Tuesday, June 14, 2005
the police attachment
day 1: mon - 13.06.2005
had problems waking up in the morning. had to be at the tanglin echo division headquarters (DHQ) by 9.30am. fortunately was still 10 min early; johnny and leng lee were already there.
and surprise surprise ivan joined us also! whoohoo! home team scholars (except for qicong) unite!
anyway apparently there was a BIG screw up coz we didn't have uniforms. ARGH. but we were attended to by usman (pronounced oohs-mun, not U.S. Man), one of the trainers in echo, who gave us yet another police-type SOP PPT presentation on the org chart of the force... no offnece but will someone please stop with the mission and vision of the force? i've seen it so many times i know it inside out already! argh! oh. but before tt ivan who had gone for the orientation programme the week before with pinxiu, lifang and anothe of my police juniors, was talking about his visit to PCG (tt's the police coast guard. and YES the police have nothing but abbrieviations in their vocab) and how all the officers there were undoubtedly exasperated with stupid dragonboaters and their dragonboats.
there were 5 other attachees (trainee police) attached to echo from tracom, and they were all uniformed. and they all looked SO tired i got a little scared. what if i age so much so fast after joniing the force too?
anyway before the PPT johnny and i were invited to get hot drinks from the nescafe machine by usman... and the worst thing was tt the machine only had coffee, coffee, coffee (or a variation of)... and teh tarik. first thought: poor teddy.
then it was back to the seats for the boring PPT. but after tt usman came over to chit-chat. and then he was excited tt both of us were rowers. turns out he's rowing for and is the part-time trainer of the echo division dragonboat team, and he rowed for spf before and was invited to try out for the national team. usman's been rowing for 11 years in fact!
woah. explains the muscles.
then he brought us on tour around the levels of DHQ (all police stations; DHQs, NPCs, and PHQ itself) have fanastic gyms with state-of-the-art equipment! gosh!) from the investigative side and all the 'interview rooms' all the way down to the ops room and the lock-up, where apparently there were about 16 prisoners in there today. then it was to lunch at the cafeteria, and then back to the self-learning centre when we also found out tt usman is a level 3 certified sepak takraw coach, loves running and plays a mean rubgy. oh, and now tt he's old he can't run after criminals the way he used to. in the past he would give them a 100m headstart before he started chasing; now when they chabok, so must he.
after tt we loaded into the van and went to visit the other NPCs in the boundary, namely toa payoh and orchard. we got the police van with the wire mesh, which is the kind of van you transport remanded prisoners in. so for the fun of it i started making funny faces at the vehicles behind us and pretended to be a very sad prisoner, and altho we did get a few stares from other drivers on the road, it wasn't tt many because we soon realise tt vehicles like to avoid police vehicles, esp the vans. they keep a 2 car length distance at traffic lights, they continuously filter OUT of our lane (in fact there was this merc tt filtered into the lane on our right to avoid us; then when we filtered right as well to turn the merc IMMEDIATELY turned back left! wahahaha.), and they drive reaaaaallllllyyyyyy slowly. As though they believe tt they will get carted away in the van if they commit some petty offence on the road.
We visited Toa Payoh first, which shares its compound with Toa Payoh CC, which looks damn bloody strange to me. TP and Orchard are the 2 busiest NPCs in Echo. Orchard coz it's on the commercial belt and there's a lot of security + key installations + nightspots to patrol to keep the peace, and TP coz its a residential estate with a lot of 1-room flats and therefore old people (which means a lot of crimes against the elderly as well as suicide and deaths).
