I work as a 911 dispatcher at a college campus police station and yeah, I am looking at exiting this career field entirely, potentially even for lower pay.
Took this job because it meant moving back to my college town from my hometown (I had gone broke and had to move back in with my parents), and it nearly doubled the pay I was making at my previous full time job as an assistant store manager at GameStop. I was robbed twice in 2014 at my GameStop location, once at gunpoint and the second time was a physical assault that landed me in the hospital for minor injuries. Suffice to say, it felt like a very necessary and appreciated lifestyle upgrade, and it legitimately was for my first couple of years here, despite the pretty rigorous training. 6 month hiring process, 6 month training, 1 year of probationary employment (which meant I was more susceptible to termination for critical mistakes and made 20% less pay during my first year out of training). I don't think it's standard particularly at university police departments that dispatchers receive the full level of training that neighboring city and county dispatchers do, but that's how my current workplace operates, so I am expected to operate at the capacity of a full, "legitimate" dispatcher.
I took this job more out of desperation to escape my hometown (which I have hated since I left for college) and to put some distance away from my trauma, plus my closest friends and my brother still lived in my college town so it was for that reunion as well. I kind of had hesitation about how I'd fit in here at the work culture, and I figured it might be a lot friendlier and community-focused than typical police stations. Genuinely, for the most part that has been true for a good chunk of my time here, but Trumpism started to take hold pretty hard in the last few years and this department has really started to take on a persecution complex in the wake of recent events, especially since the campus just began its new semester and we've already seen some protest activity. It doesn't instill me with apprehension or fear, but the larger culture here doesn't like it at all and I've heard some nasty commentary about what's going on. We have had perfectly peaceful demonstrations, but it is freaking some of the folks out here big time. And yes, they are calling for defunding and abolishment of our police station... and I genuinely don't oppose it.
That said, either by eventual necessity of the aforementioned movement or by my own apprehension to the increasingly alarming attitudes and behavior I'm starting to see emerge in this environment, I feel like I need a new job. I'd prefer to be more public-service facing, as my experience in retail has made me kind of hesitant to work for private corporations ever again, but a lot of those positions have hiring freezes locally due to COVID-19.
Still pretty early in figuring out my transition. No idea what kind of field I'll move into, how much pay I'm willing to take a hit on, etc... I just got a 15% raise to my pay just prior to COVID-19, but I know I'm participant in a system that's pretty fucking unjust. If attitudes around here had remained more community-oriented like I'd seen demonstrated in my early years here, then I'd genuinely believe there was a chance we'd be able to argue for our continued existence, but I've seen some pretty insane warping of attitudes during Trump's tenure that awoke some of the worst aspects of people, and I feel increasingly terrible about my participation, and I can no longer fall back on the notion that I help people to ease the guilt about the culture that's emboldening here. Being college-oriented, this agency doesn't have a lot of exceptional instances of extremely wrongful incidents, but I know with the way the culture is developing behind the scenes, it's only starting to feel like a matter of time. Trumpism is the double-down for most people working here right now.
