I made ok money. The hours were horrible....
A call comes through at 5 minutes before the end of your shift and you've just added another 2-3 potential hrs to your 12 hr shift.
I have pretty decently bad arthritis in my spine (C, T and L) from lifting heavy pts (morbidly obese) never mind virtually hanging upside down in wrecked cars-industrial accidents etc...and see the elderly be abused by not only Thierry family but nursing homes and hospitals...
It wears you down. ...I miss it often but to tell the 100% truth I have a misdemeanor fire arms charge ...that was upgraded from a ticketed infraction and I can license just fine but I'm unemployable for many things..medicine is one of them.
And I'm more than a medic- I have a BS in neurobiology- I was accepted into a relatively prestigious medical school in 2009...until they did my background check and found I would not be able to do clinical rotations.
I wanted to be a physicians assistant in emergency medicine...neurobiology just happened to side track me a bit while meeting my core requirements for med school.
Despite all of that ....and ambulance company I worked for for years knew me well and knew I was a good medic and not a risk to pts and employed me right up until I moved.
I can't leave the country for a lot of places
I can't volunteer for my kids girl scouts
Walmart won't hire me
I don't have the three grand or so it will take to attempt a pardon and have it removed from all conceivable databases.
So I work a lot of shitty jobs and decided to give engineering a shot based on Harrison testing and career counseling. I take apart and mess around with everything that's mechanical so it seems like a good fit and it's not working with the public. My military clearance was not affected by it...though I was interviewed by the FBI over it rather than just the normal brief background check they do on recruits. ... the FBI were frankly shocked I was charged let alone convicted.