The Eighth One

I hate school holidays.

You'd think people would want to take their kids out and be active to keep them amused whilst they aren't in school from 9 till 3.

BUT NO!

It's like "oh yeh, stay at home, you sleep in whilst some of us had to wake up a 5AM to be here! don't even come outside for more than 10 minutes, let your kids be bored at home all day...BAD DAD!" haha but full serious, entertain your kids during school holidays, gimme heaps of ammunition and opportunities to film you. Ta.

Sucks even more when a really active claimant isn't active on the last day of surveillance, you are in two minds of calling it quits and coming back the next day but then you're all like...man seriously I'm sick of watching you, hurry up and do something.

Tomorrow is a big day for me, it's going to take me close to two hours from base to the location I need to conduct surveillance in. So great for kilometres and paid driving hours :) I just hope the person is active, it's apparently meant to rain, but I hope it doesn't stop the person from being active. I have to be out there for 10 hours...well that's how many hours they've given me, and I wanna hit this out in one day. Will report back on how I go.

So Christmas is 4 days away! Actually am going to work in the morning, hope to get some footage of someone being drunk. Will be CLASSIC! Plus it's what my client wants, so Christmas with a BBQ a nice day (hopefully, it's Sydney and it's been raining every day this week so far) and a beer in hand...hopefully one too many and BAM! Here's bunny getting you paralytic for my client! Will be sweeeetttt!

One thing I'm definitely not liking in this state during this festive season is the traffic! Seriously like where did all you people come from? Normally I can cruise along the M5 motorway for at least half an hour before I hit some minimal traffic, these days it's like not even 10 minutes! Taking main roads isn't any better either, swear my GPS is going to have a mental break down and instead of telling me to turn left on King Georges Road it's gonna say "look woman just turn around and go home I can't be effed giving you short cuts cos this shizz is everywhere". My GPS and I have a love-hate relationship...every now and then I even tell him that we might have to break up, but then he talks in his English accent and I'm like awww ok I can keep you a lil longer Mr Garmin.

Glad to see a lot of you are reading mu blog and now looking up Bloggies! Yes they have a time and date stamp, and they are seriously awesome! Light weight, small and amazing. Hopefully they'll make more Sony Bloggies with a swivel head but with a better zoom range....hmmmm "Dear Sony People...."

Loving this week actually am finishing a lot of cases, especially ones that have been out on hold for a while due to clients wishes etc.

This week is so far panning out to be awesome! Hope you are all having a great week and hope you all have a very merry christmas!

OH check out the pic below when I was doing a follow and had a few minutes whilst they ducked into the loo! Loved it! You see some pretty random stuff with my job:)

The Seventh one

Well the year is winding down and many of us are starting to relax and enjoy the festive season. This for me is pure gold! Whilst you're chillaxing with your beer and grub I'm filming you cooking that BBQ in the park...and you claim you can't leave your house pffft. Only down side to this gig is that the people who give us the work are winding down as well and taking breaks soooo less work, or even worse...NO communication. Communication is key when it comes to doing surveillance especially with the people who gave you the gig, they want a certain outcome so you need to communicate as much as possible and keep then constantly in the loop! Whilst this is necessary most of the time the client doesn't answer their phone or don't reply to emails...they make me hate life.

Dislike life very much at the moment right now, with a big work load it means I can't fly home for the holidays..one client even wants me to work Christmas Eve and boxing day...demanding much. My partner has gone back to his homeland for the holidays too, so our first chrissy isn't even spent together :( On a brighter note, just so I'm not alone these holidays I flew a family member up to hang with me. Which makes surveillance time go even quicker when you get to have endless fun conversations.

The weather in my location is helping make life easy, it's and Aussie summer and it's raining and cloudy! Love it! But no seriously sun if you are reading this, please stay away for just a little while longer.

OMG bought a new camera and I am in love! Seriously look up the old school Sony Bloggie, not the new version crap but the one with the swivel head. For all those investigators out there using a key chain camera...drop that crap aside and pick this up! Way easier to use, and you can actually see what you are filming and it is small and discreet. Why buy a fake camera phone, or pen or sunglasses when you can use this?! Ebay I'm fair sure is the only place you can still pick them up. So do yourself a favour and take a look.

