a few question for anyone who is/ has a partner in the POLICE FORCE

[noonar]

dh is considering a career change as he's self employed and is being hit hard by the current financial climate.

at the age of 18 he applied to join the police force and didnt get in. 18 years later, he wants to try again to fulfill this ambition and map out a new career for himself.

i am very keen for him to do a job that i know he would love and be really, really good at.

however, i do have a few reservations. in a nutshell, i am very concerned about how shift work would impact on family life.

also, i am a p/t teacher with 2 young school age children. i am just getting to the point in my career/ life as a mum when i would like to think about increasing my hours. having dh doing shift work would rule this out, i think. (does that sound selfish??)

leisure time/ holidays are another issue. i wonder if he could guarantee being allowed time off during the holidays...

what are shift patterns like?

what would it be like being a mature 'probationer'?

sorry... rambling. sorry, so many questions i could ask...

any advice/ info greatly appreciated

wow! i can't thank you all enough for for detailed and supportive replies. thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!

re garding my own employer...i work in a state school and if push comes to shove, can leave at 4pm, as a one off. i also have 2 sets of willing local grandparents who can take the girls to school, and already do once a week. so, i have plenty of support day to day.

its the lonely weekends that worry me. and the holidays. it may be a bun fight for popular times, but as a teach i have zero choice! would that be taken into account, dyou think? or could we simply be told 'sorry, no summer hols this year, someone else is going away then'??

we've just bought a lovely camper van and have so enyoyed spontaneous weekends in it. that'd all have to go...

and what about finances? my f/t salary is just over 30k. what would dh start on? 20k ish, i'd imagine.

i'd so love to support him through this, but the sacrifices would be many, tbh.

but..i know he'd be fantastic. his sister is a SOCO, his dad worked for the police as a camera man. its in his genes! he's great with people and his CV would be fantastic...

they are recruiting in january...

I think DH started on £22k it was either that or £24k can't quite recall, he gets a pay rise each year that he's in the force, remember you get O/T on top of basic pay too.

With holidays it's pretty much a first come first served at 'peak' times.

However with important dates they will always do their best to accomodate them where possible. Such as when we had the DC's Christenings he was able to book them off no question.

When I had my scans & MW appts if DH couldn't book the day off he would take however long out he needed then make the time up at the end of his shift.

thanks mrs magaoo . sorry to harp on about the holidays but wouldnt they make any sort of allowance for another public sector worker (me- as a teacher) who simply couldnt take time off during the term? i mean, other people can get permission to take time out of school. i can't take time off myself! also, with weekends alone and shift work, there has surely to be SOME guaranteed family time together?

... or maybe on his first day he could just book up 2 weeks in august for the next 10 years .seriously though, how far in advance can leave be booked?

TIA XX

perkin, i'm probably being ridiculous but i have a vague and naive notion that there might be a comittment to supporting the well being of all public sector families and their families

we are in sussex

To be honest holidays aren't particularly a problemas long as you are organised and book in plenty of time ( and to be honest most of the people I work with aren't).

I have worked with people where the first thing they do is in the New year is book next Christmas holidays. There was one other Sgt who used to book off from the 19th Dec to about the 5th Jan every year which used to p* me off no end. Not becuase I couldn't have the time off (I usually just asked for the odd day off here and there or altered my rest days so I could take the days off when I needed them) but because he left me on my own over the busiest period of the year!!!

Last Dec one of my staff put in her leave for this Christmas as they are going to Florida for two weeks. I don't think your spontaneous weekends will go out of the window. If you are weekend off you won't be called in (definitely no court dates at weekends). If my DP was in the job family holidays would be a problem because he is incapable of getting his act together that far ahead and leaves everything to the last moment. (He may miss DSs first nativity tomorrow afternoon becuase he 'forgot to ask for a couple of hours off but I digress).

Summer holidays are 6-8 weeks long so again there won't be a problem getting a couple of weeks off in that time. You just provisionally book it in advance ( no you can't do it 10 years in advance. If you move to another department as long as you had provisionally booked your holidays in your old department there wouldn't be a problem ( I also know someone who takes a month off every summer to go on a mega holiday which again she always books off a year in advance).

