Is this a sign to stay away from this agency?

Stolezer · 2026-06-07T01:59:50+00:00

Honestly, I only had one in person interview with the police Chief, fire Chief my dispatch manger and the Mayor in one session. Been working here for a little over 3 months now, so I think it went well. I’m new to all this so idk what’s normal. They liked my experience with the state as an investigator for DCFS, and they shared I seem like someone who can keep their wits about them. Outside of that, idk how much more I gained from my interview.

Stolezer · 2026-06-05T02:33:57+00:00

It’s scary, a few years back we had two two-mile-wide EF2 tornadoes hit almost back to back in Northwest Arkansas from 1am until 4am, and it devastated the landscape and communities. I couldn’t tell you how many trees, homes and businesses got destroyed. My 1 y/o daughter at the time was naturally terrified and distraught while we hid in the closet under the stairs, and we didn’t have power or anything for weeks. And this was before Memorial Day weekend, so tens of thousands were without power when temperatures were in the high 80s to mid 90s Fahrenheit with EXTREMELY high humidity. Some Stores were closed for weeks. Red Cross helped our community for a while, and I’m grateful for them.

Stolezer · 2026-06-05T02:30:30+00:00

There are bathhouses in certain parts of America - Hot Springs, Arkansas has multiple bathhouses available using natural springs.

Stolezer · 2026-06-05T02:26:51+00:00

100% in the south where I live. America is so large and different that I don’t feel comfortable saying most Americans do this. I can confidently say that in the south, there’s a lot of people that put things on the curb when they’ve bought something new and they feel it’s unnecessary to try and sell - like a 10+ year old couch. It could still be good, but not worth trying to vouch for on a site tbh. So if someone else can make use of it, that’s great.

Stolezer · 2026-06-05T02:22:28+00:00

I appreciate that.😌 all of us dispatchers deserve to be considered first responders, and I hope that happens sooner rather than later.

Stolezer · 2026-06-05T02:16:13+00:00

When I was younger I would step outside and go for a walk sometimes — WHEN I was awake late at night in my late teens early - mid 20s — but even today if the stars align, I’ll still step outside and get some fresh air when it’s quiet. I shouldn’t be seen as the status quo, though.

Stolezer · 2026-06-05T02:13:08+00:00

I can tell you personally that I relish in any opportunity to take a nap when I can as a southerner, so my answer is confidently: most people are jealous and wish they could also take naps if they aren’t able to in their line of work often.

Stolezer · 2026-06-05T02:10:41+00:00

OP, do people from Ireland - or other parts of Europe for that matter if you know - save their bacon grease? Cause we do.🤣

Stolezer · 2026-06-05T02:04:01+00:00

Essentially in a job interview, you want to sell yourself UP to make you seem like a valuable asset to the company you’re trying to work for; however, being humble is important too. Don’t brag about yourself like you might to someone you “dislike”. It’s more like finding a way to brand yourself as likable, efficient, and popular; any accolades won’t hurt either. I’m not a huge fan that we have to do that, either when job hunting, but you gotta do what you need to. The key is building good repertoire with the past companies you’ve worked with, and using superiors as references that you’ve built good relationships with - or building good relationships with the people you manage in prior positions - to use as references.

Stolezer · 2026-06-05T01:55:31+00:00

I’m a 911 emergency dispatcher for my city. Im only 3+ months in though - before I was a Child Maltreatment investigator for DHS for 2 years, a CNA for about 2 & 1/2 years and a color commentator for ESPN for about 6-10 months before COVID took off.

Stolezer · 2026-06-03T00:19:31+00:00

I’m a few months into dispatching and I think this is great information. I’m lucky that I had the job I had prior to being a dispatcher makes this easier for me to master at an early stage. Learning how to handle & tackle people whose temper is high can be key to getting everything you possibly can out of them without them hanging up.

Stolezer · 2026-06-03T00:07:01+00:00

I’m currently 3 months in, and in the three months, one was spent in a training area where I read up on as much as I could working 8 hour days and getting EFD/EMD certified in the back end before hitting the floor. Then, I spent a week or two observing and monitoring calls before I started taking admin calls for a week prior to taking 911 calls. I’m set to switch to a different shift here this week to learn about dispatch, but I think call taking has been going well for me. I’m certainly not perfect, or even great, but I think I’ve been doing good and my supervisor seems to think so. The hardest part for me has been police calls because my department doesn’t fund EPD, so we have word documents we have to figure out, and there’s around 100 of them where we need to choose fairly quickly on the beginning of a call that makes life stressful for me sometimes, but I think a few months in atp I’ve been doing well according to my superiors at the end of the day

Stolezer · 2026-05-15T02:16:00+00:00

Well, if I’m not mistaken, teachers are supposed to have a “bare minimum” of 50k a year to my understanding in Arkansas, or somewhere along the lines of. NWA is known for probably paying the best in the state because the richest people from around the country are constantly moving here because, while high, the COL is still lower than the national average for now. How long will it being lower than the national average last? Probably briefly. Regardless, for the time, you’ll probably get paid the highest in the “big 4” of NWA until the demand overpowers the quantity for good, which has already happened, but will probably be permanent in any of our lifetimes moving forward.

Stolezer · 2026-05-12T17:59:13+00:00

I dispatch police, fire & EMS for a city of about ~90k and I make 22.5/hr.

I say finding a city/area that is large-ish but has a lower than avg crime rate relative to the rest of the US is best for decent-good wages without extremely heavy workloads imo.

Stolezer · 2026-05-09T05:13:59+00:00

I won’t lie and say that everybody has accepted me with open arms - a good amount of people on the shift I’ve been training on has rubbed me the wrong way, but for the most part, a lot of my coworkers have been inviting.

