Light the Fire!

Written by Anne Camaro, August 25, 2020

Have you ever felt in a complete motivational funk? Well, believe me it is not rare, it’s actually quite common. In the recent months, especially since the beginning of the pandemic I have felt like the “fire in my belly” was slowly going out. First, came our office closure with all administrative staff having to work from home to limit dispatcher exposure. Then, the city issued travel restrictions. Next, came the cancellation of all in-person trainings. Finally, it culminated to many of my favorite “extracurricular activities” like national and regional conferences being canceled as well. I had speaking engagements in some of those cancellations, I had classes scheduled where I could share my knowledge with new and veteran 911 professionals, I had networking events that I longed to attend. I felt like my favorite parts of the job were being taken away from me with no end in sight.

Despair is a hard feeling to come to terms with, but it sums up how I felt with everything being canceled or moved to an online platform. Don’t get me wrong, as a millennial I absolutely love technology, but I crave face to face interaction and I crave networking and talking to people who actually speak my “911 Language”. I found myself drifting farther and farther away from “911 activities”, and that bothered me.

There was a week where the motivational funk was so great, I actually reached out to a friend who’s also a 911 leader. While talking to her I realized this funk I was in was not singular to my situation, it was affecting her as well. She shared the same feelings I had that my fire was slowly being put out. We brought in two other friends into the conversation and realized that it was a collective feeling. The pandemic has taken a lot from all of us.

Slowly we began to think about how we could support each other, and someone suggested a “virtual networking meeting”. We scheduled it, I was very skeptical at first, but once we began to talk, it was like we were in the same room, even though we were all in three different states. We shared our frustrations, our losses, and our many gains during the pandemic. We also shared some of the worries, and thoughts around what was to come. We talked about ideas on how to support our staff, and I began to see that fire growing inside me again. Having that virtual meeting helped me gain some perspective for the future of our profession, and helped me come to terms with the fact that we live in an ever changing world, and that we must continue to evolve even during the hardest of situations.

I have now signed up for more online events, and I hope that by sharing my experience I can empower you to do the same. Light up that fire in your belly! Talk to friends who “speak your 911 language”! Collaborate and plan! And always remember that it’s in the darkest of times that the innovation light shines brighter, we just have to know how to turn it on!

Thank you, Anne for sharing your valuable perspective! If you are interested in writing a blog, please email 911derWomen@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter on our homepage to stay up to date with 911der Women programming, exclusive content and blog updates. Click here and scroll to the bottom!