Kim Woods

audio_only.m4a

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 .