For those who know what a regional jet operation is like, I have done that. A CRJ 200 around the traps having lots of fun and getting pretty good money for it. Lots of overnights and great crew to fly with. Now for what I do now.
Wake up after getting home at 12.30 or 0100 from the previous day. Mope around the house for a while and pick at a bit of food here and there. See the dog who is overjoyed that I am up am mobile. Give him a pat and mutter the words walk under my breath. Forgetting that his ears are supped up he bolts off down the hallway to the door scrathing the timber floors as he goes. I walk the dog getting strange looks from all those around me as I look like I have done 3 long haul trips back to back. I come home and have some breakfast and then do normal things. At 13.30 I drive to work in the west of Melbourne, park the car and walk through some slack security to go into the office. I spend the next hour in the work gym before having a shower and putting my uniform on. I have a shave and all the rest of it and walk down stairs at about 14.40 for a 1500 start. I see what exactly I am doing for the 8 hour shift. It seems that today I am on the van. That is the police van driving around the district and attending criminal matters. I then go to my locker where all my paperwork is kept and get my equipment belt out which holds all the goodies. I go to the watchouse and someone hands me out all my equpment. That is my 38 calibre revolver with 6 rounds and six spare, my asp batton (extendable) my capsicum spray and a portable radio. I also get a melways and other items that all police carry. I say hi to anyone I am working with and then decide who will drive and who will do the running sheet. That is the person not driving will keep documented evidence of everything that we do, everybody we speak to, every car we intercept and so on. This running sheet can be many pages long, depending on what you have on for the day. This written evidence is a vital part of your experiences during the day and sometimes they are called as evidence to go to court. Today I am driving. We drive out of the station and on to general patrol duties. We communicate with police operations via radio and now a computer in the car. When there is nothing specific to do we drive around and check on local crime hot spots, intercept cars for a large manner of reasons, execute warrants that we may have (arresting people and bringing them to the station to interview them for a crime that we could not arrest them for at the time). However it is not long before police communications give us jobs to do. That is members of the public have called 000 and requested police assistance. This could range from car accidents, domestics, violence of all types, drug use and dealing, murders, suicides, fires etc........... I have seen them all and although the specialist units may come to some of these things (homicide squad), often the divvy van is the first police on the scene. I see a whole number of things. One which stands out in my mind was a tripple fatality rail accident V's car. You can only imagine......Throughout the day my partner is frantically writing all the things we do and just about everything else. We do a lot of paperwork during the day and often finish a shift with a mountain of reports and other things. Everything in this job is recordable and must be kept for a certain period of time. It is now 22.45 and we start to head back to the station, but only if we are not doing any jobs at the time. The knock off time is 23.00, but this is never attainable. You may get back to the station at 23.00, but probably not. You could get called to an urgent job at 22.55 and you are obliged to go. This could leave you finishing the shift anywhere up to 8 hours later, depending on what the job was. You might need to arrest people and then interview them. There is an enourmas amopunt of things that may need to be done. The days can be exhausting, but sometimes you have a good day and may get home before 00.00.
You get into the station and remove all your equipment and hand it back in. You then will make sure all your paperwork is done and if not you do it. This can take a long time, especially if you were not able to do it during the shift as you went from job to job, always in a hurry. You hand in the running sheet and all the paperwork (reports) to the sergeant and over the course of the night he/she will check it. If it is all ok it will go to the snr sgt to sign off, if not it will come back to you to amend. Eventually you leave driving home you see no crime and no cars, but I guess you are not looking for them. You get home at 00.00 and you may start again at 0700 doing the same thing. It happens a lot...