The "I couldn't do your job" comment

I get this a lot when I tell people I am a 911 dispatcher. The instant interest and the comment "I couldn't do your job". In a lot of cases, that's probably true. Not everyone can do the job that myself and my fellow dispatchers do. It's not easy. I tell people it is the best, worst, most rewarding, hardest, most stressful, amazing job ever. The first and easiest thing you have to do is be able to multi-task. You must be able to simultaneously listen to a phone call, radio traffic, and your fellow dispatchers all at the same time. It's a lot to keep up with, and yes, I did say that was the easiest part of my job. On top of keeping up with all of that, you need to also be able to remember where every officer said they were and keep it logged in the computer. If you do not keep up with where your units are, whether they are police, ems, or firefighters. If you do not know where they are then you can not send help when they yell for help. The tiniest piece of info can be vital. An officer may tell you that he has stopped at a particular gas station. It doesn't sound like a vital piece of information at first. But what if he walks into a robbery in progress? What if he walks in and gets shot and only has time to yell for help? What do you do if you can't remember where he said he was stopping to get a soda? The one piece of information that slips through the cracks can be the piece that keeps someone safe and gets them home to their families at the end of the night.

Next is the level of busy. People call 911 constantly. It is rare, even in my smallish town, that an hour passes without at least one call. On a busy day, where there is a storm or a big event, I may take upwards of 300 calls in an 8 hour shift. I looked one time at the end of a huge storm and saw I had taken about 312 calls. Some of the people who have been there longer than I have have seen even more than that. There are times when it is all you can do to keep up. You may be hungry, but you have no time to eat. You may need to go to the restroom and have no time to go. Your needs and bodily functions wait if need be. It is not a desk job where you can walk away and your paperwork will still be there when you get back. If you leave, and there aren't enough people to answer the phones, a missed call can be someones life ending. Is every day that busy? No. Can you predict when it will be like that? Again no. You never know what you are walking into in my job. You never know when it will go from being quiet, where you are settled back reading, to chaos in a second. You will never know if the call coming in is something basic or a disaster. The stress level fluctuates and it can go through the roof in an instant.

Now, to the most complex part of my job. The callers. People call 911 at some of the worst moments in their lives. You have to ask them to try to calm down and answer questions while their lives are falling apart. My number one least favorite part of a call is when I ask "Where are you?" and get "I don't know" in return. The first and top piece of information I need is where you are. I can work through everything else to get you help if I know where to send it. Keep aware of where you are. If you need help, you want them to be able to find you. As an emergency call taker, we have certain information we need to get from our callers. Our responding units need to know what they are dealing with when they get there. People get angry at us for asking questions because they are panicking. They don't know how to calm down and answer. I've had people cuss me and scream "Just send them just send them just send them". I don't get to give up and hang up or throw in the towel. I have to fight through their panic with them and get the information we need. We need to know if there is danger for the responders and we need to prepare them. We have to find out what the situation is, because in certain situations we can help. If someone is not breathing, we can help the caller by giving CPR instructions. If someone is bleeding we can help with instructions on how to apply and maintain pressure. We need information so that we can provide information. We need information so we can make sure that help gets there quickly, safely, and with the right equipment.

So could you do my job? Maybe, maybe not. It's not an easy job. I've cried with callers and felt my heart break for them. I've been screamed at and wished I could yell back. I've heard some of the most pointless things and wanted to be a smart aleck. I've rolled my eyes, I've sighed, I've been rendered speechless. I've cried, I've hurt, I've gone home to stand and look at my family and reassure myself they are safe after some of the stuff I've heard. I've left my home in the middle of a storm where I worried for my family and gone to work to help keep other people's families safe. I've gone to work, sick, injured, exhausted. So have the other amazing people I work with. We endure because we are needed. And we will keep doing it for as long as we are needed. It's an amazing job, it's never the same two days in a row, and it's never easy. But we will be there when you need us, a calm voice on the other end of the line, ready to send the help you need.

