The Brick

Today is my last class day of CPE (Certified Public-Safety Executive). Tomorrow, we graduate. For six months and these past two weeks, we've worked really hard to get to the finish.. and now it's finally here. I've learned so much in that short time. The knowledge that is shoved into every crack and spare hole in your brain is tremendous.

It's an experience that I will not forget. #corememory

In the class we talk a lot about your story and how it relates to your leadership style.

You know I'm all about leveling up on our leadership styles.

During the first few days of class, we had a tour of the?APCO International?facilities and went to the Walk of Heroes, which in itself is pretty powerful.

But at the end of the pathway, there was this brick. It took my breath away.

Now, I'm sure at the time I probably knew that this was here.. but I hadn't remembered until we walked up to it on our tour. It has been on my mind all throughout our class.

Dr. Steve has been relentlessly applying the pressure that we must always keep our story front of mind. He stresses, almost daily, that we should remember why we got to where we are.

So it's fitting that I found this brick at APCO, at a course that is truly a high point in my career. Because my 911 story starts with Nici.

While I grew to love her later, did NOT love her when I was a baby dispatcher finding my way in the ECC. She was one of my first trainers, and to be quite honest, it felt like the whole philosophy of 911 eating their young applied to her and I.

She never seemed to like me. While I know the crux of a trainer/trainee relationship isn't about liking someone, having some civility and some relationship building with each other is a good start. That never happened. I always seemed to annoy her by just breathing in and out.

She never seemed to appreciate anything I did. If I learned a new skill, well I didn't learn it fast enough, or I didn't do it how she would have done it.

She often talked to me in a way that would absolutely not be accepted now in a trainer/trainee relationship. There was a lot of things said that I think knowing what we know now, she probably wouldn't have said in the way she said them.

That was the culture in those days. I'm not saying it was right, wrong or indifferent - it just was how it was done.

I put up with a lot from her and another veteran dispatcher for quite a long while. Our time together was especially difficult when they were together, and eventually it just became too much.

The final straw for me was one morning on 1st shift, when she told me that she couldn't understand why I was hired if I wasn't smart enough to get the hang of simple tasks.

I was boiling. But I said nothing. I got up out of my seat and left. I walked out.

I think at first she thought that I was just going to the bathroom, or to my locker. I did go to my locker, so I could pack my stuff. When I was done, I started walking down the hall towards the door.

She rushed out and asked me what I thought I was doing. I told her that I was quitting. She'd spoken to me like that for the last time.

Nici rushed to me and said "Absolutely not! You are not quitting." I looked at her like she was insane.

She pulled me into a nearby interview room and we talked for a long time. Yelled. Talked some more. Yelled. And while it's been some years ago, and I don't remember everything said, she told me one thing that really stuck with me. "Roxy I am hard on you because I believe in you. This job is hard. It's always going to be hard. I want to be sure that you can handle it."

For a long time, I thought that was kind of crazy. The tear you down to build you up mentality.

But as I experience one of the best, most impactful, most transformative learning experiences of my life - it's almost poetic that Nici is there, on site.. front and center - to see it.

I didn't realize until this class, that this time with Nici as my trainer, not only prepared me for a professional life that has lasted 18 years.. it was a crucible in my personal life as well.

I could have very easily told her some colorful words and continued to walk out the door. But, I chose to hear her out.

I'll be forever grateful to Nici. She somehow convinced me to go into that interview room with her and work it out instead of giving up. I think of all the things I would have missed out on had I told her no.

She did me the biggest favor of my life in that moment.

And the hard times, while they have almost swallowed me whole at different points, they haven't beaten me. I owe that in large part to the foundation that Nici Taylor built for me.

It's just amazing how the world works sometimes. How everything is connected in a large, cosmic way. I know Nici is proud of what I'm going to achieve tomorrow and I know she's already up in heaven's kitchen preparing a Nici Taylor breakfast extravaganza to celebrate.

I owe her more than I could ever express.

What are some of your crucible moments?