10. When following someone in your car, especially at night, make sure that you periodically turn on your floodlights, so if the person you are following is paranoid and looking in their rear view mirror, you look like a different car and they don't catch on that they are being followed.
9. Typically by the time someone is desperate enough to hire an investigator they have had ALL their friends and family follow the person of interest, which makes it very difficult for the investigator to properly gather information. Therefore creativity comes into play. Always be on your toes and ready to switch plans at the drop of a hat! Be prepared with information on where the person of interest visits and hangs out in case they try and give you the slip!
8. Investigating is very much like acting. Taking on different characters is the name of the game. One minute I am a business woman on vacation hanging at the bar, and the next I am a college student who is laying out by the pool at a apartment complex. I can be whatever I need to be to gain access to the person of interest (and believe me, I have been many characters).
7. If you are doing an all night surveillance, which is what A LOT of what private investigating is, make sure you bring things to entertain yourself. You WILL be sitting in your car all night, with it NOT running (because who sits in a car with it running all night and doesn't get the cops call on them?). Now-a-days you can be entertained with iPhone's and other devises. Not to date myself, but all I had was a flip phone and NO internet capabilities. It would be much easier to stay awake all night now searching Pinterest and Facebook!!!
6. Now the company you work for should do this for you, but make sure that the cops are informed that you will be sitting in a specific car on a specific street all night and not to come arrest you. You would be surprised how many nosy neighbors are just itching to call the police on unidentified cars in their neighborhood! Hats off to the neighborhood watch, but MAN, you just blew my investigation!!
5. DO NOT inform the client that you are currently witnessing their spouse, or whomever, cheating and tell them where you are!!! This is actually a very serious point. In this line of work you will be witnessing cheating, lying, and unfaithful spouses, and if you inform the client what is going on and where...when it is happening, rage takes over and people get hurt. People have died because investigators told information to clients at the WRONG time. Document, video tape, and go home!!! Meet with the client at the office on another day! OK, I'm off my soap box!
4. Be prepared not to have many close friends. As an investigator you have to be prepared for people to always think you are investigating someone. When I started as an investigator I was new to Houston, and as I was meeting new people, conversation of what I did for a living came up. Needless to say, people were drawn to the idea of someone being a PI, but everyone's guilty conscience also came into play. People...I'm not following you!!
3. When installing surveillance cameras inside someones house, make sure you point the camera in the hallway TO the bedroom....not IN the bedroom. No one wants to see that!!! You can get the hint of what is happening in the bedroom if you see the person of interest AND someone else head down the hallway to the bedroom. He's not giving a tour of the house!
2. FOLLOW THAT CAR!!! An exciting perk, at least to me, in private investigating is when you get a case where you are following someone on a business trip. To actually be able to say, "follow that car" once you leave the airport is awesome!! I really felt like James Bond...although he wasn't a private investigator.
1. Write that down for me, please!! Probably one of the coolest skills I learned from being a PI was being able to decipher if someone is lying based on their written statement. I was trained to read witness statements, and based on how they wrote their letters and arranged their words, I could tell if they were lying or not. Its not the most useful skill in the real world because people don't write on paper anymore...its all emails and texts. Technology!
Well there you have it. A few tid-bits on being a PI. I have gained many skills from this career choice, but also went through some scary moments. I have many more stories that I plan to share in other posts, but until then.....be faithful, love your spouse and always be honest. Who knows....someone could be watching you now.... :)
x.o. Sara
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