soul searching time but i think i know the answer, i am just so unhappy and stressed.
there are absolutely no incentives to continue in the job - not one. i keep thinking i got in, i was lucky, i should stick it out, but im unhappy. Really i used to be quite happy go lucky, now im just miserable all the time.
the pay and conditions do not reflect the levels of risk and stress.
the stress is unbearable. (im not getting chance to do my day to day enquiries for my own crime list - so im just picking up more and more work and not managing to sort any of it)
even when i am doing my best and getting good results, im getting complaints from people who, despite the fact i update weekly, dont think things are going their way fast enough....im waiting for results from other departments like forensics....but its all just not good enough for some people.
im currently ill and awaiting some tests, but the people i work along side are just snippy and snide about it, im currently on ABs again for a chest infection and felt i had to use my Annual leave rather than sick leave and still, i know that something will be said when i go back....
i feel used, and abused.
there are not enough of us anymore - the workload is unrealistic and the risks are much more now as there is frequently no back up to jobs where violence has been used, knives being used, etc
from next year, even xmas day will not be worked for enhanced pay - im sure no one in the private sector works for the same rate of pay as normal on xmas day?even pubs charge more at xmas....
the pension is going up again, (i currently pay £200 per month to it) but wont be able to be claimed until im on my zimmer frame....i cant see how i could still be doing this job at 60, which is when the pension will pay out, and then because i joined very late in life it wont be worth anything to me anymore, particularly as the changes come in.
my pay - i lose £250 on petrol each month - it means that if i were to find a full time job up the road that paid minimum wage, i could more or less come out with the same
so weighing it all up, unless something drastically alters, i think i need to find something else.
but what? (dont say security!!).....i used to office based stuff, reception work, admin and spent 10 years as an optical assistant.....i dont want to go back to that though -
what could i do? i have a NVQ level 3 - in policing and sod all else....it makes me sad to think i put so much work in and im feeling very little satisfaction for any of it 
ive spent the day searching the job centre site and there is nothing permanent, i would look at internal vacancies within the job but everything is based even further away from where i live.
not sure what to do if i go.
im feeling a bit maudlin as im coughing up a lung....but the over riding feeling i get now it that i want to leave, and that scares me.
no idea what next.