I'm off work today to get ready for the Las Vegas trip. I'll be traveling tomorrow (Saturday) so today is a trade-off.
A bit of dilemma regarding clothing. I'm figuring that the conference center will be kept quite chilly if past experiences hold true. So I'll need a bit warmer items for day, but once conference time is over I know I'll be outside, wandering the strip, drinking, etc. I need less warm outfits for that.
I'm thinking that I'll wear my longer capris for the conference with a knit shirt and over-sweater. Then I can change the capris for shorts and ditch the sweater for after. Does that sound like a plan? I'm trying to stick to one suitcase for clothes and a smaller one for shoes, toiletries, etc. The airline is going to charge me $50.00 for two suitcases but I can't do a whole week with less.
That is the plan so far. Now I need to go try on everything to see if it all still fits. I had the cancer+20 (like the freshman+20) added last year but I think I've gotten rid of all of it now. Still I have enough doubt to want to check while I can still go pick up a few things if necessary.
Excitement and the usual nervousness is setting in. I love traveling but as a born worrier I always anticipate something going wrong.
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Friday, May 8, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Most Boring Day EVER
This morning I attended our local Community Leader's Breakfast with 6 of my co-workers. We sat down for the usual rubber scrambled eggs, mushy fried potatoes and hard sausage. No worries, we've done this before, so we know what to expect. EXCEPT...today, the new city manager came to our table and asked if he could sit down with us. OMG.
Well, of course, we said sure. But what a tense experience. Did I say the right things, did I drool? Did I sound stupid or needy or like a suck-up? Who knows? Everyone at the table became someone else. Unreal. The worst thing is that the speaker for the breakfast was excellent - spoke about generational differences with workers, etc., but it was very difficult to pay attention to her.
From there we went onto a meeting in Bloomington. It could have been a good meeting, but unfortunately it was without doubt the worst meeting I have ever attended. The speakers droned on and on - if I hadn't had my blackberry there for comic relief I might have had to hurt someone. Two hours of complete torture.
When we finally were released, we ate lunch, then indulged ourselves at Cold Stone Creamery. Yum yum - I had chocolate with raspberries. Only a little, though. Too many calories otherwise. I did have a taste of the flavor Sweet Cream. It was awesome but I'm mostly a chocolate girl. Maybe next time I'll give the Sweet Cream a shot.
So the day wasn't a total loss - could any day that involved ice cream be all bad?
Well, of course, we said sure. But what a tense experience. Did I say the right things, did I drool? Did I sound stupid or needy or like a suck-up? Who knows? Everyone at the table became someone else. Unreal. The worst thing is that the speaker for the breakfast was excellent - spoke about generational differences with workers, etc., but it was very difficult to pay attention to her.
From there we went onto a meeting in Bloomington. It could have been a good meeting, but unfortunately it was without doubt the worst meeting I have ever attended. The speakers droned on and on - if I hadn't had my blackberry there for comic relief I might have had to hurt someone. Two hours of complete torture.
When we finally were released, we ate lunch, then indulged ourselves at Cold Stone Creamery. Yum yum - I had chocolate with raspberries. Only a little, though. Too many calories otherwise. I did have a taste of the flavor Sweet Cream. It was awesome but I'm mostly a chocolate girl. Maybe next time I'll give the Sweet Cream a shot.
So the day wasn't a total loss - could any day that involved ice cream be all bad?
Monday, May 4, 2009
Difficult Work Week
This week is going to be difficult for a number of reasons.
Last week, one of our firemen died in a non-work related accident. He was working on a vehicle when the jack slipped and the vehicle fell on him, cutting off his air supply for quite a long time. He was kept alive for awhile and when it was determined he would not recover, life support was withdrawn. The family donated his organs so that others might live on.
If that weren't bad enough, one of our policemen had a child die on Friday. The child had a medical condition however the death was unexpected at this time.
Tonight I will have to go to both visitations and tomorrow attend one or the other funeral since they are happening at the same time.
It's really a shame and makes you think about life and how quickly and unexpectedly it can end.
Last week, one of our firemen died in a non-work related accident. He was working on a vehicle when the jack slipped and the vehicle fell on him, cutting off his air supply for quite a long time. He was kept alive for awhile and when it was determined he would not recover, life support was withdrawn. The family donated his organs so that others might live on.
