So I'm having a tough time thinking about what to blog about, and can't even phathom how you blog friends do it! I guess I can blab about how my weekend went for now.

I had been making subtle complaints to my supervisor and coworkers over the past couple of weeks about how I have a hard time getting overtime. There always have be two dispatchers on per shift here, and there's usually open shifts during the week on 2nd shift, and on the weekends, just like every dispatch center out there. Of course the open shifts seem to increase during the warm months as people take vacations and prefer not to work when it's nice outside, then when the colder weather comes they decide they want to work more. The weekday evening shifts are usually filled by PT's, and most of the time, there's a few shifts on the weekend that are open. At my job, the supervisor or manager emails all dispatchers at the beginning of the month with the monthly schedule in excel format. All the PT's email back which shifts they want or are available for, and the supervisor fills the shifts in his own, special way, making sure all employees get some of the shifts that they wanted. The supervisor/manager also sends alpha-pages out during each week, up until Friday, with the left over open shifts listed. Then if there's still open shifts that they can't fill, they decide to go to the FT's list. The shifts are available to the PT's first, because obviously the company would rather pay a PT'r for an 8 hour shift instead of a FT'r for an overtime shift. So I have to sit there(well, lie there in bed because they page out for the shifts during the day when I'm sleeping), and get the pages for all the open shifts for the week, but I can't take any until it goes to the full-timer list which is on a rotational basis and by seniority. Yeah, I'm the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to seniority.



Well, low and behold I was able to grab a double for overtime for this weekend on Thursday. So I worked my regular end of the week shift, Thursday night into Friday morning, and was then talked into playing a round of golf Friday morning by three friends, Shawn, Scott, and Dan. Shawn, affectionately know as "the safety gnome" was my obnoxious buddy when I was in Putnam Fire, he worked briefly with me at American, and he now works 3rd shift at UConn dispatch in Storrs. Scott is my middle school, high school, college, and fire department best friend. We pretty much joined the FD and accended the ranks together before he got hired by the City of Norwich FD, and had to quit volunteering per his Career fire department union bylaws. However, he is now my town's part-time deputy fire marshall, since it's a paid position that's allowed by his union. And Dan is a great kid that I worked with at American, and he became interested in dispatching while covering for me during bathroom breaks. He eventually moved on to Ledyard dispatch, and then UConn dispatch also, but we managed to stay in contact and continue the friendship...



After I played a crappy 9 holes, we went our seperate ways, and I couldn't seem to fall asleep that afternoon, before going in for the double shift, Friday night at 1230am to Saturday afternoon at 430pm. I then got out Saturday afternoon and went to meet up with the ex in Plainfield to pick up Hayleigh, and went right to my friend Rene's house for a get-together. We had a NASCAR party to watch the race in Bristol while the kids played. Around 930pm, our fire department tones dropped for a one car rollover with entrapment on Route 44 near Wal-mart. Rene asked his wife Jess if she minded watching our kids, and she said that was fine. So Rene and another guy Archie, jumped in his pick up, and me in my SUV and we flew to the station. There must have been some guys hanging out at the FD, cause ET-179(Engine-Tank) was already heading down 44. So the three of us hop in the Rescue truck and fly out towards the scene. We pull up and we knew it was a "good" one(technically bad, cause firefighters and EMT's are sick in the head) as the car's upside down in the middle of Route 44, and we could see a set of legs hanging out the passenger window.



Of course, I'm the only EMT on scene aside from the Chief, and he's running the show, so I got stuck helping the paramedic with patient care. We get her out, collared and backboarded, loaded in the ambulance while the helicopter is flying overhead, heading to the hospital down the road, to meet them and fly her to a trauma center. I go and start helping the guys clear the debris from the road as the wrecker arrives. Then the chief comes over and says "Come with me and help me with something." We had to go 100 ft down the road to a state police cruiser with 4 ladies huddled next to it, who had been in a car that was struck by the overturned one. Come to find out, they were four nurses from the hospital who were uninjured, but shook up from the incident. We had them sign refusals, finished cleaning up the scene and re-opened the road. We finally get back to the station and get everything back in order around 11pm.

We head back to Rene's house and catch a little more of the race before dragging Hayleigh out to my truck and home to bed. Surprisingly she was up by 830am!! We spent the morning at my house, then the afternoon back at Rene's house before bringing her back to Mom. Of course, I ended up going to the firehouse when I got back into town, and went home later this evening to try and take a nap before work tonight. I got like an hour of sleep tonight, and of course, was comfy as hell in bed, before leaving for work. It better be just as comfy in the morning as it was tonight, cause I can already see myself passing out once I hit the pillows...LOL



On a brighter note, my partner is back from his vacation/wedding, so it's nice to have him and his humor back. It was definately interesting the past few weeks, now if I can only snag up some more overtime, but I won't bet on it....