Quarters: do you have them?

[Paramagic]

As for 24's, depending on your call volume, many days, sleep may be impossible. Staying up, focused, and on top of your game for 24 hours is not an easy task. Many places mandate that no beds until after 1800 hrs or 2200 hours, but to me, if I am tired, I will try to nap whenever I can. Even a 15 minute cat nap can do wonders for you.

I don't care who you are, 24 hours is a long time to go without sleep. Does it happen? In many areas, nearly every single day.

I find it incredible that busy areas still run, or are allowed to run, 24 hour shifts. I forget the exact numbers, I will hunt the references down later, but being without sleep for about 17 hours has the same effect on your cognitive and motor skills as having a blood alcohol content of 0.05.

Now, we would all, quite rightly, be absolutely apalled if someone turned up to work having had a few drinks because it would impair their judgement and so on. However we seem to be happy to allow someone to work with the same level of impairment from fatigue.

Does not compute...

[EMS49393]

I'm not reading this entire post right now but I'll still chime in. We have awesome quarters were I work. I do work a pretty busy station, but we are sort-of a combo department (it's a long story) and the volunteers do come out and ride the other ambulances pretty regularly. We work 12 hour shifts, 2 days, 2 nights, off for four. Several of us often swap in to 24 because of the cost of gas and our commute times. Personally, I love 24's, no matter how busy, because my drive is over 50 miles one way and takes me 75 minutes.

My last job had great quarters as well. We weren't nearly as busy. We worked 12 hour shifts. My drive was less then 4 miles round trip.

Until they come up with affordable flying cars or lower the price of gas, I'm going to keep loving the 24.

[AndyCompany]

This is more of a professional courtesy question. There is an overnight veteran emt that comes in at 11pm when the evening crew gets out at 12am. She habitually complains and asks us to basically not speak for our last hour of our overlapping shift, every time. Not only that but she storms in the room in her underwear. I’ve been wondering and growing frustrated with this. Seeing as when I come in for morning overlapping shifts I simply have the courtesy to wait an hour before I do dishes and cook breakfast due to the overnight crew still sleeping. Also I feel that if walked around in my underwear it’d be an issue. Furthermore I’ve learned that she basically orders fellow overnight emt’s to drag their mattress into a training closet to sleep! Is this fair, what can I do... or am I in the wrong.

 

[Just Plain Ruff]

On 4/4/2019 at 4:39 AM, AndyCompany said:

This is more of a professional courtesy question. There is an overnight veteran emt that comes in at 11pm when the evening crew gets out at 12am. She habitually complains and asks us to basically not speak for our last hour of our overlapping shift, every time. Not only that but she storms in the room in her underwear. I’ve been wondering and growing frustrated with this. Seeing as when I come in for morning overlapping shifts I simply have the courtesy to wait an hour before I do dishes and cook breakfast due to the overnight crew still sleeping. Also I feel that if walked around in my underwear it’d be an issue. Furthermore I’ve learned that she basically orders fellow overnight emt’s to drag their mattress into a training closet to sleep! Is this fair, what can I do... or am I in the wrong.

 

You are kidding me, she walks around in her underwear around you and no-one has said anything to her?  Honestly she is sexually harassing you and should be reported to HR for this.  I may be old fashioned but you just don't do that.  Does anyone else walk around in their underwear when they are working?  I bet not.  

This is one step away from a harassment complaint and I'll bet it won't come from any of those who are fully clothed, it will come from her saying that you guys keep looking at her partly naked body.  

You better nip that immature behaviour in the bud and if it doesn't stop, request a transfer to a station where crewmembers are more mature than  3 year olds. 

Man, Dust would have a hey day with this one.  

[Richard B the EMT]

Me being "Captain Obvious" here, take the situation to human resources, or at least to the immediate supervisors.  Document all complaints, times, dates, the usual deal. If possible, address the issues to a female supervisor, so she might be more comfortable,  even as the men working with her are uncomfortable.

Running around in her underwear sounds like...well...inviting trouble. Not knowing the indivividual, could she be trying to trap some or all male colleagues into a sexual harassment lawsuit? Or even a lesbian coworker, in a similar lawsuit? When she's on the road, is she at least a competent EMT or Paramedic, or driver? If not, perhaps she's trying to keep those who could fire her off balance, with threat of a lawsuit. 

Again, as the Captain,  her actions are behavior of an unacceptable nature. Keep the City informed as to outcome of this investigation/situation.

Edited April 13, 2019 by Richard B the EMT