Kim Woods

SPEAKER1

01:43

It's your all connected . Hello .

SPEAKER2

01:57

I can hear me now , we can . Yes , I can hear you , but I can't see you . I'm not really sure what to you .

SPEAKER3

02:07

It's probably me , I don't use them . So I usually use . They are OK . Can you see me ?

SPEAKER4

02:13

Oh , I know . I just see your .

SPEAKER5

02:17

She's OK , glasses , Abby , can you help me out ?

SPEAKER6

02:23

What do you do if you're doing Zoom , right ? Yeah , a little off screen share was disabled .

SPEAKER3

02:31

OK , this is just disabled participant screen sharing .

SPEAKER5

02:37

So I think that doesn't mean that , right , right . What do you need ? I can see her , but she can't see me . And then I hit that and I got this was just it , OK ?

SPEAKER7

02:46

Um .

SPEAKER2

02:49

Can you still hear me , I can hear you .

SPEAKER8

02:51

Yes , OK , it's telling me that this is on your end , but she's trying to help me to see if maybe that good understood video .

SPEAKER2

02:58

There you are . OK , I had a Head Start video , I guess . I think . OK , thanks , honey . You're not I'm not the host . OK , now I got it .

SPEAKER9

03:07

I am not the host of conditions . You might be .

SPEAKER8

03:12

I might be . I'm used to teams . I don't do a lot of zoom . So I was very confused when it came on . But now we got it . OK , we're good .

SPEAKER4

03:17

Oh yeah . We're doing my and it's it's a little weird trying to do incident management in a dispersed Iasi environment . And

SPEAKER9

03:27

so it's a fun game to do incident management and a teams environment , but we're making it work .

SPEAKER3

03:36

Yeah , I can imagine people making a lot of different adjustments to things for sure .

SPEAKER9

03:42

Yeah , absolutely . Oh so who work for the city of Kent .

SPEAKER3

03:49

Yeah , and I still do , just in a different role . But I worked as a sworn police officer in different ranks for twenty eight years .

SPEAKER9

03:59

And so how many years experience with the working alone do you have to roll with emergency management ?

SPEAKER3

04:08

With OK , so when you say emergency management , what does that mean to you , to something ? You mean responding to emergencies ?

SPEAKER5

04:16

Twenty eight years .

SPEAKER9

04:22

So what is what is your family makeup that makes you prepared for this for ?

SPEAKER8

04:29

So when I saw in 2000 , so I got hired in 1990 and 2000 , I got married and I immediately started having kids , but my now ex had to .

SPEAKER10

04:41

So I started off right away in 2000 with two kids because he had two and then we added two more . So my family make up at the time was a blended family with three kids and then four when my daughter was born .

SPEAKER3

04:54

And then I was in that role from two thousand , she was born , the one that's sitting here was born in 2004 and I retired and in twenty eighteen . So that would be 12 years of having a family and responding to emergencies .

SPEAKER5

05:08

At the same time , is that what you're asking ?

SPEAKER9

05:11

Yes . OK , so during that time , what different issues or concerns did you experience ?

SPEAKER10

05:21

There was a couple of different ones . So when I was on duty , I was subject to unplanned overtime being called in early events occurring that impacted my ability to get home , things like that .

SPEAKER3

05:35

As I move through the ranks , I became subject to call out . So particularly for what I had one job for four years when my kids were tweens , where I was getting called out two or three times a week from home in the middle of the night kind of thing . So the predominant issue was having to have things set up so that that wouldn't injure them .

SPEAKER9

05:59

How do you deal with those challenges ? First of all , have somebody to help you . You said that you were married after a joint .

SPEAKER8

06:09

Yeah , and you're cutting in and out just a little bit , but I think I heard of an attorney who just love it .

SPEAKER3

06:14

So when her dad and I were married , we what we did was we tried to plan our shifts , so they were offsetting . So if I worked day shift , he said if I worked swing shift , he worked day shift . And then we tried we because we were both relatively senior , we could bit our days off . So we tried to do that opposite of each other and then not work a lot of voluntary overtime , if that makes sense . So that the so that we weren't so that if in the involuntary overtime came up that we didn't have a little more leeway , so to speak .

