Dear Sirenhead: I'm 22 years old and have been an EMT for six years. I've never had a problem working with any of my partners, but the one I was recently assigned to gives me the creeps. He's a 30-year-old divorcé who acts like he's God's gift to women but is really a perverted paramedic with an out-of-control ego.
Initially, it just annoyed me when he salivated over a young nurse or talked about someone at work he'd love to date. At first, I successfully shut him down by ignoring him or telling him to "dream on." Then he started getting crude, talking about a weekend conquest, telling sexual jokes and using descriptive terms when commenting about women he saw while on duty.
Last week, on our first tour of duty, he started hinting that we should go out. I laughed at his comment, and he didn't say anything more about it the rest of the shift. During our second shift, he said it again and added that he'd show me the sexual time of my life. I said "No thanks, I'm waiting for Brad Pitt."
Yesterday he reached over to my side of the cab while we waited for an assignment and started rubbing my thigh and asked me if I had thought about his offer. I told him there was nothing to think about because I wasn't interested. I asked him to stop suggesting we date because it wasn't going to happen. I also told him that if he touched me again, I'd poke his eyes out with a 14-gauge needle.
I told him I only wanted to be associated with him at work. He responded that it would be tough for him because he really likes me and stated, "I'm not sure I can control myself." It made me sick to my stomach because I don't even like the jerk and now I'm stuck with him for 12 hours at a time. What should I do?
-Maggie S. via Internet
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You're forced to deal with enough slime on the streets. You shouldn't have to put up with it in your unit. You've done all the right things to cool old hot pants down. You were polite and honest with him. Then you were blunt and threatened him to shut him down. But his last comment tells me this jerk will only get more aggressive. A guy who says he's not sure if he can control himself is a loose cannon who could go off at any time. Predators get hungrier by the minute.
Write down all of his comments and actions right now, present them to your supervisor and demand a reassignment. Some key phrases to use in the letter to your supervisor:
"I'm uncomfortable working with this sexually suggestive partner;"
"I'm afraid for my personal safety because he has touched me against my wishes and told me he finds it difficult to stop;" and
"If I am forced to remain his partner, I will feel like I'm working in a hostile work environment."
This kind of language usually gets management's attention. Once you let them know about the jerk in writing, they have to address the issue. Your next action: File a complaint with your police department. If your bosses don't reassign you STAT and your partner threatens you in any way, don't wait; go to the police. Often, a 10-minute discussion with a detective can make a spineless wimp like him avoid you like the plague.
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Goat Herder
Dear Sirenhead: Think you've heard it all? Well, check this out. I'm a shift manager at a busy EMS service and have been involved in EMS for 18 years. Today I had a new experience. An employee reported to work with a baby goat. She proudly displayed it on the kitchen table at headquarters.
When asked why she brought her goat to work, she said it had to be fed every two hours, and she intended to take it on the unit to make sure it ate. She also advised me that she had permission from the operations manager to do this.
After several phone calls to the operations manager and a meeting with three other supervisors and the director, we decided that taking goats to work was not a good thing.
After we announced the decision, the tears rolled and the goat herder went home-too upset to continue her EMS duties.
-G.C. in S.C. via Internet
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I've worked with a lot of jackasses in my career, but never a goat. Can you imagine pulling up to a wreck, asking a cop to retrieve a suction unit from your ambulance and having him find a goat chewing on your IV bags?
I'm surprised your dim-witted employee didn't file a claim under the Family Medical Leave Act to be with her little "baby." People often think of their own needs first and forget their agency's mission. First, you don't bring pets where needles, medications and other EMS care items are stored or used. It's dangerous and unsanitary.
Second, you have to remember that lots of people are allergic to dogs, cats and, probably, goats, too. Ambulance stations-and ambulances-aren't places where barnyard animals should roam. If they'd ever caught wind of this story (no pun intended), your local news media would have had a field day with it.
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