Tuesday, November 13, 2007

The Polish police force needs you!


As long as you are not too bright, that is.

Gazeta Wyborcza today reports that applicants who want to be a Polish cop are screened (by computer programs) for their intellectual capacities.

So far, so normal.

What’s different about the Polish police force is that what the devious psychologists at the Polish police force human resources department are on the look out for are not the dim, the half wit, the retarded; no, the psychologists are keeping an eye out for people thought to be too intelligent to be in the police force!

Yes, all those jokes Poles used to tell about how dim Polish cops are, were true!

(Polish cop joke from the 1980s: Old lady goes up to Polish cop. “Excuse me, officer, but have you got the time?

Cop looks at his new 1980s digital Casio watch. And stares, and stares..

Old Lady “So have you got the time?

Cop: “Give us a moment. It’s not so easy to divide 17:43, you know? “

A spokesperson for the police service said that the computer programmed aptitude and attitude tests are designed for the average person to pass. The personality profile must suit the average Kowalski. And anyway, intelligent people are ‘intellectuals’ and so would ‘not do their job properly.’

Um. So what are these people saying? That instead of patrolling the streets in search of criminals, and telling old ladies what the time is, the ‘intellectual’ copper would be sneaking down behind a hedge, or in the doorway of a disused shop, whipping out his copy of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations ?

Or, instead of asking for bribes – like those good old coppers used to/still do – our brainy cop would be asking the punters their opinions on the Neo-Kantian dualistic dimension of Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law?

Anyway:

A tourist in Warsaw asks a man in uniform, "Are you a policeman?"

"No, I am an undercover detective."

"So why are you in uniform?"

"Today is my day off."

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

One of the worst jobs in the world and who wants anyway? So how much of an intellectual do we need for this work? You get into the car at start of shift and drive by the town drunk lying on the sidewalk, pick him up and throw him into the back seat. On your way to the station he vomits over everything. Once at the station you pull your drunk out of the back and drag his vomit encrusted body into a cell. Now you wipe the vomit of your hands and uniform go back to your car and repeat the process.

Anybody got a list of intellectual that would put up with that job for long?

I expect after many years the HR department is fully aware of what personality types survive in this line of work.

Shouldn’t there be a policeman appreciation day in Poland considering they have to deal with a generally undisciplined, unruly and crime prone population.

sonia said...

My favorite joke about Polish cops:

Why there are always 3 cops patrolling together ?

Because one of them knows how to read, the other one knows how to write, and the third one is there to keep an eye on those two dangerous intellectuals.

Anonymous said...

"a generally undisciplined, unruly and crime prone population."

What?

I thought Poland is 95% Catholic.

michael farris said...

sonia, I object! (I was gonna tell the same one - IIRC originally a zomo joke, not an everyday cop joke).

two more:

two cops are walking in the forest and one says:
"Hey look a dead bird."
"Where?" asks the other looking up.


a cop gets home and finds his wife in bed with his best friend. he pulls out his gun and puts it against his temple. his wife screams:
"What are you doing, are you crazy?"
"Shut up bitch, you're next!".

Anonymous said...

While I don't think it is a good criterion for recruiting cops, it is not unheard of. Some companies will reject overqualified people applying for low-skill jobs. I can think of two possible reasons:
A) If you are intelligent , but apply for such a job, there is something wrong with you.
B) The job is boring - someone with an agile intellect will stop paying attention to it, thinking of something else.
You don't install a 4GHz quad-core chip to cotrol a lift. Someone could find a way to run viruses on it...
Oh, and, about that dead bird joke: I've read somewhere that birds' toes close around a branch in such a way that they don't fall when sleeping, and sometimes even if they die. Or maybe it was a bird politician ;-)

Anonymous said...

If this is going to start to be a listing of favourite Polish jokes about the police (in its various forms) then there's a good chance of it becoming the longest comments thread on this blog.

Anyway here goes for my favourite:

A couple are taking a leisurely stroll through the town and the woman looks up and says "Look at the sun. Isn't it beautiful?". The man replies "It's not the sun. It's the moon!"

Then the woman spies a policeman and decides to settle the argument:

"Excuse me officer, could you tell me is that the moon or the sun?"

The policeman looks up and says:

"I don't know. I'm not from round here."

Anonymous said...

The real joke is that the computer programme designed to weed out clever clogs was designed by egg heads.

news said...

In Scotland, where a lot of the fuzz (as we say) used to come from the Highlands (ie the countryside), there is a great joke.

A policeman catches a robber red-handed in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, then drags him round the corner into Hope Street before handcuffing him.

The robber asks, "why did you drag me round the corner?"

Policeman says"because I can spell Hope Street."

Richie D said...

I pictured the dumb Polish cop on the sitcom "Rodzina Zastępczych" in each of the cop jokes.

beatroot said...

Or any of them on 13 posterunek

Anonymous said...

(Michael Farris, blogger's not recognizing me)

Ok, for the punchline here it helps to know Polish (and old landmarks in Poznan).


Did you hear about the drowned policeman they found in Sopot? Turns out he had a note in his pocket:
skocz do bałtyku po bilety*


*bałtyk was a well known movie theater by a main traffic circle in poznan before being torn down to build an anonymous hotel :(

michael farris said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
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