SPEAKER11

06:45

So there was that . There were some times that we got caught , just flat out got caught because he got called in or whatever . And occasionally one of us would have to take a day off or call our boss and say , hey , can I come in late ? I was pretty fortunate that when I had her , I was in an assignment that was somewhat flexible .

SPEAKER10

07:03

And then he moved to do an assignment that was not as flexible . So I was able to say , hey , I'm coming in two hours later . I can adjust my schedule a lot . So what we really did , we tried to make smart decisions in the front end so that we didn't make it anybody else's problem other than our own . And then we had emergency people like my next door neighbor . My mom wasn't great for that because she was super close . But we had an extra neighbor and a couple of friends , you know , we'd help out with each other at that kind of thing .

SPEAKER4

07:30

So and you use those people in the times where you and your husband would have overlapped , you know , for example , where to be late , you know , coming off a case and he's already on . And so you relied on your neighbors , friends and stuff like that to to offset what was already planned out .

SPEAKER8

07:49

Yeah , for the most part , we had after care at school , which was a big help because he supposedly got off at four , but after was up until six and the kids loved their aftercare . So

SPEAKER12

07:58

we used that then an older sister that when she got old enough to drive , we were able to use her . But that was a few years before that happened .

SPEAKER8

08:09

My mom lives down in Lakewood , which is a little bit away from where we live . But we used her money and she took our kids on the most challenging days , which was Fridays . So we both overlapped on Friday . And so my mom just took them every Friday . So that was so we were late . It didn't matter .

SPEAKER11

08:25

So it really it was really kind of all about planning ahead of time so that if the emergency came along , we weren't asking the same people over and over and over again from .

SPEAKER9

08:35

Do you feel that burn through the ranks and having those off chance issues that would have made you perform less than optimal ?

SPEAKER10

08:54

I think the one place where that would have showed up is occasionally I was a little bit like on clouds , you know , I can remember a couple specifically at 3:00 in the morning where I had to call somebody to say , I need you to come to my house for the kids . And that would have been because now I'm divorced and their dad was out of town or not available or whatever . So a couple of times there , but mostly , probably would impact me the most is the lack of sleep .

SPEAKER8

09:16

I mean , we worked 10 hour shifts , sometimes got held over , and then you have child , so you have to deal with . So I'd go two or three nights a week getting four hours of sleep . I

SPEAKER12

09:22

would sleep or less if I got a call . That was probably the bigger challenge and didn't happen all the time . But it happened enough where on day three , I was just not sure .

SPEAKER9

09:33

Just not . You persevered . You're still standing strong . How did you push through ? Like what ? What made you keep on going after three or four hours or three or four days hours and sleep like what ? Just kept you going back .

SPEAKER11

09:51

The kids I mean , you and I and I loved the job and the job's important to me , but really at the end of the day , you just don't get me be your mommy . Just don't get the full part right now . Do it . And then you wait till the kids go to their dads and then you fall apart and sleep for 15 hours .

SPEAKER9

10:08

Do you have that had you need to have . Surprise responses would have a career change , no .

SPEAKER8

10:21

Now , I was doing pretty well by the time the job that I had where I was getting called out two or three times a week , at that point , I was a commander and I was in charge of investigations . And so that job , homicides , robberies , things that are occurring at 3:00 in the morning , that's what I was getting called out , was to supervise my team .

SPEAKER10

10:37

And I just I had really good people at that time .

SPEAKER11

10:41

And we just came up with protocols like my the way that it worked is that the commanders always the one that's the least needed by the guys to do the work , but you have to be there to oversee it . So I could oversee a lot of that by phone as I was getting ready to come in . So they always knew I was going to be a little behind them . But because I didn't have an actual task function , I could do the supervisory work over phone . And that for me is a little different than probably some of the people you talked to . They actually have to go out and immediately start performing a task . So I have to delay would be a much bigger deal for me . It was it was an optimal . But it didn't hurt my performance , I guess . So , no , I wouldn't have switched , I was it was the job is too good , that's what I'm hearing from his every day .

