What a waste
I bumped into an old mate this week. I’d nipped out of the control room to grab a bite to eat & he was up getting his radio repaired.
I’ve known him since he joined the job about 5 years ago, worked with him for a while. He rapidly grew into one of those officers you really wanted on the team & felt comfortable working with. His keenness wasn’t diminished as he went though his probation as so often happens.
Once people get their area car course it’s uncanny how many, who were once keen as mustard, fall into a group who want to pick & chose what they go to & whinge about jobs they don’t like doing.
Not Rob, he remained keen. His driving courses just brought up more opportunity to go out there, nick bad people & help those who needed it.
A couple of months ago his hard work & keenness was rewarded & he was asked if he wanted to do a bit of acting. I’m not sure if he’s passed the sergeants exam or not, to be honest, I knew he was studying for it. Anyway, he’s now an acting sergeant on a team of 6 or 8 officers. I spoke to him right at the start & he seemed really pleased. Although he was a bit concerned about not being so ‘hands on’ as a supervisor but he had decided to get out there with the troops as often as he could.
He’s a completely changed man. If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed it. He is completely demoralised. He has no interest in doing police work & seems to live for the time when he can go off duty & onto rest days.
The reason is simple. He no longer feels he is a policeman. His time is taken up with reviewing every-one’s performance, checking stats charts & answering hundreds of emails from the office-wallahs. He said, & no kidding, he can sort through 20 or 30 emails during the first part of the shift, go for a piss & 10 more are sitting in his in-box by the time he gets back.
Any encouragement from the inspector or chief inspector is limited to encouraging him to chase up the officers on the team to get their sanctioned detection targets. He rarely gets out of the building, much less to a job. He is getting pressure from on high to send his officers to simple arrest warrant enquiries than to deal with people who have been beaten up or burgled.
I was quite shocked, to be honest, it’s not that I didn’t know any of this, it;s been going this way for a long time now, it’s that I didn’t realise what a thoroughly negative impact it could have on someone, who up until now, was one of the best officers I’ve worked with.
He wants to come off the acting sergeant programme & go to another shift, somewhere he can get back to doing what he likes best, helping people & locking up the baddies. I have a feeling they won’t let him, for some time & another wasted soul will end up number-crunching in some office in the bowels of the local nick.
Stuart says:
What the hell…where was your update for the 7th?
World destroyed.
So can he not threaten to resign if they don’t let him off the program? Or would they call his bluff and then he WOULDN’T be a policeman, instead of just feeling like it.
October 8th, 2008 at 2:26 am
200 says:
Eeek,
I just realised that this item was posted at 00.01hrs according to the server time, but as I started writing it at 23.40hrs I’m going to use author’s privilege to adjust the post-time by 61 seconds….a mere ‘technical’ glitch, I’m sure you’ll allow me…….
October 8th, 2008 at 2:46 am
XTP says:
I think that there’s a lot of encouragement nowadays for guys to “take the exam” as if that’s the only way forward. When I joined you couldn’t take the exam till you had 5 years in! Also most people were interested in specialising. That doesn’t seem to be the case now. Any idea why?
October 8th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Tony F says:
Wow, now there’s an advert for promotion. In the services, you had to do a certain amount of time before you could be considered for promotion. Plus you had to score a certain number of points each year from your annual assassination. Another plus is not to drop a bollock, or piss of your first reporting officer just before he writes up your report. Twat.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Sweeney says:
The reason some officers pick and choose jobs is because we on the shifts are told to achieve at least a 20% detection rate.
When you have been doing the job a while you get to know which job is likely to get a detection or not. Those that wont be detected are avoided like the plague, those that will are cherry picked.
Another example of how the target culture effects policing.
Bloody bean counters are ruining the job!
October 8th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
200 says:
Sweeney,
that’s strange because quite a number of officers have an aversion to going to domestics where there can’t be much easier a detection.
There may be some substance to what you say but the reason some officers pick & choose is because they’re either demoralised or lazy. I say this as someone who has spent well over 25 years on section.
Having said that, there are some great examples of hard working officers & I mntion those in my blogging also.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:14 pm