If that weren't bad enough, one of our policemen had a child die on Friday. The child had a medical condition however the death was unexpected at this time.
Tonight I will have to go to both visitations and tomorrow attend one or the other funeral since they are happening at the same time.
It's really a shame and makes you think about life and how quickly and unexpectedly it can end.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week 2009
The week of April 12-18, 2009 was designated by Congress as National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week. I created a slideshow video:
I also created a collage photo that we embedded in a matte that was signed by our user agencies. The plan is to frame it and hang it in our Comm. Center.
We celebrated the week by allowing the telecommunicators to wear goofy dress all week (one day was pajama day, one was Hawaiian day, etc.), we provided a lunch and huge cake on Wednesday and we had a drawing everyday for some pretty awesome prizes. Here's the cake:
This week is dear to my heart. I was a telecommunicator and telecommunicator supervisor for 18 years before taking my present position and although I gained immense satisfaction from helping people, it would always have been nice to be recognized. The telecommunicator (or 911 operator) is really the forgotten hero in the public safety equation. But I'm happy to celebrate and give all the staff of our center their props for this one week.
I also created a collage photo that we embedded in a matte that was signed by our user agencies. The plan is to frame it and hang it in our Comm. Center.
We celebrated the week by allowing the telecommunicators to wear goofy dress all week (one day was pajama day, one was Hawaiian day, etc.), we provided a lunch and huge cake on Wednesday and we had a drawing everyday for some pretty awesome prizes. Here's the cake:
This week is dear to my heart. I was a telecommunicator and telecommunicator supervisor for 18 years before taking my present position and although I gained immense satisfaction from helping people, it would always have been nice to be recognized. The telecommunicator (or 911 operator) is really the forgotten hero in the public safety equation. But I'm happy to celebrate and give all the staff of our center their props for this one week.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Whistle While You Work...Not Hardly
I got to work this morning and opened my office door about a nanosecond before my boss came in. Over the weekend some of the senior members of our communications division did a horrible job taking and dispatching a call. I mean horrible. For some reason one of them took a call about a serious car accident, entered the call with the personnel as "on scene" and it went without rescue personnel actually being sent.
The problem with this, aside from the poor injured woman waiting 10 minutes until rescue personnel arrived, is that the people involved have been working here for over 15 years. This is not some new person who doesn't know the rules or how to do the job.
My job in this event, of course, is forensic. I am to recreate the situation that occurred in the computer from the call take to the actual dispatch. It's not a big thing, but it is time consuming. The person involved made it a bit more interesting by blaming the computer for part of the problem. Um, sorry, but that's not possible.
Computers do fail, programs do have glitches. But not the dispatch program and not only on one computer. If someone at another workstation in the center had reported computer problems that excuse would have flown better. But no one else had problems and I personally had checked out the server early Saturday morning in anticipation of the time change on Sunday. So I know the server was working properly and with no desperate phone calls to my home or cell to tell me that they had problems, everything had to have been working properly.
Like I said, it's not a big deal to do this work, but it is annoying in a day when I had already planned to work on some more complicated issues.
Ah well - mistakes. They are more or less job security.
The problem with this, aside from the poor injured woman waiting 10 minutes until rescue personnel arrived, is that the people involved have been working here for over 15 years. This is not some new person who doesn't know the rules or how to do the job.
My job in this event, of course, is forensic. I am to recreate the situation that occurred in the computer from the call take to the actual dispatch. It's not a big thing, but it is time consuming. The person involved made it a bit more interesting by blaming the computer for part of the problem. Um, sorry, but that's not possible.
Computers do fail, programs do have glitches. But not the dispatch program and not only on one computer. If someone at another workstation in the center had reported computer problems that excuse would have flown better. But no one else had problems and I personally had checked out the server early Saturday morning in anticipation of the time change on Sunday. So I know the server was working properly and with no desperate phone calls to my home or cell to tell me that they had problems, everything had to have been working properly.
Like I said, it's not a big deal to do this work, but it is annoying in a day when I had already planned to work on some more complicated issues.
Ah well - mistakes. They are more or less job security.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Why Does Work Have to be so Difficult?