Fly traps...the little known dangers

Next time you see a fly trap look at it from a 2 year old's perspective. It's brightly colored, shiny, sticky looking like a fruit roll-up. Perhaps that is what started the events of the evening. The baby came running into the back of the house with the air of a child who has stolen a magnificent treat and must hide it quickly. Want to guess what that "treat" was? He had found a fly trap, which HAD been in a secure, baby proofed cabinet. Have you ever tried to wash glue off the hands and face of a very small child? Especially if the glue is....persistent? The box the fly trap came from said, "If this product comes into contact with skin, wash with warm water and soap". Obviously, flies can read and this was put on the box to give them false hope. Soap and water just made the glue on the skin into clean glue. In the process of this washing, now Mommy and baby are both coated with glue. Plan B, soak in warm water failed royally. Plan C, scrub hard with washrag and pouf failed too. Plan D, use a baby wipe (which as everyone knows contains magical properties that remove stains of all varieties) also failed. By this time, I was crying, my adult helpers were crying, the baby was crying, and the bathroom was flooded by Plans A and B.

Should this ever happen to you, the solution is vegetable oil. Dab it on with a cotton ball, let it set on the skin for a few minutes and then gently wipe off.

I need a tranquilizer and a Benadryl. Lesson 2 for the day: I'm allergic to anti-bacterial dish detergent.

Karma

One of my newest favorite quotes is "Only a deep and abiding belief in karma keeps me off the roof with an AK-47". I love it. Simply put and very true. I have always believed in karma, even when I was a little bitty girl. Whatever it is that you put into the world comes back to you. I makes sense after all. You don't plant an old boot and grow a sunflower. If you sow trash, you reap trash. Lately, I've been having trouble remembering that and holding true to what I believe. Small and petty thoughts have crept in and I've wished bad things for someone who persists in hurting me just because he can. My inner child has been stamping her foot and screaming "NOT FAIR! NOT FAIR". I need some help getting back to who I am and what I believe. No revenge, for karma sorts us all out in the end. And so, readers, if there are any out there, how do you cope when you have someone difficult in your life?

The Art of Being Cordial

In the past 4 years I have discovered that there is an art to being cordial. And like all art, not everyone is capable of accomplishing the task. I'm polite to people, usually. Nice even, most of the time. Does that mean I like everyone? Not. A. Chance. I'd say that a few more times to get the point across but I'm going to assume you can just reread it if necessary. Being polite and cordial is not something I practiced, it is an inborn skill. I always find myself thinking that deep down I don't know what the person being ugly is going through, and forgiving them on technicalities. If that doesn't work, I think how I feel when someone says hateful things to me and that is usually enough to prevent me from opening my mouth and letting fly. Lately, I've started wondering if that is a good thing though. The world has gotten rude and cruel. People are mean for the sake of it and rude because they are angry, whether it's at you or someone else. There are less and less people who will be polite because it's the right thing to do and I've started wondering if I should be one of those people who fights fire with fire. So far, I have managed not to....most of the time. I'm not perfect, a couple times I've lost my temper completely and said every ugly, nasty, hateful, unkind thing in my mind. It hurts me to think back on that, because once it's out, you can never unsay it. Even if you apologize, it is out there forever. I think I will keep it the way it is now. It does come across as weak sometimes, but I'm happier appearing weak to those who don't know any better than I would be if I became one of those people who used words as a weapon.

Yet Again Battling The Bed...

It is after midnight and once again I have just barely gotten the baby to lay down. I got no back talk this time, just pitiful crying. Again I've tried everything I could to try to get him to sleep. I sang, I cuddled, I patted, I rocked. Finally I ended up sitting on the floor, singing and patting. My hip is screaming and it took me 10 minutes after the baby fell asleep to get up off the floor. The things we do for our children. Off to try to get some writing done...carve out the time while we have it.

Too much? Too little?

