Private Investigation is the type of profession that, for the most part, no one ever thinks about. Most people have never met a Private Detective or had a need for one and so the understanding of who we are and what we do comes from what people have seen in the movies, read in books or seen on television. People often conjure up images of people in darkened rooms tapping away at a laptop while staring intently at some sort of code usually written in a green font on the screen. After some tense moments have passed, a message pops up saying something like “Password Accepted” or “Access Authorized”  and just like that, a complicated security system is magically breached. Or maybe the image of a man standing in the shadows of a conveniently positioned shop doorway as a couple walk past him obliviously to his presence, the man turns, his features obscured by his hat, he speaks quickly and quietly into some sort of secret device hidden by the lapels of his trench coat before turning and walking briskly away. You get the picture right?

So when I tell people that I am a Private Detective, it comes as no surprise that people’s reactions are unexpected to say the least. I usually get one of the following responses:
1) “You don’t look like a Private Detective!”
2) “You not watching me are you?”
3) “How exciting!”

And while the first response is always amusing, it is clearly a fundamental part of the job for a Private Detective not to look like a Private Detective, and so the question arises: What does a Private Detective look like? I’ve asked myself, somewhat incredulously, whether the comical stereotype of a trench coat wearing person sitting on a park bench peeking through holes torn into a newspaper is actually perceived to be realistic representation of what a Private Detective looks like? This response happens all the time so I started to ask what people thought I should look like. The answer was almost always that they didn’t know. So I was left to conclude that many people think that I do not look the way they expect me to look but they do not know how they expect me to look and quite frankly, I have no idea how to make sense of that.

The second response is also unexpectedly common and I still find it surprising, even now. The first few times that someone responded this way, I thought they were joking with me but I soon realized that although the question was delivered with a laugh, it was in fact being asked for real. It took a couple of times to figure this out because I thought that it would be glaringly obvious that a Private Detective in the process of conducting a surveillance wouldn’t even be near enough to the target to be able to enter into idle chat about Private Investigation work. A Private Detective that is currently conducting a surveillance is not going to tell anyone what they are actually doing even if asked outright by someone who has approached them for whatever reason. It was a little later on that I realized that I had been making assumptions. Those outside the profession have no reason to know the ins ands of how we work and this serves as one example of why I decided to start writing about my job.

The third reaction is understandable as movies and spy stories have built a picture in many people’s minds that this type of work is action packed,. shrouded in mystery and secrecy. The truth is,  for the most part, it is nowhere near as exciting as one might think. While it can have it’s moments and over the years I have had a whole host of clients all with a case unique to them, which has given rise to a wide scope of experiences and of course, over time, a good collection of different stories. I have found myself doing things I never would have imagined, in places I would never have guessed. For the most part, I have spent (at times) week after week sat in a stationary vehicle looking at nothing but the comings and goings around a particular place which can be a small industrial unit, delivery area or down a tiny country road for example. I’ve hung about just watching and waiting on more street corners, in more cafe’s, bars, on more benches, in parks, in fields, town squares,  shopping malls, markets, car parks,  housing estates, the list just goes on and on, that I could never recall them all. I’ve spent a huge amount of my work life sat behind a computer screen. I’ve written stacks of reports, conducted mountains of research and drilled through more due diligence cases than you could shake a stick at so although it may seem very exciting, the reality is that it for the most part, it’s a job like any other and in fact is often incredibly boring for incredibly long periods of time.

Finally, I am also often asked by those that know me, if they can tell someone else what my job is or if it is a secret? There is no reason why I would keep my job a secret from those around me. I do not understand why it is a common perception that my job is a secret because if you think about it, why would it be? Of course I would not want to be pointed out as a Private Detective to someone that I am conducting surveillance on  and the reason is obvious but there is no reason why those around me can not know what my profession is. In fact, it is helpful business wise to spread the word but that is a whole different area I will talk about another time. I am not going to be compromised because I keep things in their rightful place. Work is work and home is home. While I am happy to help a friend find a lost relative or undertake “neutral” work, I will not follow anyone’s spouse or get involved in personal/emotional matters. This simple rule keeps everything in it’s place and I can be sure that I will not end up caught in the middle of anything and therefore there is no reason why my job should be a secret.

Being a Private Detective means that every time you tell someone, or someone else tells someone, in your presence, what you do for a living, you will get a reaction. People will always react and often ask a lot of questions. I totally understand this but there are times when I do not want to go into it all. It is never going to be a short exchange, rather, questions are asked to which there is no quick answer which will readily satisfy the listener and will also lead to more questions. I’m not being an ass, it’s just that sometimes I don’t want to talk about work. I want to enjoy whatever my friends have to say or whatever else is going on around me. Instead, I admit it, I lie. I say that I work in accounting because it’s rare that someone wants to get into that. It often happens that the person finds out sooner or later down the road but they just assume it is because my job is a secret. So you see, sometimes people’s misconceptions actually work pretty well for me from time to time..