And at Orchard we got to speak to the CO, who was an ex-lawyer turned cop, and the OO, who related his story abt how he chased 5 guys who had been rioting himself, only to have them all turn on him, or about this 60-year-old lady who put up such a struggle at Plaza Sing tt it took 5 strong able-bodied men to drag her down the stairs and throw her into the police car while she spent her entire time shouting "PAP Dog! PAP Dog!" That was hilarious. Ooh. And we saw bicycles with Police stickers on them. They were unchained and left unattended outside the station. But we didn't think anyone would steal them anyway because:
1. They looked like the kind of bicycles you ride to market with the basket in the front
2. To steal a police bicycle would be to make yourself the next butt of jokes in the Orchard NPC.
Anyway I notice tt it's not good to put 2 dragonboaters together sometimes. We would talk to Ivan and Lenglee about the day or how they were doing or how life was or how we found the attachment, but EVERY SINGLE TIME without fail somehow the conversation would be steered back to dragonboat. Be it the Penang Race, or the guys team, or the girls team, or even Johnny's cool-down with his monkey actions (which he finally realised when he said tt we girls looked like monkeys doing those actions, to which I replied "now you finally realise what you have been looking like all the while"), and all the ridiculous lame lamer and lamest things tt we could ever have come up with, and then Ivan and Lenglee would have to go quiet again. Oops. And now Lenglee thinks tt all rowers are cocksters because we behave like we have no brains.
Sigh.
Our day on Mon ended with a debrief on what we would be doing on Tues.
day 2: tues - 14.06.2005
This was the 8am to 8pm 12-hour shift. Had to be in the debriefing room at Bishan NPC by 7.30am fully dressed. Apparently there was a huge miscomm coz the TL was on leave and the DTL assumed I would be uniformed and had even prepared my arms list. As a result of the fact tt I was not uniformed, he had to change plans and could not allow me to patrol.
So I ended up being attached to counter staff. It was the most boring 12 hours of my life thus far. The biggest upside is that Bishan NPC has cute policemen. Seriously, Team Delta is damn young. Wendy since you live so near Bishan St 23 you should pop by once in a while. Heh. ;) Made small talk with Ruddie over breakfast and asked him stuff about counter duty and reports tt were to be made and all. Basically procedure, asked about crimes and cases, how his life experiences were, etc. And then this auntie came in to report a 322 (misappropriation of property), but coz he was Malay and she could only speak Hokkien he tried to get me to translate, but I couldn't translate all the intricacies. Fortunately the OO was around, and he had such an easy convwrsation with the auntie it was as though they were old friends meeting over a cup of coffee, and he was not interviewing her. Taught me a HELL of a lot about people relationships.
Kind of pitying me, the OO decided to bring me out along with 2 gyus from Kampung Java Division. We went to Bishan Stadium to rekki the place to plan for how to secure it in the event of the upcoming presidential and general elections, if any. Gave me quite a peek into the mindset of a person in the force. Access points, what would make their job easier, how many men to deploy (sai gang), etc. Realise tt policemen are generally damn rigid when it comes to security. Everything is about security security security. They would rather have walkovers than opposition MPs contesting coz the former is a lot easier to handle. They prefer Harry to Ah Seng coz the former is pretty sticky about security (and easier to protect) than the latter, who doesn't care and walks too damn fast, apparently. So we did a walk-around the stadium, got the map and blueprint from the manager, discussed ways to secure the place etc; and then I had to go back to the NPC.
Read the newspapers twice. UGH. And then this really cute NS police (ok. Call me a cradlesnatcher coz he's 1 year younger) from AJC bought my lunch. Ended up eating and talking to him over lunch about everything from his experiences to life before and outside of the force... And he wins my heart. :) Really. DAMN cute, and a charming conversationalist to match. :)
Although he is more kentang than me. It's quite funny hearing him try to speak Hokkien.
After lunch the AO and another guy from Team Alpha brought me around on tour of the division boundary in the FRC. We drove from Bishan to Bukit Timah to Orchard to Toa Payoh and even passed by the MM's house with the Gurkhas. And I was so shocked to find out tt the 2 officers had been in the force for 9 and 12 years effectively coz they both behaved my age. They were only 27 and 32 respectively, and the former was already married with 2 kids!
Decomposed somemore till evening, when I got to chat with the other counter guy who turned out to be another echo dragonboater who was interested in getting into the police main boat and was waiting for his time trial. Interestingly enough, Johnny got driven over by his TL to my NPC, so we had a 3-person chat about rowing for a while before Johnny left. Then it was a bit more waiting till the TL and the other FRC returned, and I got to return home around 8.20pm.
