04 August 2009

The Job

I am guilty of complaining about my job. The rare occassion occurs
when I get to use the skills I spend countless hours maintaining.

Today, if you haven't heard, we had a rain event that produced wide
spread flash floods in the metro. I am a swift water rescue technician
and it is one the the more fun diciplines in technical rescue. I was
call in to assist with evacuations.

These are the days when I feel like I can make a difference. I
assisted with the evacuation some medically fragile people who were
trapped in high water. I am not a hero and no lives were directly
saved by me or the crew I was working with. Most of the day was spent
checking calls to 911 hours after the initial storm. Most of the water
in the areas had receded by the time we got to the low priority calls.

I would still do it all again. Today I love my job.

03 August 2009

Bored,

I am bored with my job. I want more from my profession. I trained for two years to become highly trained in emergency medical care. Ever since obtaining my license I have been relegated to ambulance driver.

I tried to get a part-time job with a 911 service. No one in my area wants a new paramedic in their service. Yes, I said part-time job. My full time job with the fire department pays well, and there is no EMS job in this state that can come close to competing.

So I am screwed. I want to be able to make a decent living, but I also want to use my hard earned skills. I can't have both and that is sad. Do we need to let EMS in the US fail so we can have a better system? The gang over at EMS garage have another lively discussion on this very topic. Every week they get together and talk about EMS, often how bad the pay is for our workers. They never find a solution and I am not sure anyone who runs EMS wants a solution. Listen to their shows and email them with ideas. We need to all be on the same page, in the same room and stand up for decent wages.