous daily schedule, which gets her out of bed at 5 a.m. and returns her home after 8:30 p.m. Pregnant during the PAA training program, she gave birth to her second child in August. “I had my son on a Saturday and returned to school on Wednesday. I only missed two days — and I passed my mid-term and final.”

Since she started work as a PAA, she hasn’t missed a single day — a remarkable feat with the transportation gauntlet she has to run every day. She rides one bus and three trains as she drops baby Richard off with his grandmother, her daughter, Chantiniece, 9, at school, and then travels north to arrive at the precinct for her 9 a.m. shift. At the end of the day, she makes the trip in reverse.

Atkins’ mother raised five daughters and works as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. The family tradition of civil service is now being carried over into the next generation, as Chantel pursues her own career in the Police Dept.