Gustav

Well, here I sit, at dispatch, watching everything going on with Gustav.

My boss turned down an assignment to pre-stage in Atlanta. I told him he should go, but he feels he needs to stay here. It would be good for him to get away, cause I think he needs time away from Winnemucca, and I can handle everything that needs handling while he would be away, but I think he does not trust me with the "keys to the house".

I sit here wishing I was there (New Orleans). Kinda like when I watched the 9/11 shit on TV. I was an ice rink manager then. Wishing I was back "on the job"!

Being a Forest Service/BLM employee, I have learned that these people are in their own little world, and oblivious to the outside world of emergency services.

Yes, the work we do is important, cause homes, some lives, forest and other wildland should not burn or be destroyed.

Since my trip to the Plumas, I have realized how "Clickish" the BLM/Forest Service is, and how much they will only do things their way. Makes me wonder why so many of them support Obama, cause "Change" is not in their volcabulary.

Anyway, I really do not think my bosses realize my potential, because they are judging me by the BLM/Forest Service standards...

Just yesterday I read where the Elko Interagency Dispatch Center brought on a new assistant center manager, he is a "Broke Dick Firefighter" that had no where else to go, but dispatch.....

While I believe we should take care of "our own", the BLM/Forest Service makes it MANDATORY that if you want any position of leadership in dispatch, you must have been on the line for at least one season. What a crock!

That policy alienates 85% of the dispatch community that would do great in these positions, but like I said earlier, these agencies are "Clickish"!

I feel that I am a great supervisor, I am a great dispatcher, I was a great firefighter, I was a great EMT, and I feel that I am a great person.

I have been doing some extra training, so that I can pass the "Pack" test they give to firefighters every year. I am going to get out next season, and prove to the "click" that they have someone special, do what you can to keep him!

I think back on all the jobs I have been on, the lives I helped save, the wrecks I helped rescue people from, the advice I gave young "fire pissers" whom have turned out to be upstanding adults, the soldiers/firefighters under my command that I treated better than my family and I wonder, did I make a difference? Did I do everything I could? Does anyone care?

I know that I do not think or do in the terms of "I", its always "we" or "us", but right now, I feel a little useless.

My apologies to anyone whom thinks I am a "downer", I just want to help the little guys in N.O.