An update on my previous blog, perhaps it finally sank in, lol. I'm in the middle of one of my wonderful 12 straight weeks, when I got a text from my friend telling me that she had broken it off with her fiancee'. So, when I finally dragged myself away, (and turned down at date at the gym with my crush) I went to talk to her.

I'm really just relieved that she's coming to understand the situation that she was in and I (selfishly, I'm sure) made a point to remind her that she was one of the fortunate ones who have a support system and have the ability to make the break.

So, I feel much better about the situation and hopefully everything will work out!

In light of some recent developments in a friend of mine's life, I really feel like getting this in writing.

I can hear the collective groans from my intrepid readers :)

Domestic violence and abuse is an extremely sore subject with me and never fails to really just tick me off. Slight background on the subject, my dad grew up in an abusive home and I've dealt with enough kids through high school that I'm familiar with the signs and the inevitable escalation that occurs whenever a woman or man gets involved in this situation.

One of my best friends recently became engaged to a man who she's known for several years. I had only met him once before and she was bouncing back from another toxic relationship, (can you see a pattern yet?) one which resulted in my nephew who is now almost two.

It started out great, like always, he was considerate, sweet, caring and then the verbal abuse started. He became aggressive, controlling, and manipulative. He wanted to know who she was talking to, ordered her to not have any contact with any male friends, barely tolerated her talking to my brother. He would bait her into arguments while at the same time talking to other women who were co-workers and just friends. It went from verbal to mental abuse very shortly thereafter, he would belittle her weight, and when she began to lose weight became threatened by this, wanting to keep her on a tighter and tighter rein.

I tried, believe me, I tried my hardest when this all started to convince her that it would end up being physical, she told me that if it ever became physical she would leave him. I told her she wouldn't, that it never happened like that.

Less than two weeks later she calls me while I'm at work asking to talk to me. I was training at the time and told her to stop by. She's crying and tells me that they had gotten into an argument, which resulted in her trying to walk away and him grabbing her hair and yanking her back. This was witnessed by people in the parking lot and the guy nearly got himself stomped.

I asked her then if she believed me yet and she said yes. Unfortunately, the relationship did not end. They "talked" it out, and he swore he would never touch her again. So far, after my conversation with her yesterday, he hasn't. But now, hopefully, she's starting to understand what I tried to tell her three months ago.

It has been so frustrating for me, I deal with people in these situations, more specifically women, I deal with it at work, yet I can't even convince one of my closest friends that she needs to get out of this relationship.

It's definitely opened my eyes to the need for women's shelters and domestic abuse training. I only wish there were more resources.

Oh my gosh..

Oh Wow!

This has been the night to remember! I came out about 1630 and rode til 2300, it all started about 2030 interrupting dinner and is still going.

Actually had fun though, I've gotten to play all the roles, police officer, dispatcher and jailer...although the last one wasn't so fun. Picked up a very intoxicated male who wasn't really sure who he was or what was going on, he was however very obnoxious :)

He had drank so much that he eventually revived and starting throwing up. This was in the middle of a stabbing call, and after a traffic stop involving someone methamphetamine :. Guess who got to don the latex gloves and pour bleach down the drain? So, we broke out the water hose and cleaned out the cell, I think I might have bleached the concrete...O_o

The Chief has been trying to convince me to move to evenings, and I've been trying to resist. He about had me convinced earlier, but after tonight its going to be really hard to leave midnights. I love that one night can make up for an entire boring month, granted the guys aren't too fond of it... but eh, it's good for them!

It's getting personal

It's amazing to me how I've managed to keep from running into calls from people I know or people I know indirectly..until recently.

Received a call Saturday night/Sunday morning on a self-inflicted gunshot wound (to the leg)
I'm asking questions and find out that this gentleman actually works with my dad - ironically.

I transfer the call to county after I hang up, less than two minutes later he calls back. For some weird reason, I'm not able to transfer calls unless they come in on our 911 lines, which is a real pain which requires talking back and forth and making phone calls between the RP and whoever I'm transferring the call to. I'll be really glad when we get things fixed.

So in other news, I just spent 35 minutes on the phone with our local crazy, partly telling him that if he had just done what he was told the first time, he would have gotten to talk to an officer, then the next 20 minutes just talking... I had to convince I was who I was, he kept telling me that he knows all the dispatchers by voice, and I'm like I know, I've talked you many many times. Eh.. it's a losing battle and I had one of the officers call the other line just so I could get off the phone.

