a peep into my future

I had a wonderful opportunity of being attached to Bedok Police Division as part my entire police internship. My National Service was in the Police, but never once was I attached to a land division, or had any real chance to see how things function there. Until now.

I had a peep into what I will be doing in 5 to 6 years' time. After my studies, I would have to start serving my scholarship bond for 4 years, which begins with a 9 months residential training at the nostalgic Home Team Academy. The first posting after passing out as a senior officer is always as an investigation officer, a posting which is compulsory in the route map of senior officers.

Last week, two other fellow scholars, Alvis and Chok, and I were attached to a particular investigation team from Bedok Division for one whole tour of 24 hours duty. This 24 hours duty was in no way like that of my SOC shift work, where one had the luxury of time to read the papers, play some sports, watch some shows on tv and work out in gym, because the nature of work was to basically stand-by for emergencies that warrants our activation.

However, this 24 hours duty of the investigation team is very different. There were quiet times, but there were also times when there was mad rush inside the office. There were also times when different parties in a particular case were brought into the room for statement recording. I refuse to go into details because there were simply too many cases and too many perspectives that you can have on each case. For example, a police report might be made by a lady saying she has been molested, but until you hear the story from all sides, you will never know if she is telling the truth. For all you know, she might be bearing a grudge against the defendant and decided to frame him. So one thing that I learned from this stint was to be open-minded and receptive to every possible senarios.

Apart from the cases, there were some very minimal informal chatting with the officers on duty, who educated us very much about the nature of their work and how it is very important to have a wife and family who is always there to support you, even when you have to spend more time at work than at home. An understanding family is vital to allow you to be able to concentrate on the work, which is highly stressful in nature.

This 24 hours stint has been quite physically and mentally exhausting for us, but it can in no way be compared to how the actual officers feels. There were many new things that I learned that would be very benefial for me to apply it in the future. There were also many soft skills that I am aware that I need to pick up or improve upon in order to be a good senior officer, a leader whom the followers can look up to.