Media personality

[badlieutenant]

hmmm I wonder if the user pays economic model will ever be dumped. How can you apply a economic efficiency rating on alot of what the police do? I can understand the idea that you should have to account for what you do in a day like I do (builder) but im producing something. The police are meant to be a social and community service. You know, maintain law and order.
I remember listening in on a conversation my brother was having with a lecturer at victoria university. He was talking about some consultation work he was doing with the government, treasury i think, anyhow he was amazed that he had to explain to them that a governments taxation system couldnt be modeled after a buisness. The consumer (voter) has no choice but to purchase your services (infact you can make him/her pay) and there's no competition, to name a few. So yes, possibly we are run by idiots.
Im curious how much time a officer spends on paper work justifing the hours he spent. How do you account for the intangible ?

[scumdog]

hmmm I wonder if the user pays economic model will ever be dumped. How can you apply a economic efficiency rating on alot of what the police do?
Im curious how much time a officer spends on paper work justifing the hours he spent. How do you account for the intangible ?

You have raised a good point, I get frustrated by the amount of 'needless' paperwork my job entails, I am sure it could be streamlined should somebody decide and I'm sure I speak for a lot of others here.
Each year we get more forms/reports to fill in - for victims, courts, for DNA, for prisoners etc., hardly ever have I been told "don't worry about filling in any more xxxxx forms, and oh, by the way we are not replacing them with any other form".
A while ago when filling in time sheets you could record that time spent filling them in, the heirachy spun out when they found out exactly how much time was used up filling in time sheets and they promptly forbid putting any time down to filling in time sheets, - but they still get done!!!!

[badlieutenant]

You have raised a good point, I get frustrated by the amount of 'needless' paperwork my job entails, I am sure it could be streamlined should somebody decide and I'm sure I speak for a lot of others here.
Each year we get more forms/reports to fill in - for victims, courts, for DNA, for prisoners etc., hardly ever have I been told "don't worry about filling in any more xxxxx forms, and oh, by the way we are not replacing them with any other form".
A while ago when filling in time sheets you could record that time spent filling them in, the heirachy spun out when they found out exactly how much time was used up filling in time sheets and they promptly forbid putting any time down to filling in time sheets, - but they still get done!!!!

in your own time ? grrrrrrrrr
When i worked in a petrol sation years ago for mobil we used to have to be able to account to the cent (i think they allowed -/+ 5c) of our till floats. Which is fair enough if we were getting paid for it. It could take ages sometimes to find that one chit or whatever it was to track down the inaccuracies and bugger me if you couldn't make it add up. But the thing that bugged me was that if you do the maths say on 1000 staff with 3 shifts a day with say half an hour on till floats. thats 1500 hours day, 10500 hours a week, 73500 hours a year. And I just made that number (1000) up, It would be more than that. Ok we were paid peanuts so that would amount to say a small bag of salted cashews.
My point been though, they use a system that srews down every dollar and hour spent by them but its ok if the staff make allowances.
Incidently mobil spent 1 MIL$ trying to fiqure out why they had something like 98% staff turn over every quarter, go fiqure :/
Three cheers for the people of fair old NZ who still wish to serve thier community. And maybe thump the odd idiot

[What?]

I can understand people being p... off when they have had a run in with a cop that is say, less than tactful and personality challenged, but as I have said to a few, if you get a bit of bad service from the Mount Grand Caltex do you bad mouth ALL service stations? and bad mouth ALL Caltex service stations? and bad mouth ALL the pump-jockeys at the Mount Grand Caltex? - most likely not, - so apply that to run-ins with others in your life eh?

An excellent analogy Scumdog.
Should also stop sometimes and think what else might have gone down. The majority of cops are actually people as well, and as such can have a temporary bad attitude caused by a recent event. It happens to all of us in any job. A number of times I have heard people bagging particular cops, yet only once have I ever agreed. Usually, it was a case of the cop had just been through a bad scene, or the dude just pulled for speeding got a bit arrogant. I have had a few speeding tickets over the years, but politeness (as opposed to grovelling) has got me a few warnings, too.

[spudchucka]

Heaps of people who complain about cops having bad attitudes bring it on themselves. They expect the cop to be an arogant ass and their attitude reflects this. When they get the expected response from the cop it simply completes the cycle. A self fulfilling prophecy?

The same is true of cops who get heaps of complaints, if they treat everyone they deal with like low life scum sucking pond dwelling filth then it is little wonder that they generate complaints.

[Marmoot]

Heaps of people who complain about cops having bad attitudes bring it on themselves. They expect the cop to be an arogant ass and their attitude reflects this. When they get the expected response from the cop it simply completes the cycle. A self fulfilling prophecy?

The same is true of cops who get heaps of complaints, if they treat everyone they deal with like low life scum sucking pond dwelling filth then it is little wonder that they generate complaints.

excellent point.....the karmic wheel cycle

[scumdog]

excellent point.....the karmic wheel cycle

When you're dealing with victims and offenders all the time it is easy to pigeon-hole everybody you meet into one or the other, keeping a happy balance (and your own sanity) calls for some juggling at times, we all slip-up and Murphys law says there will be a quadzillion witnesses and complaints when we do.

[mangell6]

Attitude is everything, I had fun with a candyman the other night. Taking my son and his mates home from Indoor netball, rear windows fogged up, '87 Corolla, went round a round-a-bout the correct way, turned left and caught sight of candy lights as I went around the corner, watched and saw that the car was following me, pulled over to let them passed and the car pulls in behind me. Huh??

The boys wondered why I had stopped until they saw the red and blue in the car. Watched as the HP man walked to the car and then I got out of the car myself. Sort of stopped him in his tracks as he was fully expecting a car with young hoons in it, not a balding distinguised gentlemen (I made this bit up).

He said that it was routine breath check, had I been drinking, name, address into the machine, asked him if he wanted to see my license as well, which he said yeah ok, all very pleasant.

It just seemed to me that he was slightly confused, most people are not 'helpful' towards them and assisting doing their duty. We both went on our way. The boys asked why did he stop, explained my view and told them that he was just doing his job.

Have experienced both types from NZ Police and the arrogant ones are real easy to pick and I find that being really pleasant and 'helpful' messes them up mentally. It can be a fun sport.

Mike

[spudchucka]

It just seemed to me that he was slightly confused, most people are not 'helpful' towards them and assisting doing their duty.

Actually most people are helpful and compliant with officer requests. It is only a few that are intentionally abrasive.

Have experienced both types from NZ Police and the arrogant ones are real easy to pick and I find that being really pleasant and 'helpful' messes them up mentally. It can be a fun sport.

That one works both ways too.