Learning From the Best

I was taking in the moment of being with her, of feeling accepted by her.  Her.  The one I look up to, respect, and admire.  She is the one we all wanted to be working with when all hell broke loose in our county.  My goal as a 911 dispatcher was to become as good as her.

            Jean was driving us down the road in her old two toned blue, Ford pickup.  We were delivering a bed to a new co-worker who had moved here from Oregon.  It was the first time out with Jean, alone and away from the occasionally chaotic dispatch center.

            “So, Missy, tell me about that 10-80 you had last night,” Jean inquired as she puffed on her cigarette.  She always sounded chipper and had a pleasant if not goofy tone to her voice.  I knew I had messed up on that high speed chase the night before, I just didn’t know she knew I had.  I began explaining to her the events of the previous night.  The neighboring county had called in about a pursuit that was entering our area.  I honestly don’t recall too much about the pursuit now, other than a trooper who I was responsible for, had ended up badly injuring his hand when deploying his spikes to end the chase.  My mistake, as I recall, was a minor one, and had nothing to do with the trooper’s injury. Still, it was one I shouldn’t have made in the first place. 

            After I finished my story Jean calmly leaned back in the driver’s seat and asked “and what do you think you could have done differently?”  I proceeded to tell her I knew exactly where I went wrong and it was obvious to me as soon as the incident was over.  Jean seemed satisfied with my response and changed the subject.

            She was not my boss or even my supervisor; she treated me as her equal, although I wouldn’t feel that way for quite sometime.  She was someone who cared about me, the job, and the officers we served.  She wanted to better me and help me grow.