SPEAKER9

11:26

So I just I love the job too much to to give it away . So every lady that I spoke to , every woman that I have spoke to and we make it work .

SPEAKER8

11:38

Yeah , you find a way , and I it's funny because I'm remarried now .

SPEAKER10

11:42

My husband's actually the chief , which is why I retired in twenty eighteen because we're in the same department and he's gone through the same thing because he was a single parent . And so , you know , you come up with . The good the good parents , the ones that really do it well , come up with teams of other people to help them , but they really solve all the problems ahead of time .

SPEAKER8

12:03

So they're literally only dealing with emergencies . And there are some people I work with , male and female , that don't do that . And they treat every one of these like it's a surprise . And after , like a third surprise , it's pretty much not a surprise anymore . Like , you know , the surprises are coming so you can start building some structure around it and people help each other out a lot here . I mean , there's that .

SPEAKER13

12:22

But I see all these guys and they're all flip and they're like bidding their schedules . Guys used to be schedules to get the best shift . Now they do their schedules to accommodate their spouse .

SPEAKER12

12:34

So they hate dayshift , but they work it because their wife is a graveyard nurse or something like that . So it's it's just what you have to do anyway .

SPEAKER9

12:42

Sorry , you have to overcome the . You're working for the . Have you been unable to respond because you just didn't have the care or just to be there ?

SPEAKER10

13:02

Maybe once and I vaguely recall one time when I didn't have anybody available and I think the kids were sick , I think that was the issue and I don't remember that happening .

SPEAKER8

13:17

I think like once and it actually wasn't a big deal because somebody else was able to go . That's why I don't remember it very well .

SPEAKER4

13:23

So my follow up question was , were there any repercussions that somebody was able to back you up and go , yeah , if it's a one off , most of us understand , like a one off is it certainly doesn't all the time that starts becoming a problem . But

SPEAKER8

13:35

yeah , no , no , not really .

SPEAKER9

13:39

What resources has been put into place that could have eliminated the challenge of .

SPEAKER8

13:49

You know , I don't know , I guess they just always thought of it as a personal issue , not a job issue . I think maybe the one thing that would be helpful . Is that when people take the job , I think it needs to be covered when they show up here , whether they have kids or don't or whatever , but the concept of you are occasionally going to be inconvenienced in some way or another , whether you have kids or you take care of elderly parents or whatever . And so we're going to help you walk through some of what we've done to prepare ourselves to deal with that so that you don't have to make those mistakes or whatever . I think that that element of personal responsibility is not always covered as well as it should be , and it really needs to be .

SPEAKER3

14:28

I think some people don't think about it until they find themselves in the bottom of the pit and then they go should . I should've thought of that , you know , so maybe that would have been nice in the beginning , but we just sort of figured it out .

SPEAKER10

14:37

I don't know that there's much they could have done other than be empathetic when you really can't find a job because there are one or two people that I did work with that could have given a rip if you got kids at home . But for the most part , pretty was my my crew here is pretty understanding . That's when I noticed .

SPEAKER9

14:54

So for that , our challenges may or may be different than your male counterparts depends on your situation .

SPEAKER8

15:05

Some of them have stayed home wives , so definitely they have no issue .

SPEAKER10

15:10

I think what I've noticed with the male brains is that when they come to work , they're able to shut the dad thing off and the women can't in the women carry the kids with them 24/7 .

SPEAKER8

15:22

And the men are much better to do this with my husband and my ex both compartmentalize and just sort of forget that the kids exist . So it's I just think it's a male female brain thing .

SPEAKER10

15:31

So in that aspect , I don't think they're burdened with that sort of chronic stress of Billy's getting out of school at three and I wish I was there to give him a sandwich kind of crap that goes on during the day .

SPEAKER8

15:42

I don't know that there's anything you could do about it , but not I think the only actually the only bias I've seen is that I took four and a half months off with each kid . I literally burned through all my sick leave to stay home with them when they were babies . And when my male counterparts tried to do that , they were given a hard time .

