Listening for the Ping

This is about knowing your emotional limits, expressed as a history nerd metaphor. I wrote it as a paramedic, with EMS in mind, but it certainly can apply elsewhere.

I’ve been working on the ambulance for a quarter of a century. I’ve had Bad Days. Far more good days, but enough Bad Days to recognize my reaction.

I’m not going to delve into Bad Day stories, not really. I usually answer the question about “what’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?” with a deflection like “My paycheck.”

People ask that, but they don’t want to hear the real answers.

But the thing about the bad calls, is you push through and you do what you have to do, because you have to in the moment. And then , you feel numb. You function. People don’t even realize that you are off your game, but you are. And then some tiny, stupid annoyance happens and you lose your shit. What isn’t apparent, is that the bad calls use up your reserves. They leave you with no patience for the stupid little annoyance.

So, lets say –hypothetically, of course– you have to do CPR on a child in front of her mother on Christmas day. You don’t break down, because that’s simply not an option. You do what you have to do, and then you restock the truck and get ready to do it again. And you might seem fine.

But then–again, purely hypothetically– somebody might threaten to write you up for not sweeping up the backings from the EKG electrodes from the floor of the ambulance, and you – purely hypothetically, since you are a professional – grab them by the shirt and threaten to stab them.

This is considered poor workplace etiquette. It’s also why I spent my first decade in EMS getting fired every few years.

Because I didn’t hear the ping.

So, for the non WWII history buffs out there, the standard US service rifle, the M 1 Garand, was a semi automatic rifle with an eight round capacity, which gave an advantage over both the Germans and Japanese who had five rounds in a bolt action rifle. A distinctive feature of the Garand was that after you fired the last shot, it would eject the clip with an audible ping. So, when you heard that ping, your weapon was empty.

Once that happened, your primary way of dealing with threats was gone, and until you took a moment to reload, all you had were worse options.

For a long time, I just wasn’t attuned to that ping. I would miss it or ignore it and then when the next issue came up, it was Hand Grenade Time, or Bayonet O’Clock.

Which works as a metaphor, because my reactions tended to be explosive, indiscriminate, destructive, and dangerous to everybody in the vicinity, including myself.

I may be a slow learner, but over the past twenty five years, I have gotten better at knowing when I need to take a moment to reload before dealing with the next problem.

So do yourself and everyone around you a favor, and learn to listen for the ping.