Posts by BenWilson
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Ben, ........your story would have been more heartwarming if you'd walked into the police station, made your complaint and they took it seriously, and then you fixed his printer.
Fair enough, I will take on the chin that my story may have come across as an attempt at warming hearts. It was actually intended as a piece of advice on how one can get help on petty crimes that the cops wouldn't usually have time for, with no morality attached. The morals projection has been all external, people seem to think I'm advocating pay-per-cop as a system. Far from it, I'm just saying that under the current system, how it is right now, in my recent experience, it is quite possible to get help.
If you wanted me to comment on the morality, and it seems that everyone with something to say does want that, I'd say that it's less than perfect, just like 100% of institutions I've dealt with. Cops, being human, like to prioritize their own work using the experience they have garnered over the years, and they like, as all humans do, to be treated with respect, and, god forbid, even helped on occasion. Helped to do their job, in this case. If I'd offered to pay the copper, or give him a box of donuts or something, I think he'd have been really offended and there would have been no action at all. As it turned out, I was one of those good Samaritans who lends people their jacket when they're riding a new motorbike because they don't want to think of some silly kid turning into a street pizza 15 minutes after he bought my bike (or a frozen popsicle more likely. Most people don't really appreciate the wind-chill factor of motorbikes until they ride). I also help out people who are having the kind of technical difficulties that I can fix in my sleep, especially when I hear how long they've been waiting for help from their own people. To me, fixing the printer was just my little act of public service, my way of getting more police action out of my tax dollars, whether it was for my immediate problem or just general law-keeping.
I like to think (and I may be wrong, sure) that the copper just approved of all of that, and thought "hey, why don't I just have a quick look at the cellphone records - that's no more trouble to me than fixing my printer was to that guy". Next thing he's made a call, and hey, it's that sneaky kid. "This is Officer X following up on a report of a stolen motorbike jacket". "Oh sorry about that, yeah, I'll return it today". Case closed. And actually solved. An actual win. Hooray. Probably really made the coppers day after dealing with 20 reports of hit and run sideswipes with no details and a sour faced people thinking the worse of him.
So like I say, you can call it a bribe. You can equate it to a shakedown if you want. I think there's a lot more to it. OK it's slightly unfair that the guy with the face like death, who hates coppers and makes that clear with all his body language, who demands to know when he's going to get a call about progress, and who says tough luck mate, I don't bribe people when told about the annoying bureaucracy that's in the way of the copper doing his job, doesn't get his case solved unless it actually falls into the cop's lap. But guess what? I don't help people like that in my work either, not with any priority anyway. I figure that some customers just never help themselves and that makes helping them extra hard and just not worth my time.
feel free to burst the bubble of the Utopian dream of fairness and respect in the government service insustry
Nope, no pop from me. I think that dream is about as likely as the dream of fairness and respect towards public servants from the public. But I'm doing my little bit on my side of the equation, hoping to at least get a bit closer to Utopia. Strangely, my way seems to have got me satisfaction once, hence sharing that story.
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Just a dumb question, hoping that someone might know: EVEN IF blogs were covered under EFB and had to acknowledge themselves as campaign contributors, so what? Would anything actually be stopped as a result of it? Surely the 'contribution' is whatever the cost of having a blog is, or a portion thereof. Which is totally minimal. For many who use, say, Blogger, it costs nothing at all. Indeed, for the big blogs it probably makes a small profit and therefore costs nothing.
Please note this is an EVEN IF question. I don't know enough about the bill to guess if blogs actually are covered.
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If I'd been able to get the plate number there'd be no problem.
Yup, it's likely to actually be 'too hard'. Not just because cops are human and have other priorities, but also because it is actually too hard. But it's worth a shot.
I'm just surprised that you don't seem at all disturbed by the implications of your story. I'm nice to hairdressers and to shop staff too (as well as Police), but those people don't have a duty to act without fear or favour.
Disturbed by the implication that if you help someone they might go that extra mile and help you? No, I actually like it. It seems fair enough. And my hairdresser does have a duty to treat me without fear or favour, but they may fail of that duty if I'm a fuxor. When I fix their TV, though, it's a different story.
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Oh, and I'm just as nice to my hairdresser. I fixed his TV set. I'm also nice to people in McDonalds, and will put my rubbish in the bin, since it's just there.
pay $2.50 and get the owners name (from the plate number)
Yup, that would be a good idea. That way you could talk to the person without even involving the cops.
and then pass that detail on to the Police as well (although don't they have their own computers that can do that?)
Well I guess you could do that too. They'd probably help you more easily if you did tell them you'd already done some legwork. It might help them to conclude that it's not a waste of time, if you could perhaps show them a picture of the person's busted arse vehicle.
but I draw the line at asking the Cop how his day is, would he like a hug, can I get him a cup of tea, maybe a muffin?
What if he told you his printer was stuffed? What would you do then? Eat a donut in his face and say it's not your job?
