24/7
I've been thinking recently about the intersection of my work life and personal life. You might say that I'm a workaholic. It definitely wasn't something that happened overnight, but it's made me the private investigator I am today.
There was an instance, back when I used to work as an officer, where we received an anonymous tip alerting us to a potential predator working out of an apartment building in the slums. We were assigned in shifts to watch the building. I drew the short straw and got stuck watching the building from midnight to six AM.
After three days of watching, we were almost certain that the tip was a fake. However, we decided to continue observing the house for another 24 hours to be certain. It was on that fourth night, at three in the morning, that I spotted a man entering the house with a twelve-year-old boy.
This was reasonable suspicion, and the force quickly assembled to break into the apartment. As it turns out, the apartment was being used by pedophiles to manufacture child pornography; they had been doing this for almost three months before being shut down by the law.
It was after that case that I realized the importance of applying myself to a case at all hours, even those inconvenient or uncomfortable. As an officer, you're never really off-the-clock.
The same goes for a PI.