Blast From the Past

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

The Bitter End

A recent thread on PoliceSpecials.com got me thinking. Why do we do what we do? Obviously not the pay.
Give up hundreds of hours to do this "wild exciting" role. But what does it entail?

Losing your humanity as you simply become a resource. You are no longer allowed to express emotions, eat in public, drink in public, not allowed to laugh and have a joke.
You get treated like shit by the public who seem to blame you for the lack of delay/police policies/that the offender cant be identified with zero evidence
That as we do it for free we are more than willing to spend 8 hours watching some drunk in a cell which another officer has brought in and gone home
There are numerous other things which im sure you all know of!

It gets to the stage where I think to myself "why do I bother doing this?"

I have been to numerous incidents where all I have had is grief for "how long it took me" to get there and how crap I am. Yes sir, it did take me ages, even though I had the call 5 minutes ago. Quite tempted to say "yes I do apologise, but had I not decided to come in this evening then you will still be waiting so shut up and be glad that im here dealing with you"

On another note I revamped how my blog looks as it looked a bit depressing!

6 comments:

DogsBody said...

You had me worried there mate - for a minute I thought you were jacking it in!

Your supervisor sounds a bit of a twat - if other specials have gone out with the proactive unit or response teams - why are they blocking you? Can you not go to the proactive team skipper and put a request in direct to them?

Joe90 said...

'Is it because there are "senior specials" out with their own agenda? On a power trip?'

Yes, most certainly.

Gargoyle said...

It sounds to me as though your supervisors are worried about their own ass being kicked if something happens to you. In our Police Force, er, service, er, whatever it's called now, the theme "Cover Your Ass" is prevalent and occupies the higher ranks work more than 90% of the time.
We don't have a Special Constable role, but Probationers are pretty much treated the same way by most Sergeants. When you get out of the Academy you stay on Probation for 18 months, and have to pass a string of exams to become a "REAL" Constable.
PS. Don't worry about having the occasional rant. You have one of the hardest jobs on Earth. Only a select few will voluntarily put themselves in the "cage" with the most dangerous animal on this planet, Human Beings!

Anonymous said...

"Is it because there are "senior specials" out with their own agenda? On a power trip?"

Yep. I have much 1st hand experience of this. You question why we do our job as a normal SC for free, but why else would a person voulenteer for a supervisory role in the specials? They don't get paid for the admin or hassle... It sickens me to admit that the only way you can get out what you want from the specials is to be selfish. Do the duties you want to, when you want to and just do enough to keep the uniform wearers happy... and they are just that. Most of the supervisors I know haven't been out on duty for a while let alone made an arrest...

Anonymous said...

After visiting your site I feel depressed. I wanted to join the specials but I now realise that there is absolutely nothing special about your force. Rather, it sounds like a big fat ego is a main asset if joining.
Good luck....... you sound like you need it. The comments about the german biker were juvenile and typical of one defending his own, like a child, which may be admirable, but read as pathetic on your site x

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