This was it! The actual day actually occurred! I’ve been working for this goal for almost a year and it finally happened and no one said, “Psych!”
It’s 22:12 as I write this and I have to wake up at 05:00, but I wanted to mark this day.
My agency works four ten-hour shifts, so at 07:00 I was there and ready to go and so were they. Handed us a big book, made us sign a bunch of forms, got our ID badges, handed us our parking pass, gave us a brief tour, and then said, “Okay, let’s talk about geography.”
I’m a total nerd, so I really enjoyed diving into how streets and avenues work in our counties, learning the “0” street and “0” avenue for each county, and trying to determine where an address was located off an intersection. Some of it almost made sense and I spent an hour just figuring out thirty different addresses to drill that stuff into my brain.
Other stuff happened. Met one of the arson investigators as he headed out to his work. Met a chaplain coming in as part of a debrief team for four of our telecommunicators who worked a very grisly call a couple of days ago. I asked a lot of questions of veteran dispatchers, got a lot of good answers. No one laughed or sneered.
Quite the admixture of experiences.
Excitement kept me on the edge of my seat as I pored over my manual (that sucker’s thick!) but all of the conversations I had today and everything I saw just reinforced the feeling that I was in the right place, doing the right thing.
Day 1 (for real this time) was a great day and I am thankful for this chance.
911 Dispatches 