28M - Ex-police (resigned) and bankrupt - career advice?

owlet

Good luck OP, the OU is a great way to study & work at the same time. The tutors are supportive too.

The only advice I will give is to work your socks off in the first two months & try to get one month ahead of your study calendar (which they will give you). It allows for things that crop up in life like illness, family events, or even an assignment that proves tricky & needs extra time.

I'm half way through an OU degree & doing this has been a life saver on several occasions.

You have a good work ethic & I'm sure you will do it. We all make mistakes in life & personally, I would ignore missbiggles1 & her patronising comments. You go for it!

youngbuck2

LMH67 wrote: »

As someone who joined the police in 1987 as a naïve 19 1/2 year old and had to retire 7 years later following an injury on duty, I'm sorry to say all I see is a large degree of negativity about how you perceived your service which is a real shame. The job is a vocation or should be - it is not something to go into just to get a good salary or benefits. When I joined as I was under 21, my starting salary was under £8K and didn't rise until I hit 21. I most definitely didn't join for the pennies.

As an officer you join understanding that yes, it is your life. If you see something going on around you, you have a DUTY to act - that's what your warrant card means.

The job I did was hard but I didn't do it for praise, thanks or rewards - I dealt with everything you could imagine (and worse) and just, well, got on with it - that was my job. The politics were just as bad back then, so nothing has changed really, just technology has moved on a pace. As a female officer (yep, I'm a girlie), when I first joined, we weren't even allowed to wear trousers and I remember coming back to the station one night with my knees in shreds after having to rugby tackle a burglar whilst running over gravel. It certainly gave my colleagues plenty of ammunition for jokes regarding ripped tights!

I can only imagine what you might have said to cause the disciplinary but you are right, the police do expect the absolutely highest level of behaviour - and quite rightly so. I don't understand your apparent surprise at this. I do feel though that you might have jumped too early - just imagine, you might have just got that warning but who knows now.

I could go on and on but I won't. I would suggest you stop beating yourself up over everything, draw that line and move on. You have a plan and until you put yourself out there in front of employers, you won't find out how they will react. I'm sure after what you've dealt with, you can find enough within you to survive a difficult interview or two until you learn what and how you need to say/not say.

Good luck with your future, you've got a great amount of experience to draw upon as long as you can learn to channel it in the right direction.

Thank you for the good wishes. I loved being a police officer - it was all I wanted to do since I was little. I can only imagine what it must have been like in the job back when you did it, I've heard all sorts of stories about what people got up to and the culture of the job itself. It's one of those jobs that come under the "dream" category when you are younger like astronaut, cowboy, doctor, actor - but more achievable than most of those

In the main, it also turned out to be the job I imagined it for at least 4 of those years. A lot of jobs that you perceive to be brilliant and rewarding aren't always what they seem, but until recently it was everything I expected and more. I got to catch bad guys, drive fast with blue lights and sirens on, help people on various levels and make their day: generally "doing the right thing".

I started to become cynical a few years ago around the time of the Winsor reports. Pension scheme completely changed, a pay freeze for years etc we didn't agree with it, but what made it different for me was that compared to any other job, we couldn't do anything about it - by law we cannot take industrial action. Change of shift patterns and constant morale destruction on an annual basis. Constant criticism of best intentions, red tape and a increasingly stringent culture of criticism.

Despite my gross misconduct, I also completely agree that police officers should have the highest standards. Morally police officers have to be that line in the sand and any deviation should rightly be looked at closely. But there were times years ago when sometimes, a breach of policy (note: not a breach of the law) with the best intentions was the best way to achieve a result for the greater good, and as long as you could justify it, that was that. Now, it is straight over hot coals with the worst outcome a very realistic one.

Having just left the police, most of my colleagues were cynical. It used to really annoy me when a new probationer (e.g. a new copper) would turn up to work and after a few weeks was displaying the same attitudes that I did after a few years. I heard a PC with 18 months experience say "the job's not what it used to be" :huh:

I'm rabbiting on a bit.

I will always look back at 90% of my career with great memories and experiences. The "banter" was second to none. I remember when I first started, as part of my initiation into getting in with the team, not being able to find my locker and then finding a trail of clues and photographs as to where it was. After about 20 minutes I realised that my colleagues had put my locker in the back of a police van at 4am, driven it to Regents' Park and left it in the middle of the park :rotfl::rotfl:

Like I said before, in the main, it is totally the job I joined to do and what you think it is. I will always be able to look back and say to my future kids/grandkids that their dad/grandad was a copper and have lots of good stories to tell.

Just for me and a lot of my ex-colleagues it is a job that is made harder to do year on year by "those at the top". I spent the last few years looking over my shoulder at watching every thing I said or did and unfortunately for me, I seem to have crossed a line in their eyes. Perhaps in a few years I will look back and realise that what happened with my gross misconduct and my punishment for it was justified, but right now I'm still in that bitter phase of resentment and still genuinely think gross misconduct was too severe a charge.

But that's all behind me now. I look forward and am very excited about starting a new career and getting my head down again between books. I was always a bit envious of those who were capable of doing well academically and making moves in whatever industry they entered. Perhaps I will get my chance to do that in a few years with a degree behind me, but regardless of that, degree or not, I know I am going to have to work bloody hard to make up for lost time and make every move carefully and wisely.

Thanks to everyone that has posted in this thread, a lot of things have brought my expectations back down to earth (I look back on that first post of mine expecting to find a £40k salary within a few years and cringe, I really didn't have a clue did I?). Thank you to all of you that were constructive and helpful, and to those that weren't, well, it only adds to my desire to make something of myself again.

:beer:

FBaby

We are currently evolving in a era where experience seem to be valued much higher than any other skills. My gut feeling though is that this is about to change and we will revert to valuing personal traits over experience.

You come across as someone who is hard working, ambitious, and clearly capable of listening and learning from others. Personally, whatever happened in your past, I would pick someone like you over anyone with experience but can't be bothered attitude. People like you learn skills quickly.

It will be hard, but keep your positive can do attitude because there will be people around who think like I do. You just need to find these people. Don't expect too muc too quickly though. You're going to have to take small steps at a time, but you'll be getting there with determination. Good luck.