Joining the BIB - Tell me i'm not making a mistake!
Discussion
I have put this here as its where I hope the BIB hang out, please can it be moved to Employment if that's more suitable?
I have had an enjoyable career in Engineering, having been paid to do a degree and progressing well through my company. I'm 37 now and I have a nagging feeling I need to do something more worthwhile with my time.
Growing up I really wanted to be a policeman for all the wrong reasons (Action & cars mainly) but now I want to help people and work in the community - I think I would make a good Police officer!
My local force are having a recruitment drive and I am really excited about applying and hopefully making a big change in my life. Up until now my only concern was the initial drop in salary but chatting to some (non police) mates they are convinced I'll hate the job. They tell me of low moral, pensions slashed, no pay rises, dealing with scum all day and to be honest I have be wavering a little about the decision to apply.
I don't know any police officers, so I am turning to some of the PH BIB (I know there are lots!)to please tell me some of the reasons you enjoy policing and some stories that will keep me enthusiastic about the prospect!
I have had an enjoyable career in Engineering, having been paid to do a degree and progressing well through my company. I'm 37 now and I have a nagging feeling I need to do something more worthwhile with my time.
Growing up I really wanted to be a policeman for all the wrong reasons (Action & cars mainly) but now I want to help people and work in the community - I think I would make a good Police officer!
My local force are having a recruitment drive and I am really excited about applying and hopefully making a big change in my life. Up until now my only concern was the initial drop in salary but chatting to some (non police) mates they are convinced I'll hate the job. They tell me of low moral, pensions slashed, no pay rises, dealing with scum all day and to be honest I have be wavering a little about the decision to apply.
I don't know any police officers, so I am turning to some of the PH BIB (I know there are lots!)to please tell me some of the reasons you enjoy policing and some stories that will keep me enthusiastic about the prospect!
Spyder5 said:
They tell me of low moral
Possibly you mean morale, possibly you don't. 
Spyder5 said:
pensions slashed
Still better than anything you will receive anywhere else in the world unless you become an MP.Spyder5 said:
dealing with scum all day
And that's just in the staffroom! Never forget there's decent people in the world.If you think you want to do it, the only way to really find out is to join. If you don't, you'll always wonder.
Edited by Rovinghawk on Thursday 16th January 13:52
Spyder5 said:
I have had an enjoyable career in Engineering, having been paid to do a degree and progressing well through my company. I'm 37 now and I have a nagging feeling I need to do something more worthwhile with my time.
Do you have a wife and kids? This career change would be effecting just you?I don't really understand the routinely anti-police posters here (I wish they'd confine it to the relevant threads), but I really think it's a good idea when good people want to join the police force. Don't let some of the fun-poking idiots above dissuade you. Good luck.
Seems a bit early for a mid-life crisis, though?
Seems a bit early for a mid-life crisis, though?
EskimoArapaho said:
I don't really understand the routinely anti-police posters here (I wish they'd confine it to the relevant threads), but I really think it's a good idea when good people want to join the police force. Don't let some of the fun-poking idiots above dissuade you. Good luck.
This.Assuming he can afford the salary drop, the OP sounds like just the kind of person the Police should be encouraging to join.
kiethton said:
Why not volunteer as a special as you apply - that way you can get a taste for the role before committing yourself fully?
Being a special gives a very skewed impression of what policing is like. It is a taster though and for some forces, like mine, it's almost a prerequisite.I've got 13 years in in a variety of roles - CID, response, firearms. I joined after six years in the forces. I do still enjoy my work, and I still look forward to going in most days. I'm not sure there's many jobs that would be true of. I don't earn a bad salary and while conditions aren't as good as they were, they're not too bad.
There are lots of negatives. Shift work is a killer, especially later in life. You will meet lots of people you don't want to live in the same world as, let alone the same town. You will change as a person. You will miss lots of important family events. Lots of other niggles.
90 per cent of your work will be dull as f
k. 5 per cent will be ok. 4 per cent will be pretty good, and one per cent will be gleaming. Up to you whether that overcomes the negatives - for me it does!As someone with over 20 years in. Don't.
The take home pay for someone starting out is a little over £1100/month. The pension is a target for the Government every six months. It's unlikely to exist in 10 years. You will have numerous restrictions put on your private life, with absolutely no industrial rights.
