Radar!

As a manager we manage staff, who most of the time just come to work and get on with their jobs, but occasionally even the most sensible of them do the most stupid things. Unfortunately, human curiosity of boredom (or both) is often the cause of their downfall. As this apparently true story demonstrates…

Two police officers were sent out for the morning to check for motorists exceeding the prescribed forty miles per hour speed limit on the A912 (Dunkeld Rd) on the outskirts of Perth. It was mid-morning, and the traffic was very light (and well behaved). Both offices were getting rather bored with the lack of activity when in the distance they could see a pair of RAF fighter jets returning north to RAF Lossiemouth and one of the officers nudged the other and said, “what speed do you think they are doing?” the other office replied, “I’ll soon tell you” He then pointed the radar gun at the approaching aircraft. Unfortunately, the display on the back of the gun went blank and they were unable to obtain a speed reading. Undeterred they then resumed their monitoring of approaching motorists only to find that the radar gun was no longer working at all. They had little choice but to abandon their task and return to the police station. Upon their arrival they were met by the Chief Superintendent of the traffic division who bellowed at them “my office now!!” where he informed them, he had just had a very painful conversation with the Commanding Officer at RAF Lossiemouth who was asking why police offices were checking the speed of his aircraft? He also pointed out that the radar gun had most likely been destroyed by the aircraft defence systems. He also pointed out the aircraft was also capable of automatically firing a missile at the radar source too, but fortunately for the police officers the system wasn’t armed!