It goes for all professions, but some folks are a little too big for their britches when they’re on the job.

And the cop you’re going to hear about definitely fits into that category!

Check out how his tenacity ended up backfiring and he got fired.

Let’s start reading now!

Policeman loses job over seal.

“We all know how almighty the local law enforcement staff can feel and how they sometimes punch down on people, especially minorities.

Take solace, friends, in knowing a friend of mine ruined one’s career. I know that was a vengeful entrance, please be gentle with me:

Some time back an old colleague and friend of mine was working as a truck driver, pushing around sea containers. Now I don’t know which laws apply to which country, but here in Germany only the customer may break the seal on one of those.

If customs procedure has been done beforehand, dunno how that works, or if the customs office explicitly grants you permission to open and unload, which they, of course, also can deny/withhold.

There are rules about all this stuff.

Mind you it’s just opening and unloading, paperwork would still have to be done and the customs office can block the goods, for whatever reason, or even drop by, even unannounced, to inspect the goods.

Did I say only? Nah; OR the customs officers themselves can break the seal to inspect the goods, for whatever reason they see fit.

Cue the new policeman in the local department, a youngster trying to earn his stars and stripes (right, they don’t become OFFICERS anymore, cause the government seems to have realized, they still have scumbags abusing their power. And of course it gets costly.)

Hold it right there!

This guy stops said friend, let’s call him Martin, for the sake of simplicity, for a simple traffic control (later gone out of hand), checks him, checks the papers, the documents, all good…?!

Nah; my man couldn’t find a thing wrong (remember you have to actually find stuff to get upgraded, which is why the fresh ones are so persnickety) and proceeds to go check the goods, the securing etc.

Martin instantly was like: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, dude, you can’t do that.”

The policeman: “Of course I can, I’m a police officer!”.

Don’t do it!

Martin: “No dude, you’re LITERALLY NOT ALLOWED to do that.”

Policeman: “Yes, I am. Get outta my way!”, proceeds to break the seal, opens up the container and so on.

Martin, who did his due diligence, quite calmly went to the front, grabbed his cell and called the local customs office and explained them the situation, that he tried to stop the madman.

I kid you not, before it was a truck and a police car on the sidelines (and trust me, police here sometimes take their time, letting you wait in the middle of winter, in the middle of nowhere for 3 hours, it happened to me before), in under 8 minutes (customs office is fast, if they get mad, apparently), the traffic was screwed  with a truck accident on a snowy highway.

I saw it from the window and thought: “God, am I glad to still be at work and not standing in line there.”

This was gonna be interesting…

Customs office pulled in with one sedan, which arrived first, the guy apparently shoved the policeman aside, calling him all sorts of names, like: “Are you outta your mind, you imbecile?! You’re a measly policeman, who in the actual world did grant you permission to overstep your boundaries?!, yada yada yada” and so on.

Two minutes later, two more Mercedes Vito from the customs office showed up, a few more minutes later two sprinters from the BAG (literally translates to “federal office of cargo haulage”), dunno why they called them in, but lemme tell you only the customs office is above these guys.

While the police are an “authority” the BAG is a federal agency, dunno how else to describe it, other than that they have a fixed set of cars across all Germany, police drive different brands in each state, and contrary to the police they don’t necessarily show up in couples, meaning they don’t need another guy playing witness for them.) and like half an hour later (figures) a few police cars, with the local chief.

This was a mess…

Traffic was screwed for like another 2 hours, Martin had to leave the truck and the cargo at the local customs office’s parking lot and took a few days off (he was still required to either stand witness, or write a witness report, dunno which), customer was mad, there was a bit of damage, due to JIT and so on and the policeman apparently got fired rather quickly from what we’ve heard.

Martin was merely following protocol (you don’t want to be responsible for a broken seal, trust me), but was celebrated a hero for the coming weeks among the local truck drivers (apparently the police were quite sassy and intrusive lately).”

That policeman really should’ve listened! He had no idea what he was doing was going to be such a huge mess.

Let’s see what folks had to say on Reddit.

This is what I was picturing too!

Another Reddit user shared details about international shipping.

This individual shared info about how it works in the US.

Exactly, ex policeman!

This cop really needed to listen!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.