Breach Your Mind
Explore life's depths and unlock the secrets of mental well-being on "Breach Your Mind." Join us as we navigate the intricacies of the human experience, offering insights, inspiration, and practical strategies for a fulfilling life. Get ready to breach the barriers of conventional thinking, embrace self-discovery, and nurture your mental health. Let's embark on a transformative journey together. Welcome to Breach Your Mind.
Breach Your Mind
Wearing The Uniform, Losing The Mission
You didn’t start this job to hate the people you serve, but resentment doesn’t announce itself; it builds quietly. In this episode, we take a hard look at how public service can twist into public contempt, and how unchecked negativity poisons the mission, the team, and your purpose.
If you're rolling your eyes at every call, mentoring rookies with sarcasm, or finding yourself burned out and bitter, this is your gut check.
You owe it to the public. You owe it to your team. You owe it to yourself.
Time to reset.
Team 1, stand by. Copy. Team 1, standing by. Breach, breach, breach. What's going on, guys? So let me ask you something.
Speaker 1:You've been on the job for a while, okay, let's say five years or more Not a rookie, yet not one of the old heads. How many calls? As soon as you hear them get dispatched, do you just kind of roll your eyes or shake your head? You know something negative. How do you see the public nowadays? How do you see the public nowadays If you answer to the affirmative on rolling your eyes, shaking your head on most of your calls, or if you look at the public as more of a nuisance or an enemy?
Speaker 1:Let me ask you an honest question Are you really being a public servant? Now, I know that that kind of question, that kind of comment, it can get a whole lot of different reactions from people, and I get it because you know I'm kind of in the same boat. You know how many times do we hear you know I pay your, I pay your salary, you know you work for me, yada, yada, yada. So I'm in the same boat when it comes to hearing that sometimes. But something I got to thinking about recently was you know, how good are we at being public servants if we've gotten to a point where we're just annoyed by the people that we serve? You know I'm not asking this question or saying this, like you know, I'm trying to preach or anything like that, because I'm not. I know I've felt it. I've. You know I've had times where I was annoyed at most of the calls that we had to go to, especially the ones that really kind of seem like it's just constant same thing over and over and over again, especially with this the same people, you know, really kind of seem like it's just constant same thing over and over and over again, especially with this the same people you know. So I'm speaking to you from a standpoint of, like I've been there too. So I don't want this, I don't want this to come off, you know, as a you know me better than whatever. It's not the case. But I've just started to see more and more of people who have done the job between five and eight, five and ten years, that their reaction towards the public, their reaction towards the people that they are serving, is, more often than not, one that's irritated. It's almost like they're inconvenienced to have to be there dealing with whatever they're dealing with and it really kind of gives off a negative connotation to the job that we do. You know, whether it's law enforcement, ems, fire dispatch corrections, you know if we start to give off these signs there's other people that are picking up on it. You know the public are picking up on it. The public is picking up on it. The people that we come out to do the job for they're picking up on it.
Speaker 1:As a field training officer, I tell most of, if not all, of, our new hires, especially those straight out of the academy. We talk about command presence and I tell them then, from the time your complainant starts to see you, you're already being judged From the time that they first lay eyes on you. If you're just pulling up in the driveway before you've ever gotten out of the car, truck, ambulance, whatever before you've ever gotten out, you're already getting judged. How's your ride look? Is it some beat-up jalopy that you don't take care of? Is there a bunch of trash all over the dash and everything else? They're automatically going to start to judge you as soon as you pull up. How they see you inside your vehicle. They're going to start judging when you get out of your vehicle. How you conduct yourself. They're already picking up on these things just as soon as we arrive and we haven't even said the first word to them, because they're looking at everything else. So we're already being judged and if we get to a point where we're starting to view the public we serve more as an inconvenience or a constant enemy, they're going to pick up on that. They're going to see those things. If you truly feel that way about them, they're going to know and the reaction that you're going to get versus someone who you know hasn't reached that point yet or has managed to pull themselves away from that point, the reaction you're going to get with that person is going to be different than the reaction that they're going to get Now.
Speaker 1:Obviously, there's a bunch more things that play into it. It's not just that, it's you know, knowledge and a whole bunch of things. But in general, if you look like a prick excuse me, if you look like a prick, then they're not going to have a whole lot of trust in you. They're not going to have a whole lot of faith in you. They're going to have a lesser opinion of you, just simply on the way you look, the way you carry yourself when you speak to them. Are you being a jerk? Are you being short? Are you constantly being a smart aleck?