Again I reiterate a lot of the 'horror' stories you hear about officers working all hours and rest days is because they choose to do that whatever they tell their partners!! The only place I would say that is true is the main divisional CID office. I went back there as a DS after maternity leave and it was a nightmare. The final straw came when I dropped my son off at 8am on a Friday morning and didn't see him again until 7am on monday morning. I am still a DS but in a specialist department.

Can't really comment on salary. However for the first ten years or so constables get a pay increase in addition to the general pay increase. Again if you choose to work rest day overtime you can earn mega bucks. I have staff under me who earn considerably more.

'than me' should be the last two words in that sentance!

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

[picks self up from the floor emoticon] at the notion that there might be a commitment to supporting the well being of all public sector families and their families.

Seriously though - holidays haven't been a problem for dh - although you do need a rocket up his behind to actually get him to book it off. There is some rule that if you book your holiday a certain amount of days (21?) it has to be agreed unless there are operational reasons to turn it down.

DH has only worked one rest day so far in his career and that was because I picked up the phone and it was his sargeant asking him to travel 120 miles to interview a prisoner. Now we screen our calls if its a witheld number.

DH has to do overtime as there is no one he can handover to in his role.

One of the positive things about shift work and if you also work part time is that you actually get to spend some time together without dc which is actually really refreshing

The weekends you just manage - I sometimes send dd to her grandparents for a weekend if dh is doing night shifts as its just too much to expect a preschooler to stay quiet if dh needs to sleep - or we'll both go for the weekend! Other weekends we just plan our time - I think you don't really get a break though which is why it works quite well if you are working part time as then you can catch up on some me time during the week.

The thing that gets me down is that sometimes the evenings are really lonely - but there's always mn

tahnks missus. so roughly how often do you get to spend weekends together?

DH has one weekend off a month and an additional sunday.

He also does a 7 days on and 2 days off shift which is a nightmare although lots of forces have different shift patterns (6 on, 3 off or 4 on 4 off) but you wouldn't find out which one you'd be working until you found which station you'd be based at.

I'm quite lucky at weekends as one of my close friends dh's also works a lot of them so we'll meet up then to save our sanity!

I'm in the same boat as MBoot as our DH's work "together" so to speak, both in the same role but for different areas.

I'm the same & find the evenings the lonliest, thank goodness for my little brother who often pops round to keep my company!

On average DH has one weekend off a month.

As MB said it's actually quite nice when DH has days off in the week, we get to take the DC swimming or the soft play, the zoo etc without it being hugely crowded

Hello lovely

My dh is a police officer, so a few thoughts:

Here the shifts are 7am-5pm or 2pm- midnight. As a relative newbie he has to stay on a Safer Neighbourhood Team for 4 years before he can specialise or apply for promotion. The SNT do not work after midnight! That said, they do have to do the odd public order shift which is a night shift (only 8 hrs though) and he does overtime quite a bit. He usually has 2 or 3 days off together and works no more than 4 in a row. If he finishes late, he gets time in lieu and they try to put back the start time for his next shift where possible so there's always 11hrs between shifts.

Starting salary is 21k for the first 3 months, leaping up to 24k after the initial probation period. One overtime shift a week can boost salary significantly.

They severely reduce numbers at Christmas and as it's triple time, there are always volunteers apparently. They fight over it. Otherwise, families take priority for time off on Christmas day on the proviso that they work NYE.

Time from application to appointment was 2.5yrs. It can take a long time. Interviews, role plays, literacy and numeracy tests, fitness test, drugs test all necessary.

Training is no longer residential unless strictly necessary and is done nearby.

DH adores his job and is happier than he has ever been. Sometimes worrying but he seems to work for a family-friendly, flexible and accommodating force. So far anyway.

Oh and it's a rolling rota so he knows what he's doing for the next 30 years. Or until he changes role.

For those of you that it may concern, are your partners happy that you have put pics up and are then chatting in the world wide web about what they do? Just a thought. I will mind my own business and leave now.

Waltzy why shouldn't he be? He's on a police website with his collar number, name & station for all to see anyway

PW Just as well I name changed for this!!! If your DH is any sort of detective he'll have me outed by tomorrow and my guilty Mumsnetting will be known to all!

I was thinking more of CID (out of uniform officers).
Those that want to blend in.

I doubt that many criminals are sat flicking through photos on MN