True Detective Stories

When it comes to my profession, there are many instances where I go without. I do not have a clean workstation, a printer with adequate ink, or hot and cold running female cops. That’s fine; I have come to expect as much.

What I do need is an adequate computer which runs a stable, effective data entry program.

My night work tour started Friday, and two hours in the computer system crashed. The front desk system is arguably the most important station in the building, because its purpose is to log the information from every report, crime, and arrest. That information can be seen department-wide, so if we say, have a shooting, the bosses can map the data adjust patrol patterns.

There is one detective in the entire division who is trusted to work the front desk system. No one else will be trained for reasons which I do not understand. The detective works during the day, Monday through Friday, so when the computer crashed on a weekend, the entire division grinds to a halt…

True Detective Stories

So Friday, the computer system was up for about an hour and a half. Being a conscientious person and a model employee, I was able to enter thirty jobs from the previous day during that span. When I walked in yesterday, the computer was up and running smoothly. Sweet!

I started entering jobs, about thirteen in the first hour or two, and when the next report arrived, boom, it crashed. So not only could I not enter the jobs into the mainframe, but I also had to grab the earlier copies and re-enter all the jobs I put into the main system.

Look, I know I live in a garbage city and work in a sub-par department, but is it too much to ask for equipment that is reliable and up to date? I want to swipe a rant from a World of Tanks YouTuber:

I realize I will be shit on and blamed for every mistake sometimes. I also realize I will escape criticism and scorn sometimes, too. All I want is to have equipment that works once in a while. I JUST WANT TO COME IN HERE AND DO MY JOB WITHOUT THE FUCKING COMPUTER CRASHING EVERY FIVE MINUTES! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!!

An artist’s rendering of my reaction at the time can bee seen below the fold…

True Detective Stories

Yesterday was my first day back to work. I’m on the night shift for two weeks, which means I can sleep late, but it also means I will be crazy busy. The thugs really like shooting people at night.

The short version of this post is I hate my job, I hate people, and I hate computers. The post will bee formatted in bullet points, because I wish I could have fired some bullets last night.

* As I was driving into work, making great time, I spent a good twenty minutes stuck at a red light. The one-lane highway was at a standstill for construction… as 2:30pm… on a f**king weekday. I made it to work on time, but I threw out more than a few sentence enhancers.

* As I approached my desk, the day work sergeant was sitting in my chair. He was trying to fix the computer system, which crashed two days after our new computers arrived. The sergeant fixed the issue, signed me in, and two hours into my shift, the system crashed again. The crash meant I couldn’t do my job, so I had to enter them into the archaic system. I will also have to re-enter the jobs today into the new system. Because God hates me.

* By 7pm, we handled four robberies, all from the same district. Sure, the cops there can easily arrest people for drugs and shoplifting, but robberies? Nah brah, they’re too busy for that.

* An officer called and said he had a shoplifting job. Then he said he thinks it’s a robbery. A few moments later he says it’s an aggravated assault. I asked this dolt if he had a supervisor out there and he replied, “No, I figured you’d tell me what to do.” I did my best to not tell him to step in front of a train.

This job, in this city, is absolutely soul crushing.

True Detective Stories

I’m not sure how entertaining this post will be, since I was really pissed at the time, but if I didn’t write about, I’d likely end up strangling the next person I see.

Yesterday was the start of the godawful day shift. As a result, there was a stack of paperwork on my desk, because the fill-ins do the bare minimum. “Why not, since Wyatt can handle it after his days off?” In total, there were fifteen unassigned jobs waiting; many of them should have been given out immediately.

So, I spent the first two hours entering the assorted jobs and assigning them to the detectives. If nothing else, it makes the day go by a little bit faster. By 9am, I was ready to work on the active jobs funneling in, when the captain’s clerk stopped by.

“Wyatt, the computer system was down yesterday, and there are thirty-three jobs which have to be put into the system and assigned.”

This did not please me. “Um, okay. I was off yesterday, and all of these jobs are from the other squad? Is there any reason why I specifically have to enter these?”

“The captain wants them in a.s.a.p,” she replied before walking away…