Meet the Night Shift

A guest blog written by Girl Scout Cadette Maureen.

Meet the Night Shift, a recent event hosted by GSCCC, was a great event for anyone who wanted to learn about what it is like to work at night. Most of the people I met said that they sleep during the day while many kids are in school. Meeting all of the employees at certain places proved to be a challenge because some of the workers were on lunch breaks at 9 p.m.! The jobs I learned about during the event and the people I got to meet were fascinating. One of my favorite places to go was the fire station because firefighters work very hard. While I was there, I discovered that they work for 24 hours straight and then have 24 hours off. Some even have to work on Christmas depending on their shift schedule. They have to go through an academy and they have to know how to be firefighters, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and medics because they have to do whatever is needed in the event of an emergency. Finally, I learned that because they all sleep at the fire station, they learn to be a big family and help each other out with whatever is needed. After the trip to the fire station, I didn’t think a job could be more interesting, but the police dispatch center was pretty cool. The center has employees who pick up 9-1-1 calls and get their information to send to first responders. They all have to go through training to make sure they can do the job and they can do it fast. We also got to meet two police officers, one was a volunteer officer. They told us all of the interesting things they get to do. Before they can do all of those cool things, they have to go through a 6-9 month training depending on what position they are looking to fill. To keep their license to shoot a gun, they have to practice at least twice a month. Something that I really loved is that you can go through the same training and have the same responsibilities as a paid officer even if you volunteer. But as a volunteer, you can say, at any time, that you’re tired and want to go home. We made a quick stop at the Chesapeake Regional Hospital. They sure did have a lot of cool job options there, too! The last place we went to was the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) traffic center. It is a very secure place and they try to keep everything locked up. They are connected to police and fire departments to stay up-to-date on accidents. They send traffic officers to accidents to make sure traffic doesn’t get backed up. They also have to go through a three-week training program. I hope that we can do this event again because I really enjoyed it. Thank you to everyone I got to meet and thank you to Chef Dedra at Now You’re Cooking Culinary Studio for making sure we didn’t go hungry during the event!