Patience Short Circuit

I think I may have finally had it with my partner...she's lucky there wasn't a homicide in dispatch yesterday! Late Wednesday night, early Thursday morning we had a tragic occurance in the county. A 16 year old girl was taken from a convenience store and brutally killed, suspect is in custody. My question to those readers who are dispatchers or current law enforcement, when is morbid curiosity too much? My partner would not let it go yesterday, constantly commenting on how she just "needed" to know as many of the gory, intimate details of the crime including COD. Needless to say, my patience with her is done. Kaput. We deal with the most intimate details of peoples' lives and deaths, sometimes we have to leave them in peace. One of the cleaning ladies works as a sectretary for the Sheriff's office and the minute she walked in, the questions started. I wanted to scream "enough!" but I couldn't get off the radio long enough to even complete a sentence. I honestly need some feedback on this because it has bothered me since I left work, do I speak with a supervisor or just talk to her myself? I'm just afraid if I said anything, it would be taken badly.

Confession

Part of the goal of this blog is to entertain, enlighten, vent, and in part keep me honest. I love my job, I do it fairly well (if I do say so myself) and I would do anything for my friends. I'm also one of the millions of people in the world who struggles with an eating disorder. When I heard the term, I used to think of bulimia or anorexia and girls who are skin and bones. I can honestly tell my readers that I never "planned" to be in this position or even realized what was happening until it was too late. For most people, eating isn't necessarily a chore, I have to consciously eat otherwise, I'll only eat around 700 calories a day. My one saving grace is that I'm not a heavy exerciser, but at the same time it's taken it's toll. I urge everyone to pay attention their friends and family, because sometimes it's not a form of dysmorphia or an illness. It's a person genuinely not paying attention to their bodies signals. Thanks for listening :)

Training and Experience

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time lately perusing thru training articles and the FEMA independent study website. In my mind, you can never be too prepared (and it alleviates some of the boredom). I'm such a firm believer in cross-training and establishing a strong working relationship, even when the parties involved may not exactly like each other. I know every agency stuggles with personality clashes, how do they handle them? Do they punish the slackers who refuse to work overtime, do they ignore the pot-stirrers? Here recently I've really wanted to pull my hair out, I feel that there are people who are capable of doing this job within the department, but I also KNOW that there are plenty who need to be removed before they kill someone. Officers are held to a standard of "training and experience" it's a staple within probable cause affidavits, as we all know. Yes, we are held to the same standard of liability, however, many times the training and safeguards are non-existent. I'm lucky now to work for an agency which does have a modicum of training and policy, it's lacking in comparison to that of a rookie officer, but it's better than all of the other agencies in the county.

Jurisdictional Issues?

I'm sure this is a common theme for agencies all over the country, that age old argument over whose problem is whose. And as I'm sure is also common, those who actually handle the day to day problems are the ones who work quite well with each other and have no real issues with the other agencies. I'm also aware that this is also not always the case, as training and procedures can also differ and there seem to be few people who keep the big picture in mind and go ahead and help anyways despite the fact that you may be dealing with the idiot from the next county over. I spent 6 minutes on the phone last shift talking the county ambulance service thru directions for a call that didn't even originate from our call center. (We handle 90-100 calls per shift depending on the weather and lunar phase, not counting those we have to transfer). My question is, when is enough enough? I used to work for this agency and I know how their training and procedures are and that's mostly why I don't work there anymore. When do you cut them off and transfer them to the originating agency because you have more than you can juggle yourself, knowing they will be dealing with people who are very close to incompetent? I find myself caring entirely too much, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, just tiresome. (:

Only Request

If I could only ask one thing, I'm pretty sure it would be too much. Especially since I would be asking for something that requires common sense and intelligence. Please people, put more thought into your custody agreements! That is all.

Whaa...?

After a few years there's not much that surprises me anymore, or so I think. Yesterday had a couple of "firsts" for me in the way of Calls For Service. Elderly people are either my most or least favorite callers to talk to, mostly because they either already have all of the answers or know your boss, or they have no clue and are worried they are bothering you and are sweet as pie. Well, when you call me and tell me you've lost your bottom dentures and ask what we can do for you, I'll be honest, I'm at a total loss for words (a rarity). I felt bad for her, but there wasn't much we could do and we were also swamped at that moment with an MVA with injury and a power outage (people do call 911 because they have no electricity). The other was a regular BS caller asking if he could file a Missing Dog report. (I'm assuming these are similar to Missing Persons?) I politely told him that he could report the dog stolen, but not missing...let's local BOLO that one. "All receiving agencies, standby for a Missing Dog BOLO"....um no. :)

I've read that this is one of the most sacred non-christian holidays celebrated in the United States. Not many people understand the sacrifices that are made by men and women in the Armed Forces and their families, but those within the Blue Line family come close. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Happy Memorial Day, everyone! Stay safe and never forget.