Damned Surveys
Four out of ten women police officers have considered leaving the force.
Even for today's media, this story is fairly pitiful. How relevant can it be to say that "x" percent of women are disillusioned with their job and "y" percent are planning to quit, without asking an equivalent cross-section of men the same questions?
I can't remember a year when I haven't considered jacking it all in. But I can't remember a week when I haven't dealt with a job that's changed my mind. Reassuring a child who witnessed a domestic. Driving a van with blue lights on, in a convoy of fire trucks, through the snow to a hazmat* incident. Locking up a burglar for Christmas. Finding a kilo of cocaine in a s.18*. Telling a knife-point robber his license had been revoked*. Tearing a town apart in a search for a beloved mother, whose headscarf was found by the river. Being there for the family when we found her.
Disillusionment and weariness are not exclusive to the female gender. Nor are resoluteness and commitment the property of the male. Don't write off this century just yet.
Instead, let's have a survey on how many police officers, male and female, had a quiet smirk to themselves when the story broke about G4S.
* If you want to know what the jargon means, join the police.
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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.
posted by PC Bloggs at 08:46
9 Comments:
spot on as usual :)
19 July, 2012 09:56
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
19 July, 2012 10:15
Good to hear from you Ellie. Concerned you are getting disillusioned with your writing.
Morale in the police is so low around 50% of officers (male and female) will be looking around for other job opportunities.
Unfortunately, the little highs that make the job worthwhile are becoming fewer and fewer while the bureaucracy and frustration with the liberal infested, useless justice system just becomes worse. Add to that the attacks on pay and conditions and it is hardly surprising that officers are completely demoralised.
Ignore the twat Broxted/Cahill. No one reads the garbage on his blog and so he infests others with his moronic, poisonous tripe.
19 July, 2012 11:20
HazMat incident? You clearly can't be based around where I am.
In the building-of-a-thousand-fire-hazards, laser hazards, toxic fumes and dodgy wiring (that's just the canteen, the rest of the building is worse), we're next door to the building-of-a-thousand-biohazards.
Trumpton don't normally wait for an escort, they turn up on blues four minutes after the alarm goes off.
Unfortunately our alarm is just as likely to be builders disturbing the years of dust accumulated on the electrical trunking, or someone who likes their toast extra well done.
19 July, 2012 13:05
I worked with female officers who I would gladly have covering my back without question. I worked with officers who were as `stick happy` as a recently acquitted police officer in the Tomlinson case. The organisation, from my observations, failed to recognise the former and always shied away from dealing with the latter.
19 July, 2012 15:12
I'd love to join the police, but as a disabled 57 year old I doubt that my local force would be interested in my capabilities as a response officer.
So if you are only speaking to those "in the Know" Am I to assume that non police are not welcome to read your blog? Similarly, should I not have bought your book (and can I have a refund if this is the case?)
Up to this moment I have quietly agreed with almost everything written by you and your struggles as a working officer, but I find it sad that you now want to hide behind in house lingo. Why not share it for the non Police folks?
Steve
19 July, 2012 17:32
Oh yeah, and I too can work out what Hazmat means, but not the others...
19 July, 2012 17:33
S.18 - post-arrest search of vehicles and/or premises that usually only comes about once you've persuaded a Guv'nor that the chance of finding something is as good as finding morning after night.
licence revoked - not TV, nor 007-stylee ticket to slot the public. To do with the Home Office deciding, in a huff, that a kiddy fiddler's visit to the pub was the final straw and they must now go back and do a fraction more of the real sentence they should've got in the first instance.
Hazmat - the ex-green, wiry cloth used for 'cleaning' Response mugs
.
19 July, 2012 22:49
Rufus - it wasn't an escort, I came out of a junction and found them all around me.
steveg - the footnote was meant to be a literary ruse. No offence intended...
20 July, 2012 09:17
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