Another Constable

It’s one of the facts of life working in the police that before too long people move on. Firstly, working as I do on a response section is never seen as a long term role (the days of Bobbies working thier 30 years in the same role are all but over). The shifts on a response section are a killer. Plus the work we do is mostly unrewarded, and seen as the shitty end of the stick. In the police career pecking order, response is pretty much down on the bottom rung. It is hardly surprising therefore that people want to move on to somewhere more exciting or interesting (I’ll probably want to do a stint in firearms for example, a couple of years down the line).

This week sees the departure of my Sergeant. Loved and hated in equal measure (probably for his uncanny nack of fronting up to bosses and standing his ground - usually accompanied with the words “no, you fuck off”). He certainly won’t let our section be railroaded, and puts our welfare above all other issues (something that the Inspector would do well to learn from). As you know, I’ve had plenty of my own welfare issues recently, and I couldn’t have hoped for a more understanding supervisor. As others have learned though, cross him and you’ll regret it… the vindictive side comes out and he won’t stop until you’ve paid the price for your mistake.

He has effectively been grooming me for the last 12 months since I passed the Sergeant’s exam (not sexually!) to effectively step into the vacuum his portly torso will leave behind (he’ll kill me for that one…) and I hope that just a bit of his extensive experience and knowledge has rubbed off on me. I also hope that some of the random bizarreness he brought to the job has also rubbed off - the best way to deal with all the crap we have to do is to have a jolly good laugh about it all, and how we did laugh.

I think the top advice he has given me is “Look after the workers” and I aim to do that very thing. Luckily we have the best sections of the lot (undisputed) as far as hard workers goes. Everyone gets along too and we’re all good friends with each other, which is a sharp contrast to some sections (one I know of had 2 different Christmas nights out for a 12 person section - 6 on one, 6 on another as they hate each other so much). He also liked to be a mischievous imp, deliberately rubbing other bosses up the wrong way, and teaching me the benefits of patronage and self-engrandisement… it’ll be my turn to move on soon enough, and it’s helps to know people in this game. Show them how useful you can be and they want to keep you, and put you in positions where you can shine.

Good luck Sarge, maybe I’ll work for you again one day. Or more bizarrely, maybe you’ll work for me!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 11:52 am and is filed under Police Matters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.