Speaker 1:You know they're going to pick up on these things the same things that we look for when we do our jobs as cops. We're looking at body language. We're watching what people's hands and eyes and their feet and their hips you know we're watching what those things are doing, much like EMTs when EMTs are checking over their patients. You know we're watching what those things are doing, much like EMTs when EMTs are checking over their patients. You know they're looking for a bunch of different clues. We're seeing all these things. Well, we're not special in that. You know. We've got more training in it. We've done it more often than they have, generally speaking, but we're no different than the average citizen, the average person that we serve. We're no different than the average citizen, the average person that we serve. We're no different than them. They're going to do the same thing to us that we do to them. You know they're going to be looking at us to see if they can pick up on signs of deception, see if they can pick up on whether or not you're shooting them straight or you're just blowing hot air. They're going to see all of this stuff and it's going to affect the relationship that you have in that moment. It's going to affect the conversations that you have, the ability for you to be able to effectively do your jobs, whatever that may be.
Speaker 1:You know, if you're in dispatch, if you're a communications officer, think about how you speak on the phone. They may not hear you or, excuse me, they may not be able to see you, but they can hear you. You know, I've been told by my wife plenty of times it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Plenty of times it's not what you say, it's how you say it. So if you've got a sarcastic tone in your voice or a general you don't care tone in your voice, what's the chances that the person you're on the phone with is hearing that? You know firefighters, first responders, you guys when you get onto a crash scene and you know you've got a driver, an occupant that's telling you something, how's your reaction to them? And you really aren't that into it because here we go, just another driver doing something stupid. You think they're going to be able to pick up on whether or not you truly want to help them. More times than not, I'd venture to say, yeah, they'll be able to pick that up, especially if you haven't checked yourself and you've gotten to that point where you're just aggravated at the mere fact that this person needs your help.
Speaker 1:You know we forget a lot of the times that in our profession, public safety we rarely see people on their best days. It's more uncommon than anything else Because if you're in law enforcement, what's your job? Your job is to enforce the laws. People are calling because there's a domestic dispute, there's a civil unrest, there's some kind of issue going on with their neighbor, there's Lord Almighty knows all the different calls that we wind up going to. Those people aren't having a good day. Their emotions and their tensions and everything else is already on edge. You know my firefighters.
Speaker 1:You know how often do you guys get to see people when you're going to calls on their best day. Generally it's a medical call. Whether it's an ingrown toenail and an upset stomach, or whether somebody's in the middle of having a heart attack, it's generally not the best day. What about somebody with shortness of breath? Think they might be a little agitated. You know car crashes, fire scenes. You guys go on and putting out fires, whether it's a brush fire or structure fire.
Speaker 1:How many times you see people you know standing around all gleeful during that moment? Somebody's in the middle of losing something of theirs? Ems you guys see it. They're in medical distress. You know even the ones that are faking it. They might not be in medical distress, they may be in need of search of something else, but they're going through something and it's our jobs as public servants to be able to help them to the best of our ability. Help them to the best of our ability, you know, and if we've developed this mentality, if we've developed this attitude, that that you know people are needy, that they're a nuisance, that they're always just, you know, complaining, they're never happy, yada, yada, yada, if we've gotten to the point where this is the mindset that we've adopted, then how can we truly serve our public to our best ability? You know, how can we? How can we? How can we do the job that we set out to do from the very beginning, when we got in this profession? How can we do that to the best of our ability?
Speaker 1:Now, I know there's probably plenty of you that will say well, you know, I do my best work anyway, it doesn't matter how I view people Maybe, maybe you do, I don't know you. What I do know is what I've seen. I'm not calling out any of the public safety professionals that I work with. However, I've seen it when you guys are having a bad day, or if we're on a scene of someone that has constantly called and constantly complained, and yada, yada, yada. I see these things the same as y'all see it in me when I'm getting frustrated with something, and it's like that across the entire profession. That's how it is. We all get frustrated. We're human beings. We're going to have those days. We're going to have those days. We're going to have those moments. Like I said, I can speak on it because I've been there. You know, I've probably said it on here before and if not, I'll say it now A good expression to use is when you play in the mud, you're going to get dirty.
