Ahhh, the Public....

I am an operator at a 911 center and people's attitudes about public safety workers never ceases to amaze me. On one hand it is very sad and on the other, it makes me angry.

People will call for some of the stupidest things you can imagine. They will tie up emergency lines with things like "why is my power out?", "can you tell me how to get to ....?", "I see a cop at my neighbor's house - what's going on?" and things like that.

I want a free day where I can answer their questions realistically without having to worry about getting fired. Like "How are we supposed to know why your power is off? Did you pay the bill?" or "do I look like an atlas?" or better yet - "stop being a nosey neighbor and worry more about what is going on at your house!".

People will call because there are children playing in the street in front of their house - "Would it be better if they were somewhere planning to rob your house or steal your car - or would you rather have them playing in the street not bothering anyone and having fun like kids are supposed do?"

They call because their 10 year old child won't mind them and then they want the police to come do something about it (what are we supposed to do? Come discipline your child because you are too lazy or too busy to do it yourself?). They should have thought about the responsibilities of raising a child before they laid down with that guy and conceived that poor child.

I love the women who call for an ambulance because they are having a baby, they are 9 months pregnant, labor started 3 hours ago, their contractions are a minute apart and there are 5 people sitting in the living room that could have driven them to the hospital hours ago in one of the 6 cars sitting in the driveway! REALLY??? Uhhhh, how long have you known that you were pregnant? How long have you been in labor? Couldn't someone get up off the sofa long enough to take you to the hospital instead of taking that ambulance away from what might have been a REAL emergency call??? What are these people thinking?

People need to learn to be more responsible and to use a little common sense before they call 911. When I was growing up, I knew that there had better be lots of blood, a fire or someone better be committing a real crime before I called 911.

And the sad part is that there are many responsible people who only call 911 when they have an emergency. Some even actually apologize for calling us. I just want to take them in my arms and hug them, try to make thnigs better for them and then tell them how much I appreciate the fact that they are not calling for something stupid.

It really makes me angry when I see people on the news saying things like "he wasn't doing anything wrong and the cop was just harassing him". I'm sorry, when was driving a stolen car and trying to run over the officer with it "not doing anything wrong?".

Our officers put their lives on the line for the community every day. So do our firemen and EMS workers. Public safety personnell work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and rarely get the thanks that they all deserve. Many of them give up time with their families and loved ones just so that they can be there to help the people of their communities. We'd love to have all the holidays and weekends off too, but we know that we can't and we're willing to give that up to serve our community.

Next time you deal with a fireman, an officer or any other public safety person - remember that they are there to help you and not to hurt you. Don't take your anger out on them, stay calm and answer their questions and just think about where you would be without them.

Chaos is a word that comes to mind....