The shifts, cancelled rest days, cancelled leave and extended duties will destroy your family life and affect your health.
When you look at the news, you will see and read the result of a sustained anti-police agenda pursued by this Government.
Then when you get home and get on the internet, you will have to suffer reading clueless posts from anti-police trolls and the certifiably insane.
Everybody joins the Police with good intentions, intending to make a difference. You will soon find you're running from one job to the next, with no breaks, just trying to keep the wheel on.
Good luck if you go for it, but think very long and very hard. It's not what you see in the telly
The take home pay for someone starting out is a little over £1100/month. The pension is a target for the Government every six months. It's unlikely to exist in 10 years. You will have numerous restrictions put on your private life, with absolutely no industrial rights.
The shifts, cancelled rest days, cancelled leave and extended duties will destroy your family life and affect your health.
When you look at the news, you will see and read the result of a sustained anti-police agenda pursued by this Government.
Then when you get home and get on the internet, you will have to suffer reading clueless posts from anti-police trolls and the certifiably insane.
Everybody joins the Police with good intentions, intending to make a difference. You will soon find you're running from one job to the next, with no breaks, just trying to keep the wheel on.
Good luck if you go for it, but think very long and very hard. It's not what you see in the telly
When I was thinking of applying I was told that the service was nothing like it used to be and that it was going downhill fast.
I would suggest, however, that there are some doubts as to what till happen to it in the short/medium term.
Negatives first:
There never used to be any general morale problem. You would get some units being positive about what was happening and others who would complain. That, from what I can see from the outside, is not happening at the moment. A high proportion seem to think that the service is going downhill.
The 20% slashing of funding (actually more than 20%) has had a massive effect on efficiency. Jobs are getting sleeved and this is always a downer for officers, but there seems to be little option. Pay has dropped, for some officers by £thousands, and, what seems to be the main problem, conditions of service have been reduced, by considerably more than 20%, going back to before I joined, in the 70s.
Short term cancellation of days off, with no compensation, can be a major downer for family life, although my information, or at least the complaint by a serving inspector, was that in the old days if he wanted to contact an off-duty officer it was easy. Nowadays, partners are obstructive and, as there's no manpower to actually go to addresses, it has to be done by phone. Easy not to pick up as friends have the mobile number.
On top of that, and what for me is most noticeable, is the persistent attack on the police by the media. 15 years ago rags like the DM and Telegraph would be generally supportive and The Guardian critical, but with the change in government, every day brings new criticisms. Some reports are biased, some are completely made up others are distortions of some magnitude, an example of the latter being the report of unfit officers.
Fox News is hyping a 'special report' of why the public doesn't trust this police on Friday. (Or any day come to that.)
This forum is a case in point. There is a right wing bias in membership that the more subtle might have noticed yet the resentment against the police overflows on the threads, yet 15 years ago the demographic would have been supportive.
Positives:
Your age is a significant advantage as you will be confident. You also seem to have seen a bit of life. Further, you seem to be able to ignore and see through the anti-police bias. These are massive positives.
You seem to be going in with no illusions as well. Good.
The service is not as bad as it is painted. The pay is poor for the work you do. It is, to an extent, dangerous as well as being, for those on shift, unhealthy. But there are tremendous opportunities still.
A colleague was head-hunted by AmEx. He moved into an office that was well decorated and he had the latest IT - forget that by the way. His pay went up and now he has retired after some 27 years he has a better pension and came out with some sort of share options. He said he quite enjoyed it but, and this is the big but, the job was the same day after day, despite much more varied than most other jobs. He went around the world but one country, when you are working to a timetable, is, he reckons, more or less the same as any other. It was a life full of offices.
There are many different little units you can join and many do different roles, changing every couple of years or so. It's what I did. No job takes more than six months to crack, and in the next 12 you can do something to improve it. The next six months you can look for a way out.
In the years to come, when the economy turns upwards (if, I know, but let's be positive) there will probably be a change in the way the service is valued and pay, and vitally conditions, will increase. If not there will be a mass exodus and that would be even more expensive. But these things are always cyclical.