I'm noticing that social network sites are my new best friend. Seriously with the new generation of telling ppl everything you are doing every minute of the day is like an invitation that says me "hey man so I'm making this easy for you, seriously, come find me" ...so cheers for that, keep up the good work! People these days are so free on giving up personal information, you'd be surprised what you can find once you start looking. The other day I found one claimant on YouTube! and I was like nice one! Cheers man you just made my job sooo much easier! I actually laughed when I watched it, since in it he contradicts EVERYTHING he was claiming, it was pure gold!

Well I hope if you are reading this that you have a Very Merry Christmas! Don't drink and drive...seriously it's bad. Get lots of prezzies, hug a lot of rellies and get fat on good food!

Enjoy the festive season ppl!

Bunny
xx

The Sixth One

Ok so I know what you are thinking.....

And it's probably something along the lines of "so this chick sits in a car pretty much all day everyday...do investigators get fat?"

The answer to that question is of course; some of us. Many investigators get comfortable and lazy sitting in their cars and find it all too easy to just go through the drive-thru of the nearest maccas...and since this is NSW we also have those terribly delightful Krispe Kremes....I assume most peoples worst enemy. However there are some of us (including myself just FYI) that make sure we don't consume too many carbs on the job and keep up a regular gym routine. Right now I am pretty much sore all over! I'm new to the gym but am so far enjoying it...especially since it is air conditioned!! Some people think that being able to work in a car all day means that I can run my air con....this is of course not the case, I'm not stupid. If I run my air con all day or even turn my engine on nosey neighbours get involved...and I do not want this. So instead I sit in a car, with the windows wound down a little bit and watch and wait. Believe me time feels like it drags when you start to sweat and cook inside your car. So going into a large air conditioned room is like a fresh of breath air.
You can probably tell from reading this that I am not going to enjoy summer...I will seriously hate life.

So we had a training day for Investigators sometime last week (obviously won't mention days or companies) but here's what I learnt;

• What I do pretty much doesn't help in the long run.
• It only helps close or open cases for large clients
• Apparently communication is key
• In regards to the above point- they obviously need to tell this to their employees
• Communication on my end is constant...especially with a telephone message or email (never get replies)
• Mentos lollies are addictive
• Jelly beans make an awesome gift (you eat them through the boring lectures)
• I'm probs the only female under the age of 30 working for my company.

So as you can see I really didn't learn much, nothing applied to my "area" of work. What I did learn though is that I am so effing glad I do not work "factual Investigation" it seems like such a head case. 

Well this sore investigator is signing off for an early night, lemme know what you have learnt this week :)

Bunny

xx

The Fifth One

Today, for lack of a better word...was weird.

I over slept...which is a massive "NO NO" so I seriously had to rush and double check I hadn't left base without the video camera (note to all investigators buy big loud alarm clocks). After a mad dash through lots of traffic I still managed to arrive on time (skills!)...but I guess before I start to say how good I felt, I was walking on level 1 in the WRONG hospital! Who in their right mind puts a public and a private hospital, named the same thing right next to each other?! Clearly I am still getting used to this state.

A mad dash later and I'm walking the halls of level 1 in the right hospital :) Then my phone rings....it's my client.

The claimant I am meant to spot hasn't turned up, yet. So client informs me I am able to go up and talk to the rehab providers and basically have a one on one chat in the claimant and what they are after.

So it's safe to say when you are in a doctors room when you are not there to get a check up it feels pretty weird, it's also weird discussing someone other than yourself to a doctor(slash)lady who provides rehabilitation. You actually even freak out when you are led to a small office where you sit and then dive under a chair when you see the guy you are meant to catch walking into the rehab suite. I felt pretty stupid after I realised it was two-way glass :) It is so weird being able to stand up and film and watch your claimant when you are no more that a metre away from their face! I was able to watch him as he sat staring at a computer screen, you can realise how boring this was so went down stairs and waited in the coffee shop whilst he "did his thing". An hour or so later and he was exiting the elevator on the ground floor. I was able to follow him to his car and get his rego number. Then going to my own car I departed...protocol after this is to genuinely return home with them and watch them go inside or quite possibly get up to something else. Me being the douche that I am and showing how completely unfamiliar I am with the area took the wrong exit and found myself having to drive for an extra 25km before I could even perform a U-Turn. I was seriously hating life.BUT I still managed to get to the claimants residence, and lucky for me he was home, and with the way I drive...well he wouldn't have had time to do much else besides leave and go home.

After that boring escapade I got to go to another hospital and await for a male worker to leave on his bicycle. They have given me a photo of the male, and have told me he exits on a certain street. This street however is quite possibly the busiest street in the suburb. So I hang around and sure enough my gut instincts were correct and I had absolutely no luck getting the male. I would love to know how clients get their information, because if it is collected from the claimants then they should know by now that they all lie.