I've been working on my book tonight and I find I'm stuck on a couple issues. When I first started writing, the couple of friends I trusted enough to let read my progress suggested that I add in more descriptions. I did that. I printed out what I had and went through and added descriptive details to everything I had...tried to create a picture with words so that anyone who reads it will "see" what I am envisioning as I write. Now I look back and begin to worry. What if I have added too much detail? What if the things I am describing are not done well or are too overdone? I think it's a balancing act. I find that the best way I can handle that is to print out the book on paper and making changes and edits that way. I know when I finally get finished I will look back and change a hundred different things. It feels like a constant see-saw effect. Back to balancing now! I'm hoping to finish this chapter before it's time to lay down.

The Conversations that Become Stories

I've been sitting here at work talking to and laughing with some of my favorite people to work with. Our conversations are all over the place and you never know what's going to come up. More than once a conversation, or even a sentence has inspired part of the story in my book. I love it...and if I ever do get published I hope my coworkers will laugh when they find themselves in the book.

Job vs. Writing

Let me say first that I really enjoy my job. I work at a 911 center. It is never the same two days in a row. We dispatch three different police agencies, occasionally work with our state patrol, two different ems services, and the fire department. We answer emergency calls and non-emergency calls. It is not an easy job. I have taken calls that have broken my heart and I have taken some of the most ridiculous calls you can imagine. I've laughed, I've rolled my eyes, and I've cried like a baby. I work 3rd shift and it can make writing difficult. Occasionally, in the quiet of the night, I have time to work on my book, but it's hard. I can be on a roll, but if a 911 line rings or an officer calls on the radio, I have to stop an and answer. Work comes first...especially with a job like mine. If I don't answer the phone, or I miss a piece of radio traffic, it can literally cost someone their life. Third shift throws you off to because it puts you on an opposite schedule from the rest of the world. Did I mention I have kids too? It is hard to carve out time to write, but one of my favorite writers, Yasmine Galenorn, puts up blogs pretty often with tips. I actually started blogging because I was so inspired by some of the things she puts up. She says that you have to make time and have faith in your talent. I'm trying...even if it is in 20 minute increments here and there. Time to get ready for work!

A New Goal

I've decided that two months between blogs can't truly count as giving this a try, so I'm going to try to post more often. Even if I am the only one reading these things I write. My head has been a cacophany of thoughts today. There is absolutely no order to be found. I've thought about my new excercise routine and goals and diet. I've thought about anger and what it can do to you if you let it. I've thought about friendship. I've thought about future plans. I've thought about past choice choices. I've thought about how funny it might be to read these posts later if I ever make it as a writer and what it would feel like to have other people read my words. Right now, I carve out time to write in the midst of the rest of my life. I have a full-time job. I have children. I have a husband. I have a house to clean and meals to cook and bills to pay. I am in the middle of a long and challenging dispute with an ex that is causing massive heartbreak to many people. I write here and there and when I can. I write and I daydream that someday, someone will read my books and find peace from turmoil and a place to escape when the world presses in, because that is what books have always been for me and is part of the reason I want so much to be a writer.

The Battle of the Bed

I have been trying to get to my computer to write all night but instead I've been arguing with my youngest son. Have you ever tried to argue with someone who can't really talk? It's not easy. The phrases he does have all seem to be back talk at the moment, unless he's being sweet. Tonight I heard several of his new back talk phrases (thank you so much to his older siblings for THAT example). Me: Buddy, you got to get in your bed and stay in your bed. Baby: U go to u bed an u stay in u bed. Me: Where is Monk? (his favorite stuffed toy he must sleep with and go everywhere else with) Baby: Munk munk gone gone. Where he go? No go night night. I tried everything. I laid him down and left the room. He followed me. As a side note, neither of my older boys EVER opened doors or got out of bed after they had been laid down. I'm in uncharted territory here. I sang, I rocked him. I tried every known way of getting him to lay down. Every time I walked away from the door, I was followed by tiny feet. It is after 11:30 pm and he has just now quieted down and I'm hoping he is in his bed. He may be sleeping on the floor...but that is a battle for another day.