Years ago, when I was at university in Sweden, I also worked extra at the police station, handling non-emergency calls (this job was relevant to my education). It was mostly people who wanted to report a crime after the fact, think: “My wallet was stolen at the bus stop yesterday” or “This guy at the pub punched me in the face last night so I want to report him” (some people just shake things off and decide to deal with it in the morning, you know…).

It was truly a job where you talked to all kinds of people, because people call the police for all kinds of things (one time, my colleague received a call from a guy who was very polite but just wanted to ask the police if it was normal that his garden had an unusually large number of spiders this spring… ).

Anyway.

Sometimes people call in to inform about something that hasn’t happened to them personally, but maybe something they’ve seen (either confirmed crimes, or suspicions which can be written up as tips for the local police to possibly investigate).

The way most calls go is the caller starts with a summary of the reason for their call (like the examples above), and I then ask them to explain in detail the whole story from start to finish. It’s much easier to hear their story, in their words, from start to finish and then ask follow-up questions, rather than start blind with detailed questions. This was the standard routine.

Me: “This is the police, you’re speaking to [My Name], how can I help?”

Caller: “I want to report that I’ve seen a crime!”

Me: “Certainly. Tell me what you’ve seen and where, start from the beginning.”

Caller: “There was a break-in at the cemetery.”

This gives me pause because the cemetery is (in all cases I can think of) a public, open place, and you can’t technically BREAK IN to the cemetery. But as usual, I just think that I will ask them to explain in detail what happened, and this will make me understand what they mean.

Me: “I see. Well, I will certainly help you. Would you please explain to me what you’ve seen?”

Caller: “As I said, there was a break-in at the cemetery.”

Me: “Okay, which cemetery are we talking about, and can you explain how you know this? What have you observed? Tell me the story.”

Caller: *Gives me the address, and I look it up while they continue talking.* “And well, I can see there has been a break in.”

Me: “Just start the story from the beginning. Tell me what you’ve seen.”

Caller: *Increasingly frustrated.* “I’ve TOLD you, there was a break-in at the cemetery.”

Me: “Right, I understand.” *A lie.* “But just to make sure I get the correct details down, can you just explain to me what you’ve observed in detail to ensure we’re able to investigate. You were maybe… walking past, and… saw damage?”

Caller: “Yes, I’ve walked past, and I can see there has been a break-in!”

Me: “Right… Do you mean some kind of building, maybe the church itself?”

Caller: “NO, there was a BREAK IN at the CEMETERY!”

Me: “…are we talking about a grave? Some kind of … crypt, that was broken into?

Caller: “NO! THERE WAS BREAK IN AT THE CEMETERY. WHY DON’T YOU LISTEN?!

Me: “Where have you seen damage?

Caller: “ON THE CAR DOORS!

Me: *Pause.* “…On the …car doors?”

Caller: “YES, OH MY GOD, WHY DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND THERE ARE DAMAGES ON THE CARS! SOMEONE BROKE INTO THEM!”

Me: “OOOOH, I see, you’ve seen cars that are parked in the cemetery parking lot, and it looks like they were broken into?”

Caller: “YES FINALLY JESUS CHRIST YOU ARE SO INCOMPETENT I WILL HANG UP AND CALL AGAIN AND GET HELP FROM SOMEONE ELSE!” *Click.*

I work for a fiber company. I’m talking to a coworker who is laughing about a recent trip to check on some cable.

Coworker: “So, we caught some dumb-a**es trying to steal our cables.”

Me: “Huh? But why?”

Coworker: “They wanted it for the copper. They didn’t know I was from the fiber company, so they just up and confessed what they were doing like some kind of pride thing. They thought I was just a passing tradesman and that I’d appreciate their efforts to “stick it to the man” or something…”

Me: “Did you tell them that our cables are made with glass?”

Coworker: “I pointed out the ‘fiber wire, no copper’ message that was sprayed on it, but they said, “That sounds like something that would be on a copper wire to trick us. Better steal this one!” So, I just stood around chatting with them as they tried to steal our cables while the cops were on their way.”