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IO, we are on different planets. On mine someone can tell you how to use the system to their advantage without endorsing the system. On planet IO (or is it a moon?) that seems to be considered an 'aargh' moment. Which makes it sound like an aaargh kind of planet, since it also involves not getting my jacket back, a copper wasting a lot more time walking to his printer, and smartarse little kids getting away with shit.
3410, he never said he couldn't do anything about it. He just said it was not a high priority thing, etc. You could call it a fob-off. Maybe he was just getting around to it.
I think if you want to see it as a bribe, you will. I preferred not to see it that way.
Robbery, if you don't want your shit back, then feel free not to do as I did. I prefer not to crusade around in martyrland trying to teach people a lesson they will never learn about service. But each to their own, I think bitterness is less of a steroid and more of an opium to many.
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Yup, misery loves company. In fact, it seems to be the main way kiwis relate to each other, and when anyone tells them an actually happy true story, like my one, people take it as an affront.
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The cop wasn't interested in helping you (which is his job, no?) until he felt stink because you'd done something nice for him.
Sure. That's why my advice stands. Be nice to the cops, it helps them to see your problem in perspective. 10 mins work to stop a small crime happening was about fair.
You never actually know what the cops are capable of until you give them a chance. This car crash could be a 5 minute job, looking up all the Bentleys and Rolls in the area, finding the gold one, and giving them a phone call. That's actually a lot less time than would be wasted if the cops had to come to the scene of the crime, take an accident report etc. Usually when the cops call people about a crime they were involved in, they fall over themselves trying to make amends. A hit and run is a serious crime, so just forking out for the busted up car and giving an apology is getting off lightly.
We could sit around all day complaining about the cops. Or we can take advice about how to get them to work for us. Your choice.
I think a lot of the reason they are unhelpful is because people are not nice to them. Sure that's not the ideal system, but they are human, and a lot of people tend to forget that. Think about how you feel about difficult or even abusive customers.
Hey, you can take my story about how I got the cops to work for me how you like. Feel bitter on them and never use their services, or lighten up, help them out, and get sorted.
If there is any deeper point to my story it is that bitterness doesn't pay.
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Ha ha ha! I used to work for a company who had the Employment Court rule that bad-arse swearing was acceptable in that workplace and so employees couldn't be disciplined for it. And in my current workplace, I sit near a group of young ladies who swear like pirates.
Heh. When I worked at a stockbroker, a content filtering system was put in on mail that excluded exactly 4 words f-word, c-word, sl-word, wh-word. The clients complained bigtime when they got a polite message saying that their message was blocked, and the brokers demanded it be switched of because 'that was the language of the market'.
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Actually, that's harsh. You don't deserve no justice. It would be nice if the crime solved itself.
But consider that Jeremy and I are the only ones suggesting a course of action that has any likelihood of justice. Others are maybe helping you to feel better by living out the self-fulfilling prophecy of getting bitter on the police before you've even tried them. And my particular story is suggesting that some petty crimes can get solved. You can decide if it's a bribe, and if it is, if you care, and would rather just have a smashed up car, some rich guy getting away with a hit and run, and you paying an excess and getting your premiums raised (as well as having to clean out what would have been in my trousers that night!).
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You can take what you like out of the story. I did not bribe anyone - I would have fixed the printer regardless - it was merely a matter of installing it, and I saw a guy suffering needlessly the annoyance of bureaucracy getting in the way of his work. You might have noticed from the loss of the jacket that I'm a helpful kind of person.
But yes, it does show that police can sometimes solve petty crimes very easily. He told me it was about 10 mins work, in the end. But I really don't think he thought he owed it to me. It was more a matter of professional pride. I think he felt a bit stink about how ludicrously easy it was for me to solve his extremely annoying problem, and he wanted to show me that he could solve problems in his own area that baffled me.
This isn't one of those 'In order to bribe the police, do X' stories. It's a karma and human nature story. If you walk into a cop shop with the attitude of 'friggin lazy cops should help me out, I pay my taxes, isn't that what they're for?', then you will probably get similar attitude back. Instead it was 'I feel stink to have to report that I was a bit careless in my trust of a stranger, but that doesn't mean it was OK to steal my stuff, does it?'. And the resolution was perfect. The kid got a scare but no charges. He returned the stuff personally and gave me an apology.
So my suggestion is: Report it. The very fact you approached the cops puts the ball squarely in Mr-Dangerous-Driving-Bentley-or-Rolls-Owner who-takes-off-from-the-scene-of-an-accident's court. I bet there are very few such vehicles too. It is also possible that you may end up being the one in trouble if you don't report it, and it won't be a small bill. There are probably even fewer such cars driving around with panel damage the color of your car.
To me, that one is very much a matter of principle. It's a serious crime which could have ended your life. It may be very easy to solve for the cops, you just don't know until you try. And if, just if, the cops tell you they've got a problem too, don't just go "I don't give a shit". Don't prejudge them, or you certainly will get the justice you deserve, which is none.
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