Seriously if anyone claiming any sort of injury or injustice or anything, it works out better for you if you just tell the truth. If you lie, I'll catch you out and then you'll hate me...when really you should be hating yourself.

Anyway I'm side tracking here, I ended up going to his house and seeing if he had possibly all ready made it home. To double check I walked around his apartment block. This is when the nosey neighbours come out...except today it was quite possible his mum! She asked if I was lost or needed help, so me being the young believable female I am played the "frantic" card and pleaded to her if she had seen my lost dog...she hadn't of course but permitted me to keep looking around the complex. Fake tears for the win!

I left a short while later, I get the gut feeling that he doesn't live with his mum and just has it as his postal address...I'll catch him though.

Well ta-ta for now

Bunny
xx

The Fourth One

Days like these is when you genuinely like to do surveillance.

It's cool and grey in degrees and surroundings which in turn means that the vehicle you do surveillance in is nice and cool, or snuggly warm and you aren't dying from the heat, and if it rains, well you're undercover.

However, you seriously dislike days like today when you are OUTSIDE! In the CBD with lots of buses and walking people and the street you are in is like a freaking wind tunnel! It is so not cool! You end up sitting there freezing hoping the person you are meant to catch is quick and hurries up and goes home. Except that today that they decide oh we won't do a quick appointment, we'll do one that must last more than 2 hours! In essence, I now dislike you. I don't know you, but the fact that I'm sitting here all cold, wet and my hands are like ice blocks...I seriously dislike you.

And then the buses! Of course they had to have the appointment in the public transport hub...seriously what do people think when they book these appointments? "Oh I need to see what she looks like so I'll make the appointment in the CBD and in the busiest part"...this translates to the investigator "F**K my my life, why must you make this hard" Seriously if people wanted to get results they'd make any appointments people have to attend out in the suburbs. But as I have been told, and as I am learning...Clients have no idea what we do, or what we have to go through.

So today whilst you were either sitting in your home, curled up in bed or sitting at your desk...please spare a thought for all the investigators that were outside in the rain trying to catch your cheating spouse, the local thief or the people fraudulently using our tax money.

Thanks to the people who managed to keep my amused by sending an abundance of text messages. I seriously love technology, it makes life so much more interesting. Plus is helps me locate and find people, FYI Google is a very powerful tool for my trade. It's amazing how much you can find with just a simple search.

I also found myself focused so intently on the entrance to the building I had to cover that I didn't realise that I'd started dancing to "Moves like Jagger" which could be heard blearing from this random guys headphones, didn't realise till he took them off and said "can you hear that better?" he seemed so genuine I just smiled and said "That's ok". I was actually embarrassed at myself. I good friend of mine says that "life stops when you stop dancing" and I'd have to agree. For those people out there that don't like dance, slight toe tapping to your favourite song still counts!

Am stumped about where to start tomorrow...I think my Clients need to be spoken to, especially to clear up a fair amount of instructions...If you ever need someone to do surveillance for you, please give clear instructions :)

Well this Investigator needs to sign off and recharge the batteries
Bunny
xx

The Third One

So it's days like these you absolutely HATE life!

Ok maybe hate is a strong word...so I guess on days like these you seriously DISLIKE life :)

Your day starts at 4am when your alarm decides to go off after about an hour of sound sleep, the rest of the night of course spent trying to fall asleep. So you shower and get all your junk ready, tell the puppy she's cute and adorable and then head to work.

You're on the road at 5am or so and the motor way is all ready busy! You can't go 110km and hour because of how clogged it is and you end up driving at a snails pace most of the way.

You eventually get to where you need to go, and once you've finally found a decent vantage point you turn the ignition off and listen to the morning breakfast radio (this of course is the most memorable part of the day).

About an hour and 45 minutes later the person you are after FINALLY decides to show themselves (just after you thought you'd have a boring day) and they get into their car and pull away from the curb...you sneakily and most stealthily start to follow and thank the heavens that you actually get some action.

But you thanked them all too soon since you just got to the traffic lights at the main intersection and you have a truck blocking your access to the right lane and OF COURSE the person in front of you isn't an aussie and drives like a grandma so STOPS at the first of an orange light and the person you were following drives away.