Today work sucked. I mean really, truly sucked. Most days things go along as expected...I can't get enough done in the day and most nights I bring work home. I didn't bring a thing home today besides a HUGE headache.
A little background about me before I get into this. I started life at the police department as a dispatcher. I continued that job for 18 years when I received a promotion to the first ever dispatch supervisor in my department. I worked that position for 3 years, then the city decided to purchase a computer-aided dispatch system. I was recruited to set it all up and get it going - CAD, Records, mobile units. Somehow I just slid over into that job and I've held it for the last 10 years, in addition to being "attached" (so to speak) to the Communications Center as a consultant. Being a consultant just means that I have been there the longest, so I put my two cents in on anything I'm asked to. I usually start those conversations by saying "back in the day we...".
My job often requires diplomacy and tact, neither of which were around today. Technically I work for my city police department, but I also administer the public safety computer system for the entire county. That includes the city police, the city fire department, the county police and 26 volunteer county fire departments. Each one of these entities has an idea of how things should be run. The sad part is that I have been chronically short of tact and diplomacy since birth.
In the last year I have been dragging the fire department kicking and screaming into the 21st century technology wise. We implemented mobile computers in the apparatus in December and it has been nothing but fun since. I think I probably get about 5-6 emails a day about problems that aren't really problems. What I mean is that they are inexperienced with this technology, so when they have what they believe is a problem it is usually operator error, or easily explained.
The biggest problem is that I'd had enough today. I have what I call a bullsh*t indicator in my head and when I've swallowed enough crap from someone/something it eventually gets into the red. When that happens, I blow. Today it was all over the correct response order for fire units. Imagine that.
I have changed and retooled and changed again the order of responding units for the fire department until I'm blue in the face. In fact, I've changed it about 5 times, which is not an easy task and too complex to explain here. Anywho, I wrote an email that I'm guessing will come back to haunt me tomorrow all about how they need to make up their minds and LEAVE ME ALONE.
On the surface this doesn't sound all that bad...or I'm hoping it doesn't. The downside is that I copied the fire chief on the email...and I'm pretty sure I'll regret it. I like him, he is a great person, but I have had enough. It just probably wasn't too smart to add him to the email.
I guess we'll see tomorrow.
A little background about me before I get into this. I started life at the police department as a dispatcher. I continued that job for 18 years when I received a promotion to the first ever dispatch supervisor in my department. I worked that position for 3 years, then the city decided to purchase a computer-aided dispatch system. I was recruited to set it all up and get it going - CAD, Records, mobile units. Somehow I just slid over into that job and I've held it for the last 10 years, in addition to being "attached" (so to speak) to the Communications Center as a consultant. Being a consultant just means that I have been there the longest, so I put my two cents in on anything I'm asked to. I usually start those conversations by saying "back in the day we...".
My job often requires diplomacy and tact, neither of which were around today. Technically I work for my city police department, but I also administer the public safety computer system for the entire county. That includes the city police, the city fire department, the county police and 26 volunteer county fire departments. Each one of these entities has an idea of how things should be run. The sad part is that I have been chronically short of tact and diplomacy since birth.
In the last year I have been dragging the fire department kicking and screaming into the 21st century technology wise. We implemented mobile computers in the apparatus in December and it has been nothing but fun since. I think I probably get about 5-6 emails a day about problems that aren't really problems. What I mean is that they are inexperienced with this technology, so when they have what they believe is a problem it is usually operator error, or easily explained.
The biggest problem is that I'd had enough today. I have what I call a bullsh*t indicator in my head and when I've swallowed enough crap from someone/something it eventually gets into the red. When that happens, I blow. Today it was all over the correct response order for fire units. Imagine that.
I have changed and retooled and changed again the order of responding units for the fire department until I'm blue in the face. In fact, I've changed it about 5 times, which is not an easy task and too complex to explain here. Anywho, I wrote an email that I'm guessing will come back to haunt me tomorrow all about how they need to make up their minds and LEAVE ME ALONE.
On the surface this doesn't sound all that bad...or I'm hoping it doesn't. The downside is that I copied the fire chief on the email...and I'm pretty sure I'll regret it. I like him, he is a great person, but I have had enough. It just probably wasn't too smart to add him to the email.
I guess we'll see tomorrow.
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