This article is a continuation of our multi part series about private investigators, picking up where we left off.

If you're thinking about becoming a private investigator you may want to know what you're getting yourself into. The working conditions are not always easy or pleasant. The hard truth is, private investigators and detectives can and do work very irregular and long hours because of the need to stake out a person's residence, if they're following someone. The same goes if they're conducting interviews, not everyone they need to speak with works the same hours and are therefore not home at the same time. Many times a detective will need to speak with someone at their place of employment. If they're working the graveyard shift at a hospital that means the investigator is up some very late hours. Don't plan on getting a lot of sleep while an investigation is ongoing.

This doesn't mean that an investigator doesn't spend some time in the office. Quite often the work he needs to do involves doing computer searches and making phone calls to the person or company that hired him or even to people he needs to interview. Investigators who own their own agencies and have other investigators working for them may spend most of their time in the office and have very normal business hours. Of course owning your own agency is not something most investigators start off by doing. That is something that usually takes many years to work up to unless they just happen to have a lot of money to begin with.

When an investigator is away from the office, the environment he or she works in can range anywhere from a four star hotel suite to the back of an alley or a seedy bar. They may meet with respected businessmen who earn billions of dollars a year or a prostitute working the local street corner. A private detective sees every walk of life and every place imaginable, and some not so imaginable. Sometimes they will have to mix in public and be in plain view and others, they will be totally alone when observing their suspect. Sometimes the work is very safe and at other times they are literally taking their life in their hands.

Some of the work does involve confrontation with a suspect. That is why many private detectives also have a license to carry a gun. All too often they are forced to use violence to subdue a violent suspect. This makes a detective's job extremely stressful at times, especially when being assigned to be a bodyguard for some famous celebrity who has received death threats. An investigator must be constantly on the watch for any potential threat to his client.

Not all the work a detective does is stressful or dangerous. Sometimes assignments are as simple as just following some lady's husband to see if he's meeting with the local town bimbo. Once the suspect is spotted in the meet and photos are taken, which is usually the procedure in cases like this, the investigator simply returns to his client, photos in hand and his job is done.

Yes, being a private investigator is far from boring. Just make sure you're prepared for anything.

In our next article we'll go over training required to be a private investigator.

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Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Private Investigators
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