Ghosts: A Tale of a Career Paramedic.

Burn Out

It's a real thing, and it happens to everyone. If you stay long enough in this field you will experience it, and it's a killer to EMS personnel, career wise that is. It's why the career length expectancy is so low in EMS. I'm writing this at 04:32 and I've been awake since 0700 yesterday, almost 24hrs. Long hours, heavy call volume, missed time with family amongst many other factors all contribute to burn out. I've been there a few times, my biggest was in 2014. I was working for a different company and I was going through a very public divorce. We were a popular couple, both of us having been there a long time. You truly do find out who your friends are when you go through a divorce. As soon as the news broke, party lines were drawn. People who I thought were my friends vansihed and turned in me. People who I never really interacted with were suddenly my best friend. And although we were very amicable with each other and the divorce on the whole went smooth, I was still a mess on the inside. Id say the biggest contributing factor to burn out is silence. I was a wreck but I played it off as if I were cool. I didn't talk to anyone about how I felt, I never gave myself time to de-stress or even grieve. And when burn out starts, everything around you becomes an annoyenc. Each bullshit call drives you extra crazy. Every critical call makes you question why you out yourself through it. Every stupid policy or nit picking by the company boils your blood. You start to snap at patients when you otherwise would bite your tongue. And it doesn't just affect your job, no. True burn out affects your life, at home in particular. You sleep less and less, you eat like shit. If you drank alcohol before burn out, you definitely drink more during. Smoking a pack a day turns ti a pack and a half or more. You and moody and argue with your family or signifigant other more frequently. Its a real drag. Some don't last and quit to find greener pastures or professions. I've know several good paramedics that knew their shit, pack up and leave. And for jobs I would have never guessed them to do. I lost my job because of it. I was put on a last chance warning, "double secret probation". Any offence outside of attendance would result in immediate termination. I got that for a stupid move on my part. I was given a sampme bottle of a honey infused whiskey. I brought into work because my partner at the time liked whiskey. So I brought it in and broke the seal so he could smell it. Didn't drink it, just smelled it. What was stupid was leaving it in my locker. One shift I had left my phone charger in the truck and called up one of the oncoming crew. I asked him to put it in my locker. Well... Open bottle of liquor for all to see, public divorce, and an increase of agitation in recent events. My supervisor was called. I got a phone call that same day from him. He informed me that I was suspended pending further investigation, which is code for "were not paying you until we fire you". But I wasn't fired, I was given a last chance warning, mainly because of my outstanding record and good standing with the company for the last 8 years. The last chance letter lasts for a year, after that it goea away and the fear of emanate termination goes away. Almost a year later, still under the last chance warning and now in full burn out, I screwed up. I was called out of my station to post. Posting is the bain of any private EMS worker. You drive ti a pre designated area (usually somewhere no where near food or a bathroom) and wait for a call. The shift I was working was a 24hr car that parked in a station. When I originally got on the shift 6 years prior we hardly ever had to post. But now we were being called out everyday for hours at a time. So mich so we spent more time in the truck than in the station. And what was particularly annoying was that we the 24hr cars made 3 dollars less an hour than the 12hr cars. Because we had 60hrs a week with 20hrs guaranteed OT. Plus we had the luxury of sitting in a station on lazyboys and sleeping in a bed. Thats how the company justified it. Now we were in the road as much as the 12hr cars and pulling the same amount of transports as them plus our 911 calls that we were supposed to be doing. We were as busy if not busier. Coupled to that full burn out, it was only a matter of time. On the way to the post I took a slight detour to get something to drink from a fast food drive through. The place where we were going as per usual didn't have food or drink readily available. While we had made the detour a 911 call dropped and had I not detoured we would have been closer. But we were not now and the car that was covering the south had to take the northern call. My dispatcher told my supervisor and she rang me up. She told me, sternly, that anytime we were making a detour we needed to clear it with dispatch first. Just a little back story on my supervisor. She was ill equipped for the job. She was hastily thrown in there because two of the three up and quit with in days of each other. She was a brand new medic, only had worked a few road shifts as a medic before becoming a supervisor. Ive had more sick days off than she's been a Paramedic. To compensate for her lack of experience and her strong will, she developed a bulldog mentality. It was her way or the highway, and she wasn't gonna listen to anybody. Well I despise authority, so naturally we butted heads a lot. In hind sight, I dont blame her for acting that way. The supervisor spot was a revolving door, and she was given no support from the operations manager. Id probably would have been simular given the same circumstances. But back then on that day, I was pissed off that this newbie medic turned sup, was telling me a vet what to do. Nose in the air, pinky out. We drove to post and I had to piss. Me being angry and already a smart ass to begin with did something foolish. Since I had been told to clear any and all diversions with dispatch I did the following. I key'd up the mic and spoke; "750." 750 go with your traffic." "I have to use the restroom, is it ok if I can leave the truck and head inside the store to use it?" Silence for a good 30-45 seconds. "750, call ops ASAP." So I did. She was less than pleased. She knew I had intentionally been a smart ass because I was butt hurt over just being scolded. She said something to the effect of "That radio is monitored by the FCC and you are playing around on it. Thats a company policy violation. I'm gonna write you up..." I argued back of course saying I was just doing as told. But she and evertone knew I was being petty and immature. I initially wasn't worried. I was ultra confident that I wouldn't get fired. "They are short on medics here, they won't fire me, they can't fire me." Wrong. About a week later I was at the main station getting supplies and was bitching about something that was bugging me. My Operations Manager overheard me and pulled me into the office and shut the door. He said that he had noticed that I had become increasingly agitated over the last 6 months and there was a good possibility that I was going to be fired for my comment on the radio. I snapped back saying well I was thinking of putting my 2 weeks in anyway. Which was somewhat true, I had toyed around with the idea, but it was more of a shot back at this point. Well he called my bluff and said; "Why wait 2 weeks? Today can be your last shift here. I'll let you quit instead of being fired." I was stunned, speechless. I think I stammered out; "Ugh, ok." What the hell was I supposed to do? Argue back and get fired and lose out on almost $7000 of PTO that I had saved up. If I quit I got to keep it, not the same if your fired. After that he asked me about the alcohol and if I was OK. Not with the present situation but with me. Was I OK? Well no, I wasn't. I was a fucking mess. So we sat and talked for 20 minutes or so. He told me once I got better and got passed what I was going theough he would gladly hire me back. But currently I was no good to the company, and right they were. I went about half a month unemployed before I got hired in to the company I work for now and have been here for just over 4 years. I've had the same partner the whole time, best partner I've ever had. Not only a friend but my best friend. He threw my bachelor's party, did an amazing job. And with the help of my wife then fiance surprised me with a party bus, amazing. Driver was a dick monster but the bus and the night was a drunken blast. He perfored the ceremony for the wedding. Where I married the most wonderful wo.an in the world. He has helped me get my finances in order, stuck by me when I brome up with my long term girlfriend and went partially insane. In return I've helped him grow into a fantastic Paramedic. Ive done my absolute best to show him everything I know. How to stay calm, to read patients body language, to trust his instincts. He has told me on more than one occasion that of all the people he could've had as a partner, he's glad it was me. In retrospective, being forced to quit was the best thing that could have happened. It allowed me to get away from the toxic enviroment that I was in. Stary anew and fresh. Got extremely lucky in finding an awesome partner who has now become my best friend and guru. Having been forced to quit and starting over gave me a fresh perspective on my job and my life. And because of that I'm the happiest I have ever been. And that I guess is the moral of the story really. Burn out is real and it sucks ass to be in. But on the other side is a bright new day. It's always darkest before the dawn.

"Tu Jeet"