(In)consistency is Key

I have taken more field trips in the last four weeks than I did in all of high school.

The daily routine is different every day, depending on what is going on in the department and whatever event comes along to derail everyone mid-day so that little to no work can get done. The inconsistency is the only thing that is consistent and it is something I enjoy about what I’m doing. There are days where I am working at a computer for 4 hours straight on a task that needs to be done by someone and those days are fine.

But my favorite days so far have been the ones where I am not at a desk. There are a lot of opportunities to be doing something else in emergency management and they come in all shapes and sizes. These opportunities, known as field work, are good for seeing E.M. work in motion. So far, I have been a part of a few such opportunities: visiting and speaking at schools, attending trainings for activation in an emergency, toured an airport to discuss supply drop logistics if a major event were to occur, and staffed community events where I was left in charge of a table and sharing information with he public. And these are just the opportunities that I have encountered so far. There are other things that have yet to come, such as staffing in an activation scenario, “table-top” simulations (replicating an emergency with staff members as victims), and more that I do not know about yet. That has become the thing I enjoy most about the work that I do.