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Work Life balance in any department is crucial. People have to have lives outside of work. For years our department had been plagued with higher turnover rates and large amounts of mandatory overtime to cover minimum staffing as defined by the department. It is our opinion that the ideology of department has to adapt to changing times. Gone are the days of paramedic only ambulances. In order to survive you have to learn and adapt.
So what is mandatory holding?
Meet Firefighter/Medic Freddy. Firefighter/Medic Freddy is a new employee for COFEMS and loves his job. He loves showing up to work everyday and serving the citizens of Orange County.
Once Firefighter/Medic Freddy completes his 3 months of orientation/preception training he is given his permanent schedule on A-Shift.
Firefighter/Medic Freddy is given his schedule which he feels like is a good balance for the work he does.
Firefighter/Medic Freddy continues this schedule for a while with no complaints from his family, until one day Firefighter Freddy is told by his supervisor that B and C shift have had a few people leave or go out on injury so there will be quite a few mandatory holds that will have to be covered. Firefighter/Medic Freddy starts to feel stressed about balancing his Home/Family/Work life while also working a lot more mandatory overtime.
Firefighter/Medic Freddy is told he is to be held on mandatory for either one of the 12 hour slots in red to make sure Orange county has a sufficient amount of ambulances staffed (per department staffing policies) for the shifts that are short personnel.
After working multiple 36 hour shifts for weeks and months in a row Firefighter/Medic Freddy is both mentally and physically exhausted. His family is unhappy and Firefighter Medic Freddy does not know of any other way to fix the situation than to leave COFEMS.
We understand where it may look like we are bashing our own department. Please understand that is not our intent. We have realized over the last several years that this is a continued issue that needs public education. We have had multiple past employees look like Freddy for having to leave COFEMS for mental and physical exhaustion.
We understand that with this job comes mandatory holding (at times), but repeated issues require alternate solutions to our problems. We as a department have to adapt and overcome these issues in order to keep and maintain staffing.
We thank you for taking the time to read Firefighter/Medic Freddy's story. We promise it is all too real in our department and we need to fix the issue. Please consider calling or writing your Local Board of Supervisor member and let them know you understand this needs to be fixed.
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