Self Doubt / Thinking about Quitting
I just can't keep up with Police Dispatch. I've been training for 5 months. I'm even about to be signed off. My DORs are fine. No issues. Yet I have days where the brain fog is terrible. Today I did my first chase and I dropped the ball the whole time. It didn't last long because the guy crashed. Firstly, I froze. Which isn't a big deal. It happens. But then I couldn't translate the unit traffic fast enough. I lost track of where they were going. People in Comms got overly excited and wouldn't lower their voices so I missed even more radio traffic. Then, other units piped up wanting to know where to go. And of course, at that point, I don't know what to tell them... I'm literally just trying to AVL the unit fast enough. I just felt like I was 8 steps behind on everything... couldn't type fast enough... couldn't translate their shit radio traffic fast enough... And honestly, (and maybe this was by design) It felt like my team just kind of abandoned me to see how I'd do. Well... it turns out... Not so well.
Somebody tell me it gets better. Somebody tell me I'll get faster. Because I'm struggling to see how even after 5 months I'm still failing forward. I make dumb small mistakes every day and then I make embarrassing mistakes every other day. I just want to be good at this.... But I'm not... my brain just feels like it's not fast enough.
Posted Sep 11, 2025, 8:00 PM UTC