Holidays.....

I'm into the second week of two weeks holiday and as could be expected I came down with some dread disease on the first day.....I am still not well and it is obviously related to my general well-being - yes I know little brother, my job is not good for my health!!!!! I am grateful to my better half for being so understanding but it's not really fair on her.

Today we had lunch with an old work colleague of mine who saw sense some years ago and 'jumped ship' so to speak....she is now working in a federal law enforcement agency on a posting to a tropical island off the east coast of Australia....well she calls it working!!!! Well she and my better half ganged up on me over lunch and it made me think about work....seriously think about work!!!!

I am starting to look around to see what I can do that is better for and too both of us!

Let's see what there is............

Pay Offer....update!

The government has not yet accepted our rejection of their original offer.....two weeks after we made it! Talk about stretching things out. Most of the officers I know are very pissed off......and rightly so. We are being treated very badly, in fact, ignored completely by the government.

To cap it all the minister keeps telling the media and public that we are refusing to negotiate.....what a liar.....we turn up to talk and he sends some junior staff members to tell us "take it or leave it!". Even a politician can't call that negotiating.

It looks like a long struggle ahead......bugger!

Tears of joy.......

There is nothing quite so heartening as hearing the tears of joy coming from a good friend who has been down in the depths for so long.......congratulations to you and 'The Mexican'. You both deserve this news.....now go and enjoy!

The fat lady is singing your song now................!!!!!!!!

Pay Offer

We were provided with the current pay offer that our employers, the state, have determined that we deserve on late Friday afternoon. I'm not surprised that they chose that time of the working week to tell us..........it was an insult!

If that's what they think we deserve then they are about to discover how far off the mark they are!!!!!!!

Humanity......

I am not a parent and when I hear about things like this I remember one of the reasons why!

As I am somewhat on the inside through my work, so to speak, I should be careful what I say..........

I feel for both families......no one deserves this.

I am a pacifist generally but this creature should be removed from the planet..........immediately!!!!!!

Diagnosis.....

I was right....a new job was the doctor's recommendation as I guessed! Not so easy to do....maybe I can re-invent the old job......hmmmm....maybe not.

I think I will stay around for a bit longer....if only to watch "Hairplug". It's amazing to sit back and watch a grown man of 50 odd losing it completely. He's taken to wandering around the office sprouting total gibberish to all and sundry......now that's just a bit disturbing! It's a good thing he doesn't have access to the firearms...........it's just a shame he still has rank. He is also now so self-absorbed that he will very shortly disappear up his own rectal passage......mental note - make sure the video camera is handy....it would make "Funniest Home Video" for sure or maybe we could just upload it to the 'net'.

At least I still have my sense of humour.....in several shades of black!!!!

Police Malaise....

Of late I think my job has made me sick........not so much sick of my job as sick from it!

I have been crook since Saturday and couldn't go today due to a blinding headache.........I seem to drag myself in on Mondays and soldier through the week only to crash on the weekend..........what else could it be?????

Off to see the doctor tomorrow.........I wonder what the prescription for this problem is??????

A new job.......it's not like I haven't been looking!

I guess the job does really suck!

Sailing in uncharted waters....

As part of my pirate persona I often think about everyday events with a piratical spin.....

As mentioned in recent posts the good ship "Saucy PRU" has been sailing through turbulent seas in the aftermath of hurricane 'Internal Affairs'. Capt 'K' has regained command however first mate 'Hairplug' the helmsman, who stubbed his toe whilst contemplating his own reflection, has lost interest and our stout ship is now sailing uncharted waters.

Capt 'K' reprimanded the first mate yesterday but it seems to have only added to 'Hairplugs' woes....after all the two missing crew only fell over board during the storm and may drown, his toe hurts....a lot!!!!

I predict that either the crew will mutiny and hoist the first mate on the yard arm or Capt 'K' will feed him to the fishes. Both results are a plus for the crew really............

Now.........where is the ship's gallows rope?

Tired and Emotional............

I'm tired........very tired!

Work has been very hard.........not the actual work per se, more so the work environment.

I have been watching helplessly as a good friend goes through a 'hell' not of her making......and just wish I could help somehow. What makes it harder is that "Hairplug", my supervisor, is also stressed regarding his own related situation and this is making life for my friend unbearable. His problems are very minor compared to hers and he expects all the sympathy.........what an A grade, card carrying wanker! He needs to grow some bollocks! I care for her a lot as a friend and hope things start to improve because she deserves better.

I have reached a decision in my own life and it's time to start improving my lot........I need a change!

I have very little enthusiasm for my job at the moment so I need to recharge......time to do something that I will enjoy!

I'll keep you posted...........in time.

Self Interest.......

I lost my temper today.....with my boss! He was too self absorbed to even notice!