Ugh. Tomorrow my shift is from 8pm till the following morning. So don't mind if I'm anti-social this week.
now playing: hotel costes - cafe de flor
had problems waking up in the morning. had to be at the tanglin echo division headquarters (DHQ) by 9.30am. fortunately was still 10 min early; johnny and leng lee were already there.
and surprise surprise ivan joined us also! whoohoo! home team scholars (except for qicong) unite!
anyway apparently there was a BIG screw up coz we didn't have uniforms. ARGH. but we were attended to by usman (pronounced oohs-mun, not U.S. Man), one of the trainers in echo, who gave us yet another police-type SOP PPT presentation on the org chart of the force... no offnece but will someone please stop with the mission and vision of the force? i've seen it so many times i know it inside out already! argh! oh. but before tt ivan who had gone for the orientation programme the week before with pinxiu, lifang and anothe of my police juniors, was talking about his visit to PCG (tt's the police coast guard. and YES the police have nothing but abbrieviations in their vocab) and how all the officers there were undoubtedly exasperated with stupid dragonboaters and their dragonboats.
there were 5 other attachees (trainee police) attached to echo from tracom, and they were all uniformed. and they all looked SO tired i got a little scared. what if i age so much so fast after joniing the force too?
anyway before the PPT johnny and i were invited to get hot drinks from the nescafe machine by usman... and the worst thing was tt the machine only had coffee, coffee, coffee (or a variation of)... and teh tarik. first thought: poor teddy.
then it was back to the seats for the boring PPT. but after tt usman came over to chit-chat. and then he was excited tt both of us were rowers. turns out he's rowing for and is the part-time trainer of the echo division dragonboat team, and he rowed for spf before and was invited to try out for the national team. usman's been rowing for 11 years in fact!
woah. explains the muscles.
then he brought us on tour around the levels of DHQ (all police stations; DHQs, NPCs, and PHQ itself) have fanastic gyms with state-of-the-art equipment! gosh!) from the investigative side and all the 'interview rooms' all the way down to the ops room and the lock-up, where apparently there were about 16 prisoners in there today. then it was to lunch at the cafeteria, and then back to the self-learning centre when we also found out tt usman is a level 3 certified sepak takraw coach, loves running and plays a mean rubgy. oh, and now tt he's old he can't run after criminals the way he used to. in the past he would give them a 100m headstart before he started chasing; now when they chabok, so must he.
after tt we loaded into the van and went to visit the other NPCs in the boundary, namely toa payoh and orchard. we got the police van with the wire mesh, which is the kind of van you transport remanded prisoners in. so for the fun of it i started making funny faces at the vehicles behind us and pretended to be a very sad prisoner, and altho we did get a few stares from other drivers on the road, it wasn't tt many because we soon realise tt vehicles like to avoid police vehicles, esp the vans. they keep a 2 car length distance at traffic lights, they continuously filter OUT of our lane (in fact there was this merc tt filtered into the lane on our right to avoid us; then when we filtered right as well to turn the merc IMMEDIATELY turned back left! wahahaha.), and they drive reaaaaallllllyyyyyy slowly. As though they believe tt they will get carted away in the van if they commit some petty offence on the road.
We visited Toa Payoh first, which shares its compound with Toa Payoh CC, which looks damn bloody strange to me. TP and Orchard are the 2 busiest NPCs in Echo. Orchard coz it's on the commercial belt and there's a lot of security + key installations + nightspots to patrol to keep the peace, and TP coz its a residential estate with a lot of 1-room flats and therefore old people (which means a lot of crimes against the elderly as well as suicide and deaths).
And at Orchard we got to speak to the CO, who was an ex-lawyer turned cop, and the OO, who related his story abt how he chased 5 guys who had been rioting himself, only to have them all turn on him, or about this 60-year-old lady who put up such a struggle at Plaza Sing tt it took 5 strong able-bodied men to drag her down the stairs and throw her into the police car while she spent her entire time shouting "PAP Dog! PAP Dog!" That was hilarious. Ooh. And we saw bicycles with Police stickers on them. They were unchained and left unattended outside the station. But we didn't think anyone would steal them anyway because:
