Diary of a former Bow Street Runner

I've decided that dealing in a casino 5 days a week really isn't what I want to do, so I put a transfer request in for their Security department. I secured an interview within 3 days, and pending variation of my gaming licence they'll start training me fairly soon. It's on a casual basis to start off with, so I can juggle it with the other casual security gig I'm working at a 5 star hotel and see which I prefer. Pay wise both jobs are only a couple of dollars less than the cops get, and at the 5 star hotel job I'm on the same rate as the cops when I work this weekend.

My Air Force assessment is in October, and the commissioning board is in November. If I'm successful, I'll start in early 2007. I've got my police application form to send off but the enthusiasm has gone. From speaking to a fair few officers here, the job really isn't that dissimilar, and is beset by the same obsession with bureaucracy; arbitrary paperwork and idiotic customers as the UK. Indeed in this part of Australia, police are rarely seen on patrol except on Friday and Saturday nights in the clubbing districts, as most visible patrolling is performed by private security, who observe and report and will intervene where necessary, usually handing it over to the police who will turn out from the station. Thinking about it, this situation may be because of ongoing industrial action over a pithy pay rise offered by the government.

I did my first late shift at the hotel, and it was unusually quiet for a Friday night, so I was trained up in cash auditing, patrolled a uni society ball and the hotel bars, which were pretty uneventful, and escorted a drunken woman back to her room, having been engaged that night and probably separated from her fiancee within a few hours going by the way they were carrying on! Pretty easy money.
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