He was lecturing me condescendingly about things I knew more about than he did and when I attempted to respond he spoke over me as if I wasn't even there. He even failed to notice me loudly commenting to a bystander that I was being ignored by him..........I guess he was only standing right in front of me as I said it....it was unreasonable of me to expect him to listen.

When I calmed down...after walking away from the discussion before doing something I would have regretted......I began to ponder how many people are lacking in the skill of listening.

There are a lot more of them these days.....many don't even attempt to listen or pretend that they do. It's all about them and it seem that they are the ones who get ahead....squeaky wheel and all that!

I think I rather stay as I am than become someone like that.

The real boss comes back on Monday..........what a relief!

Happy chaps....

I saw these White-Tailed Black Cockatoo's in the pine tree across the road yesterday.

They are big, clumsy, comical and very happy....they stripped the tree of cones in about 20 minutes dropping the empty husks onto the tin roofed house below.

I'm going to take a leaf out of their book.....slow, steady and happy albeit a bit messy

Laser skirmish!

Today I played laser skirmish with my little sister, her husband and a whole gang of people.......it's like paintball without the pain of projectiles!

What a hoot!

There were seven of us adults against about 10 kids.....red team versus green team in defend your fort.

We flogged them.......age and cunning will usually beat youth and speed. Well cunning and nefarious tactics.........who shot people in the back.......wasn't me!

Now to soothe the aching muscles and bones..........the one downside of age.

What's good for the goose............

As police officers we are expected to comply with many laws, rules, regulations and policies that cover everything from our manner of dress, through to the way behave and onto the manner in which we treat our customers and our own colleagues. We all know the rules and most of us try to follow them most of the time.....of course mistakes occur from time to time but we are only human!

When we deal with the public (both good and bad) we are expected to behave well and treat them with respect, compassion and fairness.......fair enough too! Even recidevist offenders have rights!

Why is it then that when Internal Affairs dealt with two former members of my office today on disciplinary matters they were provided with no support, compassion or care on any level at all! They were treated like the numbers that we all fear we have become.

These were not criminal offenders but very inexperienced officers who had made errors of judgment in behaviour in relation to a fellow officer....no crime, no malice and no intent to do harm.....just mistakes and stupidity.

I don't excuse their behavior in any way but when did we lose our right to fairness.....and what does it tell the rest of us in respect to our value to the organisation. The way in which this whole issue has been conducted is nothing short of disgusting.

The message I'm getting is not good! No wonder we are losing more members than we can replace.

I have limited my comments to a large degree as I don't really possess the appropriate vocabulary to express my full anger without resorting to crass and unseemly language........which achieves nothing!

Sick puppy........

We had a small medical emergency on Tuesday night......with Max our 'little' puppy.

It had been a pretty grim day for both the love of my life and I at our respective jobs and the evening was not looking good either (unplanned and last-minute work that was dumped on the one I care about....unfairly I might add!). I looked out the back door to see the sad face of Max.....he was drooling profusely and shaking which meant only one thing to me....poison!

As it was about 7.30pm I only had one option and that involved loading all 65 kilos of sick puppy into my 'ute' for an urgent trip to the nearest emergency vets about 30 minutes away. What a journey!!!!!!!! I was covered in dog slobber from head to toe by the time I got there and then Max decides he doesn't like the vet.......grrrrrrrrrrr/woof, etc.

In the end it looks like he either got a bee sting in the mouth or maybe a spider bite! I should mention that we have many of the really 'world-class' poisonous spiders in this country but fortunately the venom of most will not kill your dog, just you if you're unlucky....!!!!!

He was almost better by the time I got home and is fine now..........he is quite cute even if he dislikes most people and we were very worried for a while. At least it took my mind off the crap day we both had and made us realise that it could have been much worse.

Day from hell!

Today was not good.........in fact it sucked!

We lost a court case due to witnesses deciding to change their evidence with no warning....and after making the original complaint to us in the first place!

The organisation lost another court case after a jury were intimidated out of convicting several very nasty prominent thugs! Then these very scumbags claim they are hard done by......what utter crap!

Five very senior members of our organisation were relieved of duty for now in relation to an overturned conviction......this just makes us all look bad whether they have done anything wrong or not!

My current supervisor (hair plug!) has suddenly developed a rubber desk...and guess where all his work is bouncing too!

Clearly there is no God, Buddha, Krishna, Allah or other overall single cosmic deity....and as for intelligent design.....let's not go there right now, I may blow a valve!

I may go and sit in the corner and rock for a while

Winter of my discontent........

Somebody came to work recently with a bad dose of the flu......

Now I have it!

I will have to think of a suitable payback......when I feel better

The week finally ends........

Well as I promised yesterday I shall now explain (well sort of!) what make this week so torrid at work.