SPEAKER3

16:00

Like , what do you mean you stay on for a week and you come back . And so it was actually kind of a reverse thing for them . Nobody even second guessed . Second question . I could have been gone a year . They would they would would've said , yeah , that's fine , stay home with the baby . Know that's what that's what women do . But for the men . Like what ? You mean you want to take a month off ? I actually felt kind of bad for lots of its paternally if they're allowed to do that , you know . Yeah .

SPEAKER9

16:24

Based on your experience and then other than how to deal with child care issues , what other challenges do you think that women face when having to work in world and still be able to work life balance ?

SPEAKER3

16:46

You know , I think probably the biggest issue for me , I'm tiny . You can't tell a thing , but I'm five three . You know , I used to be a lot skinnier . And sometimes you show up to these scenes and they look at you like , why are you here ? And that's less and less since nineteen ninety . I don't get that as much as I do now . But even now , you know , it's a it's a field that's dominated by a male dominated field and just none of women want this job because it's not it's not easy and they don't want to do it .

SPEAKER11

17:13

But you show up , you there's sort of a repetitive proving of your worth and how I used to term that when I first came on , which is if you take this job and you're female , you just know you got to work a little harder to make it to make yourself equal . But it's kind of in my brain that's sort of what you show this what you're signing up for . You sort of know that it's kind of like male nurses . I think they get kind of the same thing , you know .

SPEAKER8

17:36

But I got to say , this has been a great place to work .

SPEAKER10

17:38

I don't know that I've had the challenges that maybe you're experiencing with people in other departments .

SPEAKER11

17:44

There were already five gals here when I heard on ninety , so they were already pretty broken . And by the time I got here , I pretty much anybody has to show up and prove their worth . So it's kind of the same . I that would be the only challenge . But I haven't personally had that much I think .

SPEAKER9

18:02

To finalize the to say we have a worst case scenario back then , because I'm sure the . Israel doesn't have as much concern for them but to respond . You just could not find somebody to watch over your shoulder until .

SPEAKER10

18:31

Depending on the age , if they were the twins that they were when I was working in detectives , I would have brought them with me and put them in my office or I would have sat him down with records like the records personnel .

SPEAKER8

18:41

That's not ideal . But if it was something so important that I had to be here , I probably would have done that . If it was something where I trusted that I could supervise from a distance , then I would have done that and then taken the heat later . And

SPEAKER11

18:55

I probably would've gotten a little trouble for it , but it would have been like maybe an accounting statement or a warning or something like that . But that was so rare that it probably would have impacted me . So I would just taking the heat for it . But we have had instances where we've had guys called in and they were watching their kids and they got calling for SWAT or something like that , and they literally put their kids in records and records . Loved it . So that was a it was no arrangement , but that would have probably been an option .

SPEAKER4

19:22

So think , you know , you retired , you remarry is your problem . If you can look back and change one thing , what would be that one that you want to change ?

SPEAKER12

19:37

I'm sorry . About my career .

SPEAKER4

19:41

About your career , which changed any differently , knowing now what you know , when .

SPEAKER10

19:50

Well , you know , I was pretty blessed , I had a pretty great career , I don't know that I would probably have changed anything other than a particular supervisor or two that I had to swap them out for somebody else . But I you know , I don't know . I

SPEAKER12

20:05

was pretty blessed . I don't know that I would have changed much of anything . I I was very fortunate that I moved around from job to job to job . So I had a pretty eclectic experience . And now that's left me very well stabilized to go to other places like I'm in CALM's now . So I do communications for the PD , so I'm still getting called out because he could walk up in the middle of night . So I get woke up and sometimes I come with him . I'm not nearly the same level but it's . Yeah I don't know , I don't know that I would change anything honestly . And he got my master's degree . I would have been it . I don't have time to do that .

SPEAKER4

20:37

You know , going for it now or have you got .

SPEAKER8

20:40

I haven't yet . I'm still learning my job over here because the other comms coordinator is like , I don't know , four years old and knows all these terms that I don't know . So

SPEAKER12

20:47

I'm still catching up to like what twenty year olds do . But once I get a handle on that and I'm stop and I'm not learning that anymore . Yeah , I'm probably going to I've been sort of looking around for the best way to do that .

