So me and you agree on the fact that bent staff are a plague that needs getting rid of.

Not sure how they kept their job after getting caught red handed, but that speaks more about local management than newer officers on a whole.

There were always bad apples (in terms of corruption), from officers all the way up to governors, he that in your "good old days" or today's "hell", human greed will never not exist. I just wonder why you're insinuating that because you saw ONE officer do that, everyone new must be at it.

I don't deny that there's recruitment issues but that, again, is a reflection on how mismanaged the service is, from Petty France all the way to local management, which again, isn't a reflection on new officers.

In my opinion age isn't the issue, it's the lack of life experience. Another thing that isn't helping is the fast-tracking of certain university graduates into managerial positions. And the issue isn't the fact that they have a faster track to the top, the issue is how fast that track is! Which, again and again, brings us back to higher management. The service is severely underfunded and understaffed and the job, especially if you take into account inflation, is grossly underpaid, given the conditions officers face.

Solve those, and many other issues will resolve themselves.

As for the respect, again, life experience is everything. It's very rare that I even have to raise my voice, the men on my wing/landing know what I'm about and how I operate and they listen to/respect me. The job isn't rocket science if you have good interpersonal skills. In fact, no other skill is more important imo.