![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Path not taken
Feb. 3rd, 2012 09:00 pmMy old man was a copper.
Frankly he was a copper’s copper, a veritable Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, His Excellency, His Grace, the Duke of Ankh. In fact, truth be told, my dad was the kind of copper Sir Terry was thinking about when he created him.
I think of this because I’ve just finished watching the full run of the original Prime Suspect with Jane Mirren. And it was interesting. Being the product of the household of an extremely senior Detective (Commander Martin Patrick “Paddy” O’Neill), there’s a lot about cop dramas that make me stop and think.
Firstly, I’m a disappointment. I became an engineer. Not a cop, nor a navy officer. My dad was in the navy before he was a cop. And it was something he wanted us to do. But there is something that haunts me watching cop dramas.
I’d have been good at it.
And the thing is, Dad warned me in his own way. When we were all young, our dad took us aside and gave us instructions about dealing with the police. Roughly speaking they were these: 1) The police are not your friends, 2) never talk to the police without a lawyer, c) if you have to give a statement, then ask for more time.
So, of my siblings, my brother and I become, briefly, engineers and my sister spent 3 years in the police. My brother become an account and, like my sister who quit the police, I went into sales. The problem with sales is that I watch things like Prime Suspect, and other cop shows and see me doing what sales people do for a living against unsuspecting people.
And that is the crux. If you can sell, you can talk to people, and cops are taught to talk to people, and what really scares me, is how good I know I would have been in the police at interviewing people and getting them to agree to things.
I actually worry about that. I shouldn’t but I do.
