Anti-Social Quotes

“Anti-social behaviour is like pornography: hard to define, but you know it when you see it.”
― Nick Pettigrew, Anti-Social: The Secret Diary of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer

“My job largely existed not because of how terrible humanity is, but because humanity has some pretty terrible coping mechanisms for stress, ignorance, despair and frustration. These can often involve thoughtlessness, lashing out or reckless disregard for other people’s feelings, which can look a lot like vindictiveness or malice, but are often just the howl of the powerless.”
― Nick Pettigrew, Anti-Social: The Secret Diary of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer

“It wasn’t something I was looking forward to, (…), because the amount of paperwork involved would be more of a ballache than galloping on a bony horse over rough terrain. So it kept getting put to one side.”
― Nick Pettigrew, Anti-Social: The Secret Diary of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer

“The fact that they remained unsworn-at is testament to my consummate professionalism.”
― Nick Pettigrew, Anti-Social: The Secret Diary of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer

“What follows is a year in my job: a job I’ve done for over a decade, and which has stretched the limits of my patience, compassion and sanity. By the end, I hope you will have some insight into how the framework that keeps society functioning is now a spun-sugar latticework of making do, doing without and hoping nothing goes tragically wrong.”
― Nick Pettigrew, Anti-Social: The Secret Diary of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer

“peering through people’s letterboxes demanding to know if they had ever seen a giraffe close up.”
― Nick Pettigrew, Anti-Social: The Secret Diary of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer

“he proudly mentions the degree he has in law as proof he can handle this, which is like volunteering to be dropped into the war in Syria because you’re really good at Call of Duty on the Xbox.”
― Nick Pettigrew, Anti-Social: The Secret Diary of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer

“The police told me one thing which will haunt me forever: ‘We think when he died he was writing out Christmas cards to himself from his cats.”
― Nick Pettigrew, Anti-Social: The Secret Diary of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer

“A resident took offence at being woken up at the crack of afternoon by this noise (it was just after 1pm when the incident occurred).”
― Nick Pettigrew, Anti-Social: The Secret Diary of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer

“Colleagues in the office are discussing Britain leaving the EU because the government was compelled to trigger Article 50 (they weren’t) after a referendum nobody wanted produced a clear mandate (it didn’t), because the majority of the country want to leave the EU (they don’t) for reasons that were clearly explained (they weren’t) following a campaign that was run fairly, honestly and legally (it wasn’t).”
― Nick Pettigrew, Anti-Social: The Secret Diary of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer

“I think the last meeting I went to with biscuits was sometime back in 2012. My friends who work in the private sector often enjoy telling me about the latest jaunt their company has put on – gig tickets for the O2, a boozy day out at the seaside or whatnot. Occasionally, I’ll accidentally bring home a biro from work that I decide to keep.”
― Nick Pettigrew, Anti-Social: The Secret Diary of an Anti-Social Behaviour Officer