It seems as though the call volume has been way down lately. I’ve had several days with just one call, and it’s been a dialysis return at that.

Strange things are in the air at IFT. Apparently, the company is working to get “trauma verified”. That means they’re accepted by the state and county as a “real” ambulance company and can bid on 911 contracts. Fun.

To get all the crews ready for this big event, they’ve been having us staff rigs 24/7, even though we have no calls. Dispatch has also been told to “post” us when we’re on shift. That means we have to go to a certain area, park the rig on a street corner and stay there. Hypothetically, if we were doing 911 calls and the area we were covering was close to where we were posted, this would make perfect sense.

However, on Saturday night, when I worked from 1500 to 0100, we were NOT doing 911 calls and we had no pending calls. That’s a big goose egg. Another ZERO call day. No calls, no reason to be posted on a street corner. No reason to actually drive the truck out of the garage. We could have just as easily responded to any transfer from the station as we could of from our “post”. Simply ridiculous. Someone had the wise idea that we “needed” to be posted to “keep us out of trouble.”

Anyway, I’ve been working with different partners everyday and that’s always a challenge. Finding the “sweet spot” with how much I want to talk vs. how much they want to talk and what radio stations we can listen to, and when/where to have lunch… it’s like dating again. Luckily, I’ve been driving, so when I want coffee, I just pull over. It’s not open for discussion. And hey, it’s not like were doing 911 calls or anything.