Different Worlds

I roll up for briefing and take my chair, cuppa in hand and listen to whats going on in the world tonight.

In the CTCC we still have dog handlers who still work nights.

The shed and garage breaks on the Britannia Estate, the pub breaks that have moved just out of town to the small villages, the vehicle crime on the main ‘A’ routes across the Division, the domestics flagged for urgent attendance if the call comes in. These are just some of the things that are to be considered. District have 2 for handovers and three out dealing with response jobs. We know who has been released, who has been seen out in breach of curfew and several sightings from the last couple of nights that we know about on Division but the larger and more respected intel have not put into their system, therefore it does not exist.

We move on from the interesting stuff and get a taste of the messages from on high about how we are failing with our targets for completing crime investigations and other empire originated enquiries. What are they talking about ? This is their problem and I have enough of my own to deal with in this never ending world of justifying your existence to those who count things. The usual messages about their workload begin to appear, with all of them having overdue crimes, late submissions of stuff for follow up investigation. How they manage to get any of this done beats me, with the high demand of response jobs from shift to shift they are not blessed with much time to keep the workload above water. This does not include the stuff allocated by people with their own deadlines and a nifty way in shifting responsibility by way of email and the wondrous new computer recording methods that seem to be a gift for managing from behind a desk at the touch of a keyboard.

I have already checked my messages before the briefing and found out what the management team expect from me in the the time they think I swan about totally without purpose. I have various tasks where I am expected to put in the time in what they perceive to be my downtime. If only. And that is before I begin with the statistical recording I am expected to do to help them justify their existence in their carefully manicured and conditioned existence.

This wonder that is NIM gives me the current, accurate and latest information on where I am expected to patrol. So current accurate and the latest, in fact, that it is already weeks out of date. After 20 years I am capable of delegating my own time to where I see fit and my information is based on tried and tested sources. Local intel and crime stats, plus the latest word from the briefing file.

There is no need to rely on the larger intelligence machinery that has seen a growing trend in increased and duplicated accountability and micro-managing the lack of trust in those who patrol the streets when the crunchers and auditors are safe in their beds, their cosy little empires resting undisturbed till daylight beams forth on their efforts to tell people what they should be doing in respect of the latest target or emerging trend.

I stick with the latest trusted word from the nights skipper and will be floating around the area of choosing.

Tonight will be a good night. The Boss, Skipper and their group are pleased to see me and that is always a good start.

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