On: This Guy Has My MacBook

[guelo]

I have the exact same story with the cops refusing to look for the muggers who had run away a minute earlier. And I've heard plenty other outrageous stories about OPD refusing to help. They are mostly incompetent and lazy.

[hack_edu → guelo]

And underpaid, understaffed, and spread thin patrolling East Oakland.

[dkl → hack_edu]

Underpaid? Really? I don't have a reference, but I saw an article a couple of years ago that with overtime it was common for Oakland officers to make more than $100k.

[stretchwithme → dkl]

Where they really cleanup is overtime. And on the last year on the job, they work ridiculous hours, perhaps sleeping at a desk a lot of the time. Pensions in California are based on the last year of pay.

Yes, they do put their lives at risk and for that I am appreciative. But I'd appreciate it a lot more if they were a lot more responsive to the citizens who pay them.

[hack_edu → dkl]

Police departments in other East Bay cities pay higher wages and are lower-risk. Police departments can be brain-drained too.

[thaumaturgy → dkl]

Highway patrol, too: http://www.chp.ca.gov/recruiting/osalary.html

[ajays → thaumaturgy]

Wow. Earning $83,969 per year with just a HS Diploma (and CHP academy training) ain't bad at all.

[zackattack → ajays]

Actually I think it sucks when you consider that you're much more likely to die on the job as a CHP officer than as a programmer.

[khafra → zackattack]

Garbage collector death rate: 47/100,000 per year

Roofer death rate: 35/100,000 per year

Lumberjack death rate: 92/100,000 per year

Police death rate: 13/100,000 per year

None of these jobs requires a college degree. The average roofer salary is 36k/year, 42% of the salary of a job with a 63% lower death rate.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/pf/jobs_jeopardy/

http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfoi_rates_2009hb.pdf

http://www.simplyhired.com/a/salary/search/q-roofing

[thomasz → zackattack]

Granted, being a police officer is certainly a more risky profession than programming, but I'm not sure that the chance of getting killed on the job is higher for police officers than for truck or cab drivers.

[rbanffy → dkl]

Keep in mind they may get 100K+ in exchange of putting their lives in danger occasionally.

[carpo → rbanffy]

Not if they don't actually go after the criminals

[CamperBob → rbanffy]

In the US, police work doesn't even make the top 10 most dangerous professions. You wouldn't know it from listening to them whine, though.

[rbanffy → CamperBob]

Is it more dangerous than what you do?

Could police work be less dangerous because of adequate training, equipment and protocols? The danger is still there, mitigated.

[CamperBob → rbanffy]

(Puzzled shrug) Yes, and roofers wear hard hats. Am I missing your point somehow?

[zackattack → CamperBob]

Out of a total of how many professions? That's a misleading statistic.

[khafra → zackattack]

How is that relevant? If it's out of a total of 11 professions, that's even worse than if it were out of every single job out there.

[CamperBob → zackattack]

Out of every profession tracked by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/110394/americas...