SPEAKER9

21:00

So if an incident happened , what would be a role ?

SPEAKER14

21:07

It would happen like we had right after I retired . We had the death of an officer . And even though I wasn't actually an employee of the city , my husband brought me in , turn me on to Facebook and said , take care of it . I'm like , OK , so , you know , I was still sort of in the police department , but not because I had just left . Now , if we had a major incident like like a multiple homicide or an officer getting injured or something involving a council member , it's more likely than not he would bring me with him and then I would start handling all the communications . I would probably be getting press releases .

SPEAKER12

21:36

I've done that already , mostly been able to do it from home , but it's entirely possible he would bring me with him if it was so severe . I also get woke up every time his phone rings . So and occasionally I'm up at 2:00 in the morning doing a press release or something like that .

SPEAKER4

21:51

So you're the equivalent to what other people would actually call like PublicAffairs or people , except that I don't want camera . Yeah

SPEAKER12

21:58

, I'm on camera and so I don't do that . And I share this with a couple other people , but I'm the primary coordinator through social media , which is our primary . So , yeah , I guess pretty similar to that .

SPEAKER9

22:12

That's so cool .

SPEAKER14

22:13

Good fit because he he gets very frustrated when the city tries to communicate for the police department because they just don't know the language all the time . And so then it's this back and forth with this is what I want to say , this is how we wrote it . That's not right . And now we just have to do that because I know I know the words and I know how to do it . And I know what they don't want , what they do want .

SPEAKER10

22:31

So it's about ninety five percent there . And all we have to do is figure out working between the two of us , which I know how to speak him . So it works really well for me . It's a unique isn't working very well .

SPEAKER9

22:45

And it's just like it's it's we work our entire lives goal , and then when I got them it and everything , you know , we are .

SPEAKER12

22:59

Yeah , yeah , I'm pretty fortunate .

SPEAKER9

23:05

So thank you for taking the time to talk to me . Thank you for your insight . I will definitely be keeping you anonymous .

SPEAKER4

23:13

I know that you are helping me graduate and really light to a topic that there just wasn't any research for .

SPEAKER10

23:24

You know , there's not . And for what it's worth to you , I , I looked around a lot . And the women in this profession always want to do things on their own .

SPEAKER14

23:33

And I tried reaching out to a lot of other women . Some took it , some didn't . But one of the things I've noticed in this profession is that there are those women who don't want any other women in the profession . So they have a tendency to like them out or not be nice to whatever . And I I've tried really hard not to be that way , not to mention that way .

SPEAKER3

23:48

But the gals you get this job sort of feel like they're the only ones you I mean , they feel because you're special , you're definitely different , but they tend to not utilize their skills for each other very well . And when they do , they do in a way where they hate the men , which is really not helpful . Right . Right . There's these anti men groups inside women's law enforcement , just like anyone , anything to do with that . It's like , let's just be helpful . We don't have to hurt anybody to do that . So I guess that's one thing I would change . I would have been a lot more aggressive with that probably in the beginning , because they just I just don't see the need for the negativity . The same reason . Let's just help each other out .

SPEAKER9

24:23

That sounds really Pollyanna , but I think the difference is , you know , people who work for themselves and then people work towards the mission . And , yeah , I see that a lot more women in our field and our mission or as opposed to trying to advance their careers . And it's a lot different between women and is most men still try to find jobs that are going to advance that as opposed to women . We you know , we want to help . We want to mentor . We want you to just , you know , put positivity out there , especially for a male dominated field and .

SPEAKER12

25:03

Well , good luck with your your paper I you got with you . Sure , yeah , I love that .

SPEAKER4

25:11

And if I see you partners , I will definitely have a coffee cocktail and I'm always out for cocktail and then formally introduce myself to you .

SPEAKER9

25:23

OK .

SPEAKER8

25:25

Yeah , you too . I look forward to that . Thank you .

SPEAKER9

25:27

Thank you . Great . You too . Bye .