I belong to a Facebook group for ex-Metropolitan Police officers. I’m not a former police officer myself, so I probably shouldn’t have got access, but I did used to work for the police, so ‘squeezed in’ by being a bit vague with the requirements!
It’s a private members group, so I can’t give access to the posts, but I stumbled on a remarkable post which actually dates back to 2021. It was a post about the difficulties of progressing up to sergeant and beyond, and here’s one of the replies. Surprisingly, it got no responses.
“I did the old-style sergeants exam for The Met back in 1990. At the half-time bit, a few of us went to the nearby pub for a few beers, and then back to the exam again. You weren’t allowed to leave in those days and all I could concentrate on was not wetting myself. Unfortunately I failed … and the exam as well!! Needless to say, I never tried for sergeant again.”
Presumably he would have been in uniform to take that sergeant's exam?
I see the detail you gave in your story along similar lines from years ago about the police hopefuls not being allowed to leave the exam was absolutely accurate.
Picturing the scene where this young officer with the beers working through his system trying to hang on in that exam room with all the others and then finally failing and wetting his uniform as he sat there gives me the shudders! What a scene that must have been!!
I only stumbled across it last week when I was flicking through some old posts. On Facebook, unless you actually click on the replies to open them, you don't see them. Which is why I guess this response got no replies, which is such a shame!! I just saw it by chance.
When I first read it, I wondered if he was simply meaning he failed the exam, but on a re-read I think it's very clear what he's saying!! On his profile, it says he joined the Met Police in 1986, so I guess four years in, he decided to try for a promotion to sergeant. Interesting that he never tried again.
Yes, it's stomach churning to imagine him in the exam hall, bursting after those beers had gone straight through him, and knowing that he was running a serious risk of embarrassing himself in the worst way possible. I love that he says he couldn't concentrate on anything other than not wetting himself! Wow.
Yikes! Obviously a young police officer following the timeline, a bit over confident going for a few beers at lunch and then brought back down to earth with a bang! Poor guy, but a wonderful confession!
People confess all sorts of things on the internet that they wouldn't tell anyone in person. Even when they're using a screen name that could be traced back to them, there's still a feeling of anonymity. This fellow may not have been a regular beer drinker and thought he could have a few beers, pee (or not) before leaving the pub, and still be good for the next two or three hours. But beer doesn't work that way.
Either he was too inexperienced to realise what a few lunchtime beers can do to you within an hour or two, or he just didn't think, or maybe he felt he had to go along with his colleagues and join in while reckoning that if he peed before going back to the exam it would all be alright.
Lee wrote: ↑31 Oct 2024, 17:21
[...]
Can you just imagine the moment when he did it!!
I've been imagining that ever since you posted this!!
Perhaps what was happening became apparent to everyone in the exam room when there was this awful splattering noise on the floor. Poor guy. Couldn't do the exam properly at all because he was bursting for so long and was trying to concentrate on not wetting himself, but ended up wetting himself anyway. I do feel for him.
If the "accident" was apparent to the others in the exam room, the results of the testing that day should have been considered invalid for all of them, prompting a retest on another day.
Fred wrote: ↑03 Nov 2024, 18:19
If the "accident" was apparent to the others in the exam room, the results of the testing that day should have been considered invalid for all of them, prompting a retest on another day.
What makes you say that Fred? If I’d been a candidate and felt confident about the way the exam had gone, I’d be pretty peeved if all my efforts had been wiped out because some idiot went drinking and couldn’t contain himself.
(That’s from the view of another police officer, and not me personally! )
Well, it's a thought, isn't it? The poor guy already suffered the agony and panic of having a bursting bladder during his sergeant's exam in which he wasn't allowed to leave and then the intense humiliation of not being able to last till the end and wetting himself and drenching his uniform and no doubt the seat and floor in the exam room. Adding to all that horror by being the guy who caused everyone else to have to sit the exam all over again would have been just too much.
No, I don't think the others had to do the exam again. I think he probably just sat there in his soaking underpants and uniform, handed his totally inadequate exam paper in at the end, and then scurried off home as quickly as he could while he ignored the sniggers behind him.
and the exam as well!! Needless to say, I never tried for sergeant again.”