What is your typical day like(hours,etc)

Hi Seth,

I previously worked for law enforcement and I would say there's no such thing as a typical day. Many law enforcement agencies have moved to 12 hour shifts. After the police academy and all of your field training, you would be assigned to an area/zone/beat. Depending on the type of agency you are with, you would may be riding patrol solo or with a partner. Your calls for service are based on 911 calls coming in, serving civil papers, community involvement or whatever task your shift supervisor assigns. There are also always several different units you could be assigned to such as enforcement or special operations. Every agency is different especially if it's federal, state or local law enforcement.

There absolutely is no such thing as a "typical day." I worked at the Airport PD, mostly on the midnight shift. The typical day would be the last plane landed around 1 a.m. and the first one took off at 5 a.m., so we had some "down time" in between. But then a DWI would crash through the fence and be driving on the runway, and all of a sudden you had to jump into gear! Or, a nearby airport would close down (due to fog or thunderstorms) and send all their planes to you, and you had and extra 2200 unhappy, tired, and cranky people to deal with!

The beauty of the job is that it is different each day. You sort of fall into a routine, such as when you take your meal break, but, if it gets interrupted, that's just the way it is. You also never want to use the word "routine" to think about what you are doing. We "routinely" escorted the armored car driver to the ATM machine. It always went smoothly. But that does not change your level of alertness.