We had a visit from what we in Australian law enforcement call the 'toe-cutters' or 'feather-feet'....for every one else Internal Affairs. You can take that to be a bad thing....very bad.

I can't risk explaining the precise nature of the investigation however it was aimed at a number of staff starting right near the top. The allegations centered around the treatment of an officer and whether or not it was appropriately dealt with by immediate and extended management.

I will say from the outset that I take no issue with the need to conduct an investigation into the allegations or even with the manner in which that occurred. After all if true, some of the matters are quite serious......not corrupt or illegal but matters of discipline and inappropriate behaviour.

My concerns are two-fold

1. Our senior manager has not even bothered to come to our office and let the staff know that he is concerned in relation to the investigation and offer some assurances to the staff that he will support those that are blameless or have only made genuine mistakes and,

2. The person who is the 'victim' in this is making allegations in relation to events that they were not only involved in but partially or entirely instigated.

As far as the so-called 'manager' goes all I can say is that in all my 25 years in law enforcement I have never met a more self-serving, uncaring, vacuous pool of arse gravy. He has no ethics, morals or backbone and is an embarrassment to the human race. I intend to seek placement elsewhere and when I find a location to my liking I will ensure that as I depart everyone knows he is the reason.......including him!

In relation to the victim I feel a mixture of anger and sadness. I personally know some of the allegations to be untrue, some wildly embellished and others I suspect are mostly accurate. What I can't understand is why you would risk many friendships and the loss of your credibility by not sticking with the unadulterated truth. At least that would ensure the real issues were dealt with and any real transgressors punished. All that has occurred in this case is a large number of uninvolved parties are trying to justify their actions for things that they know nothing about. It is not fair and has created a wave of paranoia throughout my workplace. I feel great sadness for someone who has felt it necessary to cause that kind of damage........especially to those people who have done nothing wrong!

The investigation is winding down now and it seems that the wheat is being sorted from the chaff.....I guess we may at least get a fair outcome. Now the damage needs to be repaired and that's going to take a long time.

I don't know if this makes me feel any better but at least I haven't been directly impacted so far although I'm not going to hold my breath yet.

Think happy thoughts and on Monday we'll have to start the re-build!!!!!!!

Tempestuous week.........

It has been a turbulent week so far and it's not over yet! I will explain the situation in a day or so when the events have concluded....suffice to say it has been extremely unpleasant watching friends and colleagues being subject of what amounts to an emotional grinder for days on end.

It has to stop soon...........

I was surprised!!!!

Let me say from the outset......our Prime Minister is not my favourite person for many reasons particularly he habit of following the lead of that moron George W,

but..................................................

this week he did something that made him seem almost human, decent even.....

We suffered our first death in Iraq, a young soldier with a wife and two small children....a very sad situation which was made unbearable when the Australian Defence Force stuffed up the return of his body monumentally.......in short it was not escorted and due to a mix up by a civilian contractor the wrong person arrived here in Australia. I might say at this point that the only people to blame here are our military.........no one else, full stop.

The wife of the dead soldier was distraught, not surprisingly and she phoned our Prime Minister at 2.00am to blow her stack! Now for the shock......He actually took the call and spoke to her at length....he even apologised! (which he is loathe to do for anything) This behaviour astounded me. I am certain that most other western leaders would have refused to speak until a 'decent' hour and there is no doubt many would have avoided any confrontation at all!

I still don't like or trust the man but at least he has some decency about him........what a surprise!

The media, on the other hand, are turning this whole matter into a circus as you would expect and the facts surrounding this soldiers death are quite suspicious anyway so it is not exactly hard to create headlines....it's a shame these so called 'journalists' are so popular amongst the masses

Read between the lines people! It's sensationalism.......not truth.

You have to laugh.....

The head of our state health department has just created some problems for the state government by choosing the amount of his first pay rise since taking on the job six months ago. It sounds strange but is true! They have employed this joker on a contract that allows him to take a pay rise regularly and choose from 7 to 24%.......I kid you not! He was very kind and only opted for the 7 % so he only gets an extra $65,000.00 added to his annual salary of $528,000.00.....I thought it had to be a joke too but it is correct! Our Prime Minister only earns about $280,000.00 so how can the health supremo be worth the amount he is paid......he's not of course!

Oh......and the government didn't bother to include performance indicators in his contract either!

Somebody voted these tools into office and by the time the next election arrives the same fools will vote them in again............I thought goldfish were supposed to have short memories!

Just to make life really interesting the same health supremo announced today that he was about to have his drivers licence suspended for multiple traffic offences.........his department is responsible for the state 'traffic safety campaign'. He will make a great poster boy won't he!!!!

I thought you only got monkeys when you paid peanuts..................................