I cannot express how busy my life has been, not a lot has changed. I am still busy with work, like every other dispatch agency. Its been over a year since I last posted, which is terrible and probably means that no one is still reading this blog, and that it is not being indexed as often as it could be.
I have been contemplating the past week of writing. I have been listening to podcasts while at work for entertainment, and was also thinking about "the book" I was writing at one time. I have several pages of notes compiled into a document sitting on my desktop. I buried it in another folder a few weeks ago thinking more about it. I don't obviously have the several thousands required to get it published. My only option will be hoping it will sell some copies on an E-book site.
But back to the reason I haven't wrote anything. I haven't been exactly open with my followers I prefer to be more anonymous. But I am married and I have a young child. We have been rather busy with life, running the child around to after school activities along with being in school this year has kept us busy. We just got home from a small beach vacation recently. Man did we not want to come home. We enjoyed it so much, it was so hard to get in the car and drive home. We came home talking about preparing for next year and how we could get a better hotel or condo closer to the beach. Then we came to the stupid reality that I cannot secure what days my vacation will fall on, as I am later in the order to mark my days off.
So speaking of busy work, again we have a new employee that was hired at the end of last year. This newbie is a little upsetting. This person seems really gung ho, and ready to work, but lacks drive. I have to say there are some things that turn me off as someone training you. This person acts disinterested while being trained, having their phone out and then when asked by the supervisor later, saying they do not recall being told that. This is a bad scenario, as that is what was happened with the prior employee, saying that he was probably told but did not remember the procedure. The second issue with this one, is that every time they earn a sick day, they use them. They have taken days for their own illness, even such minor things as a cold. Maybe I am too obsessed with having someone who does the job to a high quality and cares about the job.
I have sat here thinking, am I being too harsh by complaining, am I really being that person who is so grumpy? I am not afraid to say that I have and will make mistakes. I second guess myself often, I do things and then regret how I handled them. I replay the situations of my calls often and feel guilty.
I expect a new employee to jump in and don't be afraid to jump in and learn more. I have the experience from my prior EMS experience of knowing the geographic area, as well as the businesses and reference points. Many of the people we are hire seem to be limited in their geographic exposure. I use google maps, and play around to learn the areas. I pay attention to where I am as I drive, and travel through the area. I try to build a knowledge.
Ok, that came off sounding like I want this person to be like me. I am conceited, I really am not, I just want them to better their abilities and knowledge.
Day 1 skills, include getting a caller's name, address and phone number for everyone, and also where the incident is happening. There are more often times these days that a passerby will call in an incident and not know where it was, they just saw it as they drove by. There is some odd reason why this person cannot figure out to remember to do that. It makes you wonder if they will make it or not.
Another big concern is when that they work, and the history of the work computer browser shows they were researching other jobs, or how to attain other jobs. I often search the history to see what others do while on the work computer. Most of the time its shopping, or the typical online streaming services. Then you find the searches for educational grant funding, and educational programs, or how to apply for a certain job.