Related:
Call The Cop-pers!

A tractor-trailer broke down on the road. I was already driving the road on patrol, so I called a heavy-duty wrecker to get there. Since it was blocking traffic and was such a huge vehicle, I decided to direct traffic around it to avoid a cluster-f*** while waiting.

A few days later, at the station, my super tells me:

Supervisor: “Someone filed a formal complaint against you.”

Me: “Me?! What did I do?”

Supervisor: *Trying not to smile.* “You were… uh… directing traffic too aggressively.”

Then I remembered this driver from that day. I had to wave my arms up and down at her a bit dramatically to get her attention from the far end of the tractor because she was screwing around on her phone instead of watching me. 

My lucky super had to watch the nearly two-hour video of me directing traffic to make sure I didn’t violate any policies, all because a woman felt embarrassed that I called her out.

In 2020, I worked in a care home, looking after elderly folks, some of whom were bedbound. I was not trained to give medication or dress wounds.

The home was based over three floors, where carers were moved between on a weekly rota. Each floor had a nurse whose job was to medicate and dress patient wounds.

The nurses were all foreign and spoke poor English, and to be honest, they were bad at their job. This resulted in the non-trained staff dressing wounds and giving meds out.

At this point, I should say that the home manager was a complete waste of space. She spent most of her shift sitting in the office; the only thing she did was prepare medication to be given to the residents. These were put into trays with resident names on.

The trays were supposed to be taken to the residents’ rooms and the meds given to them. Because the nurses spoke poor English, it was often the case that the care staff would give the meds out.

Care staff started to notice that some of the residents weren’t reacting to the meds as usual. This started to get worse, and the care staff made the manager aware of this. Her reaction? The care staff weren’t trained to make such observations and should leave it to the nurses.

Most of us carers feared losing our jobs if we pushed it. But one carer, whom I’ll call Jill, was close to retiring. She decided to give one of the patient’s doctors a call, informing him of her concerns.

He came out to check on the patient. He was there when the meds were to be given and noticed that they were wrong. The carer who had called him said they were the same meds given every day.

The doctor asked one of the nurses to take him to the meds locker to check them out. The next thing we knew, a police car pulled into the home car park along with another doctor.

What was discovered? None of the special pain relief meds were what they should have been. Instead, they had been replaced with over-the-counter generic pain meds.

As would be expected, there was an investigation as to what was happening.

It was discovered that the manager was replacing the meds and selling them. She was sacked, and the residents dispersed to other homes. Most of the staff left the company. The last thing I heard the manager was convicted and spent time in prison.

The care company was closed three months later.

A customer I can only describe as shady entered our liquor store and spent ten minutes browsing. I stayed at the checkout and watched him on the CCTV.

He ended up shoving two bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue down his pants and walked out. I called the police and told them what happened.

Police: “Did you confront him?”

Me: “Store policy is not to confront shoplifters; that’s what insurance is for.”

Police: “Perfect answer. Do you have footage of him?”

Me: “I’m burning the footage onto a DVD for you guys to collect as we speak.”

Police: “Good, good. We’ll be by later to pick it up. In the meantime, you might wanna think about putting the good and expensive stuff behind locked glass cabinets.”

Me: “Normally, we do. The Johnnie Walker Blue must have been overlooked, but it’s behind a locked door now.”

We wrap up the call, and I put the DVD aside for them.

About an hour later, the same guy returns with the actual f****** bottles!

Shoplifter: “I want a refund on these.” 

I admit I take a moment to compose myself due to the sheer audacity of the guy. You already got two free bottles of high-end liquor, my dude. Why be greedy?

Me: “Uh, why are you asking for a refund?”

Shoplifter: “I got the wrong type.”

Just as I was telling him I can’t do a refund without a receipt, the police walked in.

Officer: “We’re here to collect a DVD that’s got footage of a shoplifter?”

I use both hands to point at both things at the same time.

Me: “That’s the DVD, and that’s the shoplifter.”

He left with them in handcuffs.