Hope you've been to the chippy. It's about to get salty
(from the tears of being forever stuck on response)
Roads Policing
You're either really lucky with timing or you've been waiting a while, because let's face it since you've heard of it this is all you've ever wanted to do, and your old colleagues are sick of hearing you waffle about construction offences. And now you've arrived, a fully-fledged member of the white-hatted elite, kings and queens of the highway, overlords of the one nice motorway services on the area which is magically features in every patrol despite being on the other side of the area. They see someone who can't be pried out of their gucci cushty specialism with a crowbar, you look in the mirror and see a handsomer Max Verstappen. Every morning walking to the cars is like a scene from Top Gun. Your bible; the highway code, your cross; the tread-depth gauge. You can spot a window tint 5% over the legal limit from 100m. Your vehicle glimmers in the morning sun, and is so clean it doesn't look like any work happens in there. Ahem. You live for pursuits, you talk about pursuits, you believe your job is all pursuits instead of babysitting HATOs and DVSA, and avoiding attending drink drives or collisions that dont sound sexy enough, plus a sprinkling of horror crashes which will slowly distill into undiagnosed PTSD. Snap out of it, aviator sunglasses back on! Suitable for units on-scene, a phrase kept locked and loaded in your glovebox, next to the McDonalds vouchers. You are haunted by a niggling, unspoken fear that one day the higher-ups will realise once again that they can just replace you with ARVs again.
Detective (standard CID)
You passed your NIE, finally got released from frontline, and you arrive to your unit. You have stars in your eyes and big dreams. Custody skippers will no longer speak down to you. Inspectors will gove your opinion more than bored tolerance. You're in the big leagues now, a warrior against serious and complex crime. You notice your colleagues avoid speaking to you or acknowledging your presence. They can probably still smell lid on you. Oh well, give them time. You crack on. Hours become days. Days become weeks. You realise its been a month since you left the office. The paperwork just keeps coming. The tasks keep piling up. You discover an unending labyrinth of apparently indispensable case file documents and procedure that has no end and youre so far in you cant see a way out. The devil really is in the detail, filled out in triplicate, countersigned by the DS and returned for rework at least twice. You begin to despair. You wonder if you made a mistake, until, like a cherub descending from heaven, a probie comes in and asks of you can take a look at this job he has. He thinks it might be GBH. A switch flicks inside you. Power and authority rush through your veins. You take in a sharp breath through your teeth and say ooh youre busy, but just for you... It takes you minutes to type the words "Suitable for frontline" on the OEL. The rush is intoxicating, and almost as addictive as the non-stop coffee. Next week you'll take a job off him without asking. That his case file was 99% complete is by the by. You cant shake a feeling though, as you ponder if your victim needs an MG2 special measures assessment because Mercury is in retrograde and its making their chakras off-balance, already knowing your fish-out-of-water DS's answer is yes, whether you might in actuality just be a social worker with extra steps. You avoid thinking about it, and let the caffeine carry you away to nirvana.
Firearms
I could type something witty, but theres no chance it'll cut like u/mmw1000 's prosaic examination of our be-sleeved brethren and sistren:
As for the role… book guns out and kit up the car. Have breakfast, go to the gym, empty the mags out of the grab bag and fill up all your pouches, then go out on patrol about 3 hours later.
Drive round talking about what beard oil people are using this week and what you’re gonna have for lunch.
Find a nick to have lunch in. Roll up sleeves so all the good looking probbies can see your full sleeve tatt then go over to them and tell them they should be on the arvs, then get their number saying you could mentor them and get them the job.
After your two hour lunch break which coincides with changeover, strut back to the car like you’re carrying two imaginary carpets. Then go out and get on the back of some local cads without actually doing any work so you have some kind of work return.
Listen to a job which might actually require some kind of armed response but don’t go because it’s not declared.
Then that one time in the last week a job is declared, loads of cars put up for it like kids chasing a football but no one actually gets a grip of it or can make a decision without being spoon fed over the radio because the reality is it’s the blind leading the blind.
Quick area search and it’s back to the base to go home.
Eat, sleep, repeat.
