Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Delimma

This is a post that is definitely different than my usual, however it still may pertain to the general theme. :) This job has its stresses, its ups and its down. Yet, somehow, they seem to be easier to handle within the job than in my personal life. I have a dear friend, who at one point worked in this field. She's what I would tongue-in-cheek call, "emergency services royalty" her father is a career fire fighter who is one of our assistant chiefs, and her mother is an ER lifer. She's also an alcoholic. She left the PD a month and half ago in order to seek help, specifically, AA. Two days ago, she fell off the wagon. I'm so torn right now because I know I need to call her parents, who have threatened her with rehab if she relapsed, but at the same time I want to give her another chance to get it together. My brother is accusing me of ignoring the problem and coddling her, I don't feel that this is the case because being an alcoholic isn't her only issue. I just don't want to betray her, but I want her to get help. Sometimes, what makes me so good at this job, makes me a horrible friend.

Monday, May 21, 2012

There's nothing better than being able to sit down with a few of your closest fellow dispatchers (i.e. the ones you hang out with outside of work) or officers and reminisce about either the most bizarre calls, callers, and instances. I do complain ( a lot ), but I'm pretty blessed to have some of the best officers a department could have. True, sometimes they make me want to choke them and departmental politics gets everyone twisted up from time to time, but overall, they make this job fun. There's also a rare feature among them, several are former dispatchers. This department prefers to pull from dispatchers when hiring from patrol. Yes, you still have to pass the physical (pushups suck, by the way. They are by no means, perfect, but I've been around a lot of agencies and a lot of police officers, troopers and deputies. Let's say I have a unique group of people and I'm glad to call them friends.