Saturday, March 29, 2008

A job I would not want

For a long time, I thought the worst things about being a police officer would be the danger of getting shot at or otherwise attacked by some criminal. But a few weeks ago, during a bad snowstorm, I saw two police cruisers blocking entrance to a particular road. I assumed that there had been some kind of an accident further down the street, and they were keeping other people away.

Which made me think about what the job of a police officer must be like at the times when s/he is not facing possible murder. And I think it must include hours of time sitting alone in one's squad car wishing you had a novel or even a crossword puzzle just to keep you from going stir crazy. And I realized that I never would have survived had I chosen law enforcement as a career ... that much boredom AND a firearm???

I don't know how they do it. :)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My brother's late father in law was a cop. He warned my brother never to get into law enforcement for the exact reason you pointed out - long hours doing nothing. He indicated that often he had to sit around, especially for stake outs - which explains some of the, ahem, wider mid sections on some of the officers.

S.

Eclecta said...

Hi S,

And here I was hoping I was totally misreading the situation ... :)

Thanks. :)