Speculation:
There will be some form of national police service and I would suggest you will have a choice whether to join it. From a police officer's point of view (although not the public I think) it could be very interesting, exciting and fulfilling. It will, however, probably mean a two tier system with 'local' police being run on a shoestring - even more than now - so give that a thought.
My thoughts:
Whilst the term 'make a difference' is hackneyed, the same could be said of most jobs, you can have a significantly positive effect on people's lives. Do something exceptional and it will stay with your for life. Unfortunately, the reverse is true, but then, nothing's perfect. I've saved people's lives: that's really cool. The feeling is so good that, rather oddly, I feel grateful to them.
I'd say go for it. The government as presently set up will not last forever, maybe not even be there when you put the silly hat on for the first time, so no one will know what the future force will be like.
Don't plan at this stage what you want to do in the job. It is different to what you think. That is a universal truth. It will be better in some ways and worse in others. I always wanted to be a dog handler but my mind was changed in the first two years.
There will be real downers, jobs that you take home. I've seen people crying in an incident room when an offender - not then charged - killed himself. But the positives are just as high.
Go one: you know you want to.
I would suggest, however, that there are some doubts as to what till happen to it in the short/medium term.
Negatives first:
There never used to be any general morale problem. You would get some units being positive about what was happening and others who would complain. That, from what I can see from the outside, is not happening at the moment. A high proportion seem to think that the service is going downhill.
The 20% slashing of funding (actually more than 20%) has had a massive effect on efficiency. Jobs are getting sleeved and this is always a downer for officers, but there seems to be little option. Pay has dropped, for some officers by £thousands, and, what seems to be the main problem, conditions of service have been reduced, by considerably more than 20%, going back to before I joined, in the 70s.
Short term cancellation of days off, with no compensation, can be a major downer for family life, although my information, or at least the complaint by a serving inspector, was that in the old days if he wanted to contact an off-duty officer it was easy. Nowadays, partners are obstructive and, as there's no manpower to actually go to addresses, it has to be done by phone. Easy not to pick up as friends have the mobile number.
On top of that, and what for me is most noticeable, is the persistent attack on the police by the media. 15 years ago rags like the DM and Telegraph would be generally supportive and The Guardian critical, but with the change in government, every day brings new criticisms. Some reports are biased, some are completely made up others are distortions of some magnitude, an example of the latter being the report of unfit officers.
Fox News is hyping a 'special report' of why the public doesn't trust this police on Friday. (Or any day come to that.)
This forum is a case in point. There is a right wing bias in membership that the more subtle might have noticed yet the resentment against the police overflows on the threads, yet 15 years ago the demographic would have been supportive.
Positives:
Your age is a significant advantage as you will be confident. You also seem to have seen a bit of life. Further, you seem to be able to ignore and see through the anti-police bias. These are massive positives.
You seem to be going in with no illusions as well. Good.
The service is not as bad as it is painted. The pay is poor for the work you do. It is, to an extent, dangerous as well as being, for those on shift, unhealthy. But there are tremendous opportunities still.
A colleague was head-hunted by AmEx. He moved into an office that was well decorated and he had the latest IT - forget that by the way. His pay went up and now he has retired after some 27 years he has a better pension and came out with some sort of share options. He said he quite enjoyed it but, and this is the big but, the job was the same day after day, despite much more varied than most other jobs. He went around the world but one country, when you are working to a timetable, is, he reckons, more or less the same as any other. It was a life full of offices.
There are many different little units you can join and many do different roles, changing every couple of years or so. It's what I did. No job takes more than six months to crack, and in the next 12 you can do something to improve it. The next six months you can look for a way out.
In the years to come, when the economy turns upwards (if, I know, but let's be positive) there will probably be a change in the way the service is valued and pay, and vitally conditions, will increase. If not there will be a mass exodus and that would be even more expensive. But these things are always cyclical.
Speculation:
There will be some form of national police service and I would suggest you will have a choice whether to join it. From a police officer's point of view (although not the public I think) it could be very interesting, exciting and fulfilling. It will, however, probably mean a two tier system with 'local' police being run on a shoestring - even more than now - so give that a thought.
My thoughts:
Whilst the term 'make a difference' is hackneyed, the same could be said of most jobs, you can have a significantly positive effect on people's lives. Do something exceptional and it will stay with your for life. Unfortunately, the reverse is true, but then, nothing's perfect. I've saved people's lives: that's really cool. The feeling is so good that, rather oddly, I feel grateful to them.