1. They looked like the kind of bicycles you ride to market with the basket in the front
2. To steal a police bicycle would be to make yourself the next butt of jokes in the Orchard NPC.
Anyway I notice tt it's not good to put 2 dragonboaters together sometimes. We would talk to Ivan and Lenglee about the day or how they were doing or how life was or how we found the attachment, but EVERY SINGLE TIME without fail somehow the conversation would be steered back to dragonboat. Be it the Penang Race, or the guys team, or the girls team, or even Johnny's cool-down with his monkey actions (which he finally realised when he said tt we girls looked like monkeys doing those actions, to which I replied "now you finally realise what you have been looking like all the while"), and all the ridiculous lame lamer and lamest things tt we could ever have come up with, and then Ivan and Lenglee would have to go quiet again. Oops. And now Lenglee thinks tt all rowers are cocksters because we behave like we have no brains.
Sigh.
Our day on Mon ended with a debrief on what we would be doing on Tues.
day 2: tues - 14.06.2005
This was the 8am to 8pm 12-hour shift. Had to be in the debriefing room at Bishan NPC by 7.30am fully dressed. Apparently there was a huge miscomm coz the TL was on leave and the DTL assumed I would be uniformed and had even prepared my arms list. As a result of the fact tt I was not uniformed, he had to change plans and could not allow me to patrol.
So I ended up being attached to counter staff. It was the most boring 12 hours of my life thus far. The biggest upside is that Bishan NPC has cute policemen. Seriously, Team Delta is damn young. Wendy since you live so near Bishan St 23 you should pop by once in a while. Heh. ;) Made small talk with Ruddie over breakfast and asked him stuff about counter duty and reports tt were to be made and all. Basically procedure, asked about crimes and cases, how his life experiences were, etc. And then this auntie came in to report a 322 (misappropriation of property), but coz he was Malay and she could only speak Hokkien he tried to get me to translate, but I couldn't translate all the intricacies. Fortunately the OO was around, and he had such an easy convwrsation with the auntie it was as though they were old friends meeting over a cup of coffee, and he was not interviewing her. Taught me a HELL of a lot about people relationships.
Kind of pitying me, the OO decided to bring me out along with 2 gyus from Kampung Java Division. We went to Bishan Stadium to rekki the place to plan for how to secure it in the event of the upcoming presidential and general elections, if any. Gave me quite a peek into the mindset of a person in the force. Access points, what would make their job easier, how many men to deploy (sai gang), etc. Realise tt policemen are generally damn rigid when it comes to security. Everything is about security security security. They would rather have walkovers than opposition MPs contesting coz the former is a lot easier to handle. They prefer Harry to Ah Seng coz the former is pretty sticky about security (and easier to protect) than the latter, who doesn't care and walks too damn fast, apparently. So we did a walk-around the stadium, got the map and blueprint from the manager, discussed ways to secure the place etc; and then I had to go back to the NPC.
Read the newspapers twice. UGH. And then this really cute NS police (ok. Call me a cradlesnatcher coz he's 1 year younger) from AJC bought my lunch. Ended up eating and talking to him over lunch about everything from his experiences to life before and outside of the force... And he wins my heart. :) Really. DAMN cute, and a charming conversationalist to match. :)
Although he is more kentang than me. It's quite funny hearing him try to speak Hokkien.
After lunch the AO and another guy from Team Alpha brought me around on tour of the division boundary in the FRC. We drove from Bishan to Bukit Timah to Orchard to Toa Payoh and even passed by the MM's house with the Gurkhas. And I was so shocked to find out tt the 2 officers had been in the force for 9 and 12 years effectively coz they both behaved my age. They were only 27 and 32 respectively, and the former was already married with 2 kids!
Decomposed somemore till evening, when I got to chat with the other counter guy who turned out to be another echo dragonboater who was interested in getting into the police main boat and was waiting for his time trial. Interestingly enough, Johnny got driven over by his TL to my NPC, so we had a 3-person chat about rowing for a while before Johnny left. Then it was a bit more waiting till the TL and the other FRC returned, and I got to return home around 8.20pm.
Ugh. Tomorrow my shift is from 8pm till the following morning. So don't mind if I'm anti-social this week.
# posted by Kitana @ 6/14/2005 10:41:00 PM 