So I seriously dislike the person in front of me and I curse like a donkey screaming from walking on hot coal and now I hate life! You conduct a mass search, try to hard to find them...buuutttt no such luck :( I am full devo at that point. Then I remember that hey I have more people to go watch...and you make a mental note to not allow people in front of you when conducting surveillance on this person....

Today was a very boring day. Tomorrow shall hopefully be a tad more interesting :)

Bunny
xoxo

The Second One

Finally met another female! She may be a student but she still counts! She seems cool, and will hopefully help her out with work once she has finished her study :)
Really hope I get to meet some NICE female investigators at the Christmas "do" at work in a couple of weeks, I emphasise the word "nice" since I have all ready learned that this is a back stabbing industry. Well not necessarily back stabbing but even though we investigators follow the dodgey people, but be careful what you say around other investigators...I'm the victim of a fellow investigator slipping a few words into what he thought was a genuine conversation with a female investigator whom works for the same company....now she doesn't like me because I guess I was given some opportunities she used to have and now if I ever work with her, I need to watch my back. Seriously if you ever consider this profession think carefully to what you're getting yourself in for. It isn't the usual office cat fights, it's a matter of fighting to keep your career and your good reputation.

On other news...I've started writing a book, nothing major, nothing too glitzy but it will be along the lines of Investigation in the fictional world. A story line where a girl gets wrapped up in the world of Investigation and find her self being threatened by an unknown source. Kinda hope to make it a series of books, based in Australia of course. Have so far written three chapters...I myself am not happy with it, but the select few who have read it so have (all 4 people) have liked it, so unless they are just being kind, it must be ok. Wouldn't know what to do after I finish it, guess I'll have to use Google to find that answer.

Received a text message from a friend today informing me he will be unreachable for a while since he's being posted to a ship, so if I want to reach him to try email :( kinda weird knowing that a friend will be out there somewhere and the only way to reach him in this technological world will be by email. Was really happy when I found out he was going to be posted in Sydney, was sad knowing he was going away now he's off shore. Guess I was glad knowing that a friend from my old life was going to be with me in my new one, now he's left, and all ties are back in Adelaide. I really miss my friends. They say you can't chose your family, but the truth is - you can.

Not looking forward to tomorrow...it's going to be a difficult job, it makes you hate life when you know the person you are watching is surveillance aware. Even more hiding in the shadows. Least I know I'm good at what I do, clients are starting to ask for me, so guess it's a sign I'm doing right by them :) Still nervous for December 2nd...the stuff they said they would send hasn't come through yet :(

Well that's enough for now
Will keep you posted
Bunny
xx

The First one.

Well guess this is how you start a blog :)

I love to write so all you sorry people who decide to read my random thoughts I manage to type out whilst coherent will be in for some fun times haha...or maybe not.

Well I've been working in NSW now as a Private Investigator for a little over 5 months now, people say that I should keep what I do for a living secret but if I'm honest...you wouldn't pick me out of a crowd, so why not risk it? What I do is interesting and it's different. Of course I will not indulge in any cases or locations of where I am currently working so those who are after all specific details, you may as well stop reading now.

So far I am the only female investigator that I know, I have heard of a few others but am yet to meet them personally, I have met perhaps 5 young male investigators all under the age of 30 but have met over a dozen of older male investigators. So if there are any lady PI's out there, please let yourself known to me, I would like to swap war stories :)

Life in NSW away from family and friends is a challenge, especially on my social life since I like to call myself a social butterfly. Alas my past time activities of catching up with friends has been reduced to spending time at home with my crazy puppy. She is cute, but very hyperactive. Hopefully social life will change after a friend from SA makes the move up and she and I can hit the town on the weekends and meet new people.

The people I have met have all been nice and genuine. The best one so far is my house mate, a fellow PI that was pretty much dumped on me when he first started, I had to "take him under my wing" which is what my boss made me do, glad he did tho cos he is just great :)

So far everything has been great, oh except for one thing...but with out going into too much detail...long distance relationships DON'T work! So word to the wise, try to avoid them! What sucked the most when I first moved up was the phone call I received at about 3am in the morning with my little sister calling me to announce she was engaged! I wish I could have been there to hug her and share the excitement, instead I got to sleep for another hour before getting up for work.

One thing that is not so cool about my work is the extremely early mornings...you can wave goodbye to a 6am sleep in :( but the work is worth it. Of course it is not what I want to do for the rest of my life but it's a stepping stone to what I want to achieve.

Well I reckon this is long enough, and you're all probs yawning from boredom...

Ciao for now
Bunny.