I'd say go for it. The government as presently set up will not last forever, maybe not even be there when you put the silly hat on for the first time, so no one will know what the future force will be like.
Don't plan at this stage what you want to do in the job. It is different to what you think. That is a universal truth. It will be better in some ways and worse in others. I always wanted to be a dog handler but my mind was changed in the first two years.
There will be real downers, jobs that you take home. I've seen people crying in an incident room when an offender - not then charged - killed himself. But the positives are just as high.
Go one: you know you want to.
Thanks for the replies so far, I'd hope for a bit more in the way of positive feedback but this is PH after all!
Possibly you mean morale, possibly you don't.
I did mean Morale you're right, but I guess some my think I was closer the first time.
Rovinghawk said:
Spyder5 said:
They tell me of low moral
Possibly you mean morale, possibly you don't.
I did mean Morale you're right, but I guess some my think I was closer the first time.kiethton said:
Why not volunteer as a special as you apply - that way you can get a taste for the role before committing yourself fully?
This will be a consideration if i'm not successful . I will have to change my current job first though as I work very long hours and I don't have the capacity to give up any more time. carinaman said:
If you're from an Engineering background you may find some of the tools you'll have to deal with within the police hard going.
There are tools everywhere in every industry - I work with loads!La Liga said:
Are you able to take a career break form your current job to have a contingency?
Hypothetically I could continue to work in my current field Part-Time on an ad-hoc basis. I could go back full time when ever I wanted, I doubt I would though.XCP said:
If you have a well paid job with prospects you would be mad to give it up to join the police.
Define prospects. EskimoArapaho said:
Seems a bit early for a mid-life crisis, though?
My wife tells me I have been going through it since we met - I was 20!You want to help people and work in the community ? Fine - just don't expect to make any real difference.
This depends largely on where you work but expect to deal with life's inadequates, minor, petty disputes, drunks, people with mental health issues, delinquents, parents who want to relenquish any kind of parental responsibility and expect the police to deal with things for them, etc. etc. etc.
Expect to see some real nasty stuff - stuff that most people will never experience and experience every human emotion you can think of.
Expect the job to change you. You will become cynical and possibly (probably) jaded. You will look at many things from a totally different perspective than you do now.
Expect to be assaulted, spat on and verbally abused regularly.
Expect to lose friends. Expect your family life to change dramatically for a variety of reasons.
Do not believe the police is one big, happy family - it is not.
Make sure you have your eyes wide open before you commit.
There are many plus sides - these are some of the negatives. Speak to some cops or become a special (although this will just give you a bit of insight).
Good luck whatever you decide.
ps - starting pay has been slashed, normal retirement age for you will be 60 and many of the reforms to policing are designed to stop you getting there. A new police pension will start in 2015 - it is nowhere near as generous at the old schemes. Ill health pensions and injury awards are also in the firing line. Don't expect the job to support you if you become ill or get injured (even on duty).
This depends largely on where you work but expect to deal with life's inadequates, minor, petty disputes, drunks, people with mental health issues, delinquents, parents who want to relenquish any kind of parental responsibility and expect the police to deal with things for them, etc. etc. etc.
Expect to see some real nasty stuff - stuff that most people will never experience and experience every human emotion you can think of.
Expect the job to change you. You will become cynical and possibly (probably) jaded. You will look at many things from a totally different perspective than you do now.
Expect to be assaulted, spat on and verbally abused regularly.
Expect to lose friends. Expect your family life to change dramatically for a variety of reasons.
Do not believe the police is one big, happy family - it is not.
Make sure you have your eyes wide open before you commit.
There are many plus sides - these are some of the negatives. Speak to some cops or become a special (although this will just give you a bit of insight).
Good luck whatever you decide.
ps - starting pay has been slashed, normal retirement age for you will be 60 and many of the reforms to policing are designed to stop you getting there. A new police pension will start in 2015 - it is nowhere near as generous at the old schemes. Ill health pensions and injury awards are also in the firing line. Don't expect the job to support you if you become ill or get injured (even on duty).
Edited by Red 4 on Thursday 16th January 17:03
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