It was really funny, he's bipolar and just swings from aggressive to passive within seconds. Definitely one of my more memorable phone calls.

Ok, so today was a day that reality really hit me as to how much of an impact this job can really have on someone's life.

I rarely get to see the calls that I dispatch, rarely get to interact with the people face to face, and never before have I have seen news footage of an incident that I was directly involved in -- until today.

I was covering part of day shift Thursday morning so the Fire Chief could conduct interviews when a call for a vehicle which had gone off the road into a creek came in.

I took the initial call, contacted the Sheriff's Dept and advised medical. Nothing unusual about that, happens every week. Roughly an hour and a half later, I'm looking through the local news stations website when I see a breaking story on a vehicle which had driven off a bridge.

The exact same call that I had dispatched less than 2 hours previous.

They posted a raw video appx. 5 hours later, and I don't know if this is a normal reaction, but I was literally moved to tears. It didn't show anything, but the woman survived and is listed in stable condition.

I guess it was just the emotional impact that you don't get by being removed from the situation.

But wow..it kinda hit me - not in a bad way, just emotionally. Doesn't happen often.

It's pretty awesome actually.

I've kinda come to the conclusion that I'm done with being the whole go-to girl at this dept. I guess I'm being petty, and maybe I should have never expected it to actually count for anything.

Ok, enough pity party :)

I'm currently babysitting a PI that evening shift brought in, this person is snoring, which is great because that makes it easy when I do visual checks every hour.

I'm resisting the urge to be busy and work on things that really aren't my job. I'm trying to not make this blog just a rant page, but sometimes it's really hard to do, so I'll move on to better topics :)

I've been running and working out in preparation for Reserve academy, with the goal of being able to meet the physical requirements of the Full-time academy. I really have no plans to ever become a fulltime officer, but I think it would be interesting to see if I can at least be able to someday.

So, I start off the basic aspect - the mile run. If I remember correctly, women's times is either 12 or 14 minutes, I'm not entirely sure. I started focusing on it roughly 1.5 weeks ago just to see what my times would be.

First time was 16:09, not bad felt like I was going to pass out. Second time was 3 days later, dropped it to 14:41, didn't feel quite so horrible. Third time was much better, 13:09, two days later. Finally, my last time was at roughly 2120 on Weds and I knocked it out. 11:41, got it under both 12 and 14 minutes. Needless to say, I'm pretty stoked about it. :)

It's had some awesome side effects as well, I've dropped appx 2 sizes and I'm running out of clothes to wear, guess I'll have to go shopping at some point, which also means my uniform pants are now too big as well as my favorite 511s. The Chief will be thrilled :))

So, it's been a crazy week.

I get to work on Wednesday and our newest dispatcher tells me that he's talked to the Chief who told him that if he could get it covered he could have thursday and friday off. Yay.

So, we (I) dutifully covered the shifts. Luckily, one of the firefighters was able to cover thursday, but our other dispatcher decided she couldn't work so guess who got to pull a double? :)

Oh well, it's ok and it's Friday.

I'm going to rant for a minute here, our other evening/night dispatcher has gotten to where's she really being a pain. the Chief wants her to go to fulltime, working 5 days a week and she doesn't want to. She wants to get her hours, but she wants to keep 4 days. I guess she's not able to recover in 2 days like everyone else...

So, I started reworking schedules..like I was told to do...adding her another day. Forgive me if I seem really unsympathetic lol, but here goes.

She would have to work 5 days, starting with a 0700-1500 on Friday, work 1500-2300 Sat and Sun, then work 2300-0700 Mon and Tues. She seems to think that there's not enough turnaround between Tues and Fri. Am I completely being hard to get along with?

She calls in sick -- a lot, takes off -- a lot and wants the schedule worked to fit her schedule. That's cool, I would love to be able to make my days off whenever and screw everyone else, but I'm doing my best to get people hired and make the schedule fair.

She's completely set on working 4 days a week and going to 12 hr shifts or 10s whichever. I wrote up a schedule with her working 10s, overlapping on the evening shift when she works nights, because that's the busiest shift. That's not working for her, she thinks the nights are busiest-- believe me they ain't. Yeah we get weirder calls and a lot of bs...but by far not the busiest.

Ok, i think I'm done ranting, but it's still a pain in the ass.

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