What to do next

[Struggllepiggle]

I feel a bit stuck and I don’t know what to do.

I’m a police detective and I’ve spent the last period of my career dealing with crimes against the country’s most vulnerable people. I really love it.

I relocated 200 miles away and arranged a transfer. I’m due to start in September but I have just received my shift pattern and it’s awful. Beyond awful. It’s 7 days in a row followed by 3 days off and working 2 out of 3 weekends.

It’s pretty much a no go for me. I love the job but I still work to live and this shift pattern would mean I barely see my partner and it would take over my life. In my previous force in a similar role, I worked almost office hours. This pattern would be a long term thing as all the departments in the direction I’m interested in work on this pattern. I have more chance of winning the lottery than being able to negotiate a workable shift pattern (very limited flexibility in police). It’s worth mentioning I do have a history of depression/anxiety and whilst it doesn’t affect my ability to do the role, I do struggle when my work/life balance is bad.

So the question is; what do I do next?

There are a number of other investigator type roles out there but the majority are lower paid than I’m currently on and don’t seem to have much in the way of progression (at least in the police the pay scales mean I end up on a decent salary)

I do have transferrable skills;

• excellent knowledge of legislation/criminal processes
• Report writing, analysing, picking out important details
• Excellent communication skills
• Multi-agency working

What else can I look for beyond investigator roles? I’m not corporate, I don’t really understand corporate ‘language’.

I want to do something that matters.
I would also like a role with a degree of flexibility and WFH really.

I’m at a loss and gutted at the prospective of losing my career which I worked really hard for and really wanted. I need to be earning 30k+ really, I would struggle taking a pay it further than that. Eventually I would like to be at 40k+.

I did find a couple of things that I found very interesting but failed the written assessments.

The only other things that I feel a bit of a pull towards is social work but I don’t have a degree and I can’t afford to go to uni. Also for something completely different; I’m quite interested in things like building surveying/planning permission that sort of thing. But I have no idea how to start.

Any ideas welcome, I feel very lost. Sorry for the long post, I wanted to be as detailed as possible.

Ignore - just realised it was an old post!

@Lou882001 well they actually posted me to a different department to where recruitment said I would be which is 8-4, mon-fri.

Then when I actually started, they’d arranged a local swap to my preferred department (I’d say on the phone that’s where I’d rather be) which is shifts but not as bad a pattern as the original one. So basically recruitment got it wrong.

I have another 3 weeks to decide whether to stay on preferred department in terms of work or go back to the Mon-Fri department. Unfortunately I think the Mon-Fri one would be a bit of a dead hole in terms of career progression so I think I need to suck up the shifts for a bit. There’s good scope for a sideways move into a similar role within the department which is office hours in the next couple of years once I’ve upskilled.

I also passed an interview for another investigator type role which is fully WFH and a bit of a happy medium in terms of job interest. (I had the interview a couple of weeks before my start date) I wasn’t offered the job as someone scored higher but they kept me on a waiting list for 12 months. They’re already come back to me to offer a 12 month fixed term contract, which I’ve rejected as I can’t go from a very secure, permanent job to a fixed term but remain on the list for a permanent role so I have a bit of time to suss out my options.

I do still have concerns in terms of progression with that role - the thing with the police is there is always scope to do something else in the future whereas a bit limited outside the police in terms of suitable roles which match the salary! Like the housing association type job a PP mentioned, I’ve seen and considered that type of role but the salary is usually quite a bit lower.

Feel free to PM me if you want a bit more of a chat - I’ve been a bit deliberately vague on what department I work in which may make this post confusing!