Speaker 1:We work in a profession where it could be the worst moment of somebody's life and we're in moments like that, or close to that, the vast majority of the work that we do. So, yeah, we're going to get some of that negative blowback. We're going to get some of that negative connotations coming back and bleeding into our life. You know, it's kind of like carbon monoxide you can't smell it, you can't see it, but it sits there and builds up and it becomes a danger. That's what this is.
Speaker 1:You know this contempt, this resentment. It builds up and if it goes unchecked it flows over. Our community sees it, our coworkers see it, our administrative personnel see it. You start getting citizen complaints. Your teammates stop wanting to work with you as much or stop wanting to be around you as much. You're getting called into the admin offices more often or getting emails or messages from the admin about you know, not doing something like you're supposed to. Or your superior comes to you and has to tell you hey, you know, captain was talking to me, pulled me off to the side and was telling me you didn't do X, y and Z. You know this stuff builds up and if we don't take hold of it, if we don't check ourselves and realize what's going on, then it's going to slowly infect us. It's going to slowly continue to break us down to where it can cause us some real problems. Missteps while we're on calls, losing our, losing our cool these things can happen.
Speaker 1:An example that I have of not being able to see it because you're in it. It's like social media. It's been a while now, quite a long time ago at this point, but a good friend of mine, co-worker. He and I were talking and there was a whole bunch of stuff that I just kept seeing on social media whether it was TikTok, facebook, you know any of them. I guess the algorithm just kind of hit and started just feeding me all of this crap and it started to alter my perception of the world around me, of things that I was seeing, things that I was hearing, and started making me think, you know, if the people in my own community are doing or feeling the same thing, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:And I'm sitting there talking to him and you know he's a good enough of a friend that he's like hey man, like where are you, where are you getting all this stuff? You know I tell him oh well, I, you know, I saw a reel, or multiple reels, or this, you know this TikTok series or whatever the case was at the time, and he goes all right, you need, or whatever the case was at the time, and he goes all right, you need, to pull your head out of social media. I said do what I said. I'm not. I'm not buried in it. I only watch it a couple of times a day. If that he goes, I think you're watching it a little more than you think you are because it's changing how you see things.
Speaker 1:He said you probably need to stop being in social media so much and take a look at what's around you, see what's actually going on, and if you do come across something and it stirs some kind of emotion, then look it up, go find the articles, read them yourselves and get the information that way, rather than listen to someone else's opinion on it. And he's a pretty smart guy. I consider him much smarter than me and I was like you know what, maybe you're right. So I did, stopped looking at social media so much, started pulling myself away from it as far as you know what I consume personally, man, it started to have all the change in the world. I was able to start going back to being more objective and, you know, less dark about the things that I was seeing. Also helped that I figured out how to reset the algorithm or not reset it, but change the algorithm for my social media platform, so that I could stop getting that stuff just kind of beamed into my head the entire time, you know. But it took him saying something to me when we were having conversation. It took him saying something to me for me to realize, you know what, maybe he's right. And then, as I started to make that change myself and start to take those steps to pull away from it, found out he was right. You know, I wasn't able to see what was right in front of my own face because of the negative things that were constantly being pushed into my face. And once I was able to pull away from it, I was able to see it. I was able to realize okay, he's right.
Speaker 1:You know we've got to do that work and we've got to check on each other, teammates. You know, if you see our personality start to change, say something, bring it up. It doesn't have to be a hard conversation. To begin with. It could be you good, yeah, why? You know it could be any number of things. But check on us. You know we're supposed to be a team. We're supposed to check on each other. When we start to see these differences, we're supposed to check in and see you know how we're doing. You know we'll ask about everything else going on in each other's lives. But when we start to see these changes, you know we're not going to bring that up. So be a teammate. You know. Check on the other people on your shifts. Make sure they're good. If they're not, see if there's something going on, see if there's something you can help out with.
Speaker 1:You know, because we all set out to do this job for a reason, we all got into it for all emotional reasons, whatever they may be. You know, some of us wanted to try to make a difference in the world. Some of us just really wanted to be in medicine, some of us just really wanted to do this, some of us really wanted to do that. But we all got into this for a reason and we need to get back to that. You know, obviously, as we grow and mature and we're in the job longer, those things are going to change. You know, those priorities are going to change or we're going to, you know, evolve those initial thoughts as we become more knowledgeable in the job that we do. But we've got to do these things so that we can get back to that core and focus on why we started to do this job to begin with.
