Colder Times

I've been in a bit of a ditch here for a while now. I have come to a crossroads in my life, and I'm not liking the options laying before me.

One road, is my EMS career. The other is my family.

Work has been slow lately. I've not been able to pick up nearly as many days at the county EMS as I was at first. Orientation hours combined with just being Johnny-on-the-spot when they needed me has run out. They haven't scheduled me to work at all next month, which means my only days on a truck will be when somebody doesn't show up and they need a quick fix. Worse than that was the news I found out last night.

Big Red told me a while back that he was planning on leaving the county EMS and taking a job with the next county over. This meant more money for him, and a good shot at a job for me. I was a shoe-in for the position. I'm in town, I'm dedicated, and I work as hard as I can. But according to Boss Hoss, I'm not qualified for the position because my title ends in "B" and not "P." Only a paramedic will do to replace Big Red, even though they could spend well over a couple of months to find one. I tried reasoning with Boss Hoss, reminding him that I want to be a paramedic and planned to start classes as soon as I could find a full-time EMS job, as well as some other facts that I've already stated above, but he had his mind set.

The hospital job isn't faring much better. I'm working almost 20 hours a week there on average. But even that is declining. The work isn't bad, although I think it's too hectic for what they're paying me on the hour. Boss Bubbles, my supervisor up there, doesn't even have to lie to me about the possibility of full-time employment. I'm at the bottom of a very long totem pole. The people at the top have been there for years, and they have no plans of leaving.

Now the crossroads I mentioned earlier come into play. You see, the closest EMS jobs aside from county EMS are in the other counties. Two of those counties pay better than mine, but one has a college with a massive Fire/EMS school feeding it everything it wants, and the other requires you to be in peak physical condition with previous Fire and EMS training and work experience. Neither of which I am qualified for. The other surrounding counties don't pay nearly enough to merit the 45 min - 1 hour drive it takes to get there, and that goes for the big city with the private EMS jobs as well. Surrounding hospitals are the same way. Not only that, but the pay vs. hard work scale I mentioned for my current hospital would be worse in other places.

My crossroads are set before me. Do I choose to stay with EMS? It's the only career that I can say that I have truly loved. The work is selfless, the pay is dung, and the reward is only in the heart. But I LOVE it. I know that I could go for a few months or longer before I find the right place to work. In those few months, I could lose the only thing I love more: my family. They are the other choice. I couldn't ask my wife and son to stay with me while I go from poor to broke to worse. It's not fair to them. They've been through enough already while I pursued this adventure. My wife and I already know that the only way EMS could be financially rewarding is if I became a paramedic. Unfortunately, to get that money, you have to give that money. Almost $3,500+ that I don't have, and sitting without it for 2+ years while I take classes, stay up late, get up early, and never see home, all while going even further into debt because my regular work is suffering.

The choice I've made was a no-brainer, but it was so painful that it nearly brings me to tears every time I think about it. I looks like my time with EMS might be coming to a halt. Today, I plan to start the job search for something nearby that pays well and needs somebody full-time. My family needs me, and I need them.

I just don't see any other options...

In the Saddle

As I mentioned before, I became the Browncoat for the purpose of speaking my mind without fear of retaliation and to protect the names of services I work for, people I work with, and myself. This move was partially influenced by a white shirt who felt what I was writing under my own name was too... racey for their service. Obviously, I didn't want to lose my job, so I made changes to what had already been said and stopped writing as much as I had been.

The funny thing was, it wasn't good enough. The private service I work for decided to let Ol' Browncoat go yesterday on suspension under a false and absurd accusation. That was the service's way of telling me, "We're going to fire you. There's nothing you can do about it. You can't defend yourself either. We just need three more days to push the papers through."

I'm not going to go into details about what the accusation was, because it's really not important. Suffice it to say that it was in regards to my level of patient care. This tickles me a bit. The one that sent me off had been watching me and my involvment with a group called EMS 2.0.

The whole goal of this organization is to constantly improve pre-hospital care by being knowledgable of every skill we train in, and then using that information to help us provide the best patient care possible. It strikes me as odd that a person doing the best they can to improve their skills and provide the best patient care possible would be let go for those same exact reasons. Of course, there are other cirmcumstances that played their part in the mess, but that is for another day.

Long of the short, Browncoat wasn't hung up to dry completely. He used a couple of references, dropped a couple of names, and landed himself two part-time jobs at the local hospital and with the county EMS service in the same day of being suspended.

Funny how that works, ain't it? I've managed to put a thorn in a purple bellie's paw and landed myself a great gig all at the same time.

Got to go for now. I've got to be at work in an hour!

-Browncoat

Enter The Browncoat EMT

What is a Browncoat?

In the series "Firefly", Browncoats or "Independents" were named after the simple, brown dusters they wore as uniforms during the War of Independence. The simplicity of their gear was greatly due to the fact that technology and resources were scarce on the Outer Planets. Conversely, the Alliance's soldiers were called "Purple bellies", because of the purple-tinted body armor they wore on their chests.

This may sound a bit "geeky" to some, but to me it has a great deal of meaning. I used to go by a different name when I wrote about my experiences in EMS, but I ran into issues with censorship from my employer. They viewed my blog as a liability to their company and the people working there. They implied that if I were to continue, I would be reported to the state EMS Boards.

This became my "war" for independence. I felt that it was a mockery of sharing and education to not be able to write about what myself and so many others did in EMS. The purpose behind EMS blogging is to see what others do, how they do it, why they do it, reflect on ourselves, and apply that new information. It is about growing as EMS providers. Unfortunately, we are all being monitored and censored in some way, shape, or form. We are led to express ourselves minimally out of fear of what might be done to us by our employers and EMS governing bodies.

The stories and the truths; they must be shared somehow. If this is how it must be done, then so be it. There will be a day in the future when we can express our thoughts and share our ideas freely without fear of outrageous consequences.

Until that time, I remain the Browncoat EMT.

Let's go be Big Damn Heroes.