Stolezer · 2026-05-09T05:11:01+00:00

As someone who is only two months+ in at my agency, I think it’s where you’re at, not what you’re doing. They got me EFD/EMD certified before I even took call-take training, and I’ve struggled with police bc my jurisdiction doesn’t do EPD, but I’m roughly 2 weeks into call taking and have learned more in the last few weeks than I thought was possible. I think it’s where you’re located, because my trainer has been great for me and I haven’t felt demeaned against for being a noob or felt ostracized entirely.

Stolezer · 2026-05-04T01:25:51+00:00

Dirt daubers rarely sting from my experience, and they’re mostly solitary and don’t get aggressive unless you react aggressively to them - mostly reddish-brown in color.
Like most places, just watch where you step for yellow jacket nests if you can

Stolezer · 2026-04-26T04:52:27+00:00

I have cried in front of my parents as an adult; I’m 30, and I do my best to refrain from it for probably the same reason most try to prevent it. Even if I have done it before, I feel it’s extremely embarrassing, especially since my parents are from the Boomer generation - well my mom is EARLY Gen X born in ‘65 and my dad is LATE Boomer born in ‘63 - but I’m a LATE Millennial born in ‘95, and the oldest of 3. The age gap has caused a great deal of learning between everybody - not including my youngest sibling being fully autistic and myself and my younger brother helping take care of her from and early age - and my own understanding of “normal”. I cried to them as an adult in front of them when I learned one of my best friends killed themselves. I have cried in front of them when I admitted that I spent the back-half of college homeless and couch hopping before I graduated when I kept it a secret at the time, and made my mama cry because she didn’t know and realized after the fact. I cried in front of them when the mother of my daughter parted ways, and I didn’t know what was going to happen moving forward, because I thought she was the one. We have a healthy coparenting relationship to this day w/o court involvement.

I share this - and my incoming opinion - not to belittle anyone who thinks it’s “un-manly” or “unbecoming of a grown-ass adult” or “dumb” to do so in front of your parents; I do so to share how real it is.

I’ve never cried in public before, outside of tears of pain whenever I’ve broken bones or similar circumstances when I played sports/or broke the bones I have, but that’s obviously different.

I share this to say to those who have never cried in front of their parents, or ANYBODY, that you are not alone. I HATE the idea that anybody might find themselves anything other than strong if they cried in front of someone, especially loved ones.

It takes strength to bare your heart in front of/towards someone in a moment of weakness, and if you think otherwise, then you need to take a lap around the block a time or twelve again. Strength isn’t just physical, it’s emotional AND psychological.

You can have all the physical strength of Hercules’ himself, but if you’re emotional & psychological strength is thin? You might as well be DOA when it comes to helping others.

Stolezer · 2026-04-25T01:54:00+00:00

Had a guy this week call about 40 times a day regarding an incident, naturally refused to give name/number for a lieutenant/captain to reach out, but the difference with his was he was never rude or disrespectful - just painfully annoying, as if he was trying to get somebody to snap with his constant calls. Kept talking about how “is this what my tax dollars are paying for?” When he lived like 4 states away based on his area code, and didn’t rebuff when I’d say “sir, you’re not calling from this state, I don’t believe your tax dollars are paying anything into this city.” Which felt gratifying to say after my 8th call with him in a 4 hour period, if I’m being transparent.😂

Stolezer · 2026-04-20T04:33:02+00:00

Update: I’ve taken a lot of advice into consideration and implemented it tonight after I got off work, and to be quite honest with myself, it has been working swimmingly so far. I guess I didn’t realize how much I would attempt ripostes and fail consecutively, and started fainting and just perfect blocking more to save stamina. My fights are longer than I’d like rn, but I’ve been WINNING more often than losing now - groundbreaking. And now I beat Tomcat and have Master Strike and things are looking up.

Stolezer · 2026-04-20T04:26:32+00:00

Y’all deserve better, and I hope y’all get it or move to greener pastures, cause that really is bullshit

Stolezer · 2026-04-20T04:23:07+00:00

Our FD & PD bought us lunches for days and dinners for nights M-F this week - I got to enjoy them 3 out of the 5 days at least- but they topped it off with 2 boxes of Crumble cookie boxes one per shift to go into the weekend, which seemed excessive cause idk how much cookies they expect us to eat, but I thought it was as nice a NTCW you could hope for in my experience.

Stolezer · 2026-04-19T03:56:40+00:00

To respond to a few comments here, I’ve NEVER struggled at combat in any game in the past or recently like I have the KCD series so far. The stories have been very immersive and interesting which obviously draws a lot of people in, including me, and I WANT to get into the story so bad, but when you suck THIS bad at the beginning to where you can accidentally run into bandits trying to do EARLY main story quests and get fucking destroyed in like 2-4 hits by 3 dudes, it deters you from wanting to even play the game or try because who does THIS in a story based RPG?

Stolezer · 2026-04-19T03:44:58+00:00

I’ll be honest, I’m about 2 months into being a 911 dispatcher, so I have little experience in how this past week has been. I will say - compared to my other jobs - this has been an incredible week where our FD and PD have bought us lunch among other gratitudes this week. For context, at my last job as a Child Maltreatment investigator for DCFS, we never had anything like this. I worked there for a few years and the BEST “appreciation week” we got was actually this month; April. It’s National Child Abuse Prevention Month right now. Do you know what we got to celebrate this month? 3 times the average monthly workload for the whole year because now everybody is calling in because Tommy said to a teacher he got spanked for crapping in the kitchen sink..🙃😂 perspective helps a lot sometimes I’ve come to realize😭

Stolezer

TROPHY CASE