Speaker 1:Whatever your reason is, there are some things that you know. Like I said, when it came to, when it came to me and that little social media thing where I was just getting bombarded with everything, you know, the step I took was to take a step back from it. You know, if you're starting to feel like you resent the public, or you know they're more of a nuisance and it bothers you that they need your help because it's not a real emergency or whatever the case may be, do yourself a favor and take some time off. Ok, take some time off. Okay, take some time off from work. If you don't take some time off, see if maybe there's, you know, another assignment you can take.
Speaker 1:I know that's not always easy. You know, especially like agencies like mine, you can't just say, hey, I want to go over here and work this now and be like, oh, okay, go ahead, that's not how it works, but put the feelers out there. You know, maybe you're just burnt out on what you're doing right now and you need to change gears a little bit. Maybe that's something that can do it, you know. Or, depending on how long you've been doing it, maybe it's time to hang it up, maybe you've reached that point where you can't get back to it. Maybe you've been there for so long and you've had so much of a buildup in you that you can't get back to that point of not feeling that way towards the people that you serve and that's okay, say it's okay, it's not okay, but it's one of them things. You know, and I hate to say it like that, but it is. It happens Some people can't get back from it and it's not until after they walk away from it, where they're not constantly subjected to all that negativity, that they're able to go.
Speaker 1:You know what Really wasn't that bad. You know, those of us that were in the military think back to basic training. Basic training sucked. Mine wasn't as bad as everybody else's, but basic training sucked. And while you were going through it, while you're dealing with all that, you hated it. But when you look back on it later on, you're through it. What's the feeling you get?
Speaker 1:You know I've got several buddies that that are combat vets and they've got the cool stories cool stories that I don't have. They've got cool stories. But then I'll listen to them tell those stories and it just sounds just horrible. You know the living conditions, the. You know the story I was being told the other day was you know how you couldn't wear a bunch of warm gear while you're in, you know, near freezing temperatures or freezing temperatures, because it was going to cause you to sweat. So you basically just had to freeze so that you didn't build up body sweat which would then freeze on you. You know that doesn't sound fun to me. That sounds horrible. But when I talk to these guys they remember how bad it sucked at times, but they also remember the good times that went along with it, but it wasn't until after they were past it. And that's the same thing.
Speaker 1:You know, if you're too far gone right now, if you just can't pull yourself away from it and you need to step away, you know, maybe that's what will give you some perspective on it. By no means am I trying to sit here and convince somebody that you know maybe that's what will give you some perspective on it. By no means am I trying to sit here and convince somebody that you know it's time to quit, retire or anything like that. That's not the point of this. The point of this is to try to get you to realize that we owe it to the people we serve, we owe it to our agency. We owe it to our community. We owe it to our rookies. I mean, think about the example you're setting for them. We owe it to them and we owe it to ourselves to be better than that, to write our calls and help the citizens of our communities in a manner that is fitting for the profession that we do.
Speaker 1:Obviously, there's going to be calls where that's not possible, and I'm not sitting here, you know, trying to be some philosophical everything is bright and beautiful kind of thing. That's not what I'm trying to do. You know there's going to be calls where it's not going to go that way, but we owe it to ourselves and everyone else to try to get back to where we were when we set out to do this job to begin with. Whatever your job is in public safety, you know we owe it to them, we owe it to ourselves to get back to that point, or as close to it as we possibly can, because that's where we do our best work, that's where we shine is when we're excited about what we're doing, or at least positive about the work that we're doing, doesn't matter how mundane it is, doesn't matter how insignificant it may seem. Having that positive outlook on things, maybe not even a positive outlook, just not a negative one. That's where we make our biggest differences. That's where we truly help the people that we started to do this for.
Speaker 1:Don't just wear a uniform. Go out there and be the public servant that you set out to be from the get-go. Help the people that you wanted to help Our citizens. Small little things make a big difference. Small little things make a big difference and the attitude you approach it with can make the biggest difference of all. So, anyway, real quick on this time, guys. I appreciate your time. I appreciate you stopping by. Remember that we're going to be starting up the new series Standing in the Gap gap. You can look for that one coming up soon. Don't forget to always, you know, check our website and see what we got going on over there and interact with all of our social content. That all helps us out a lot here. Okay, so, again, I appreciate your time, appreciate all your effort and until next time, guys, be safe. Bye.
