Do You Practice Safe Duty-ing?

Dear Duty Nation,


Do you feel safe when you are on duty?  What is done that allows you to maintain that safety comfort?  Do you have a partner when you go on rounds?  If you do not have a partner, is there a plan in place in case you run into a uncomfortable situation?


Sincerely,
Duty Dude

I pose these questions to you all because I was recently involved in a conversation that involved the topic of safety and how it affected different genders.  Some female coworkers shared that they do not always feel safe when they are on duty and/or need to respond to calls.  Whether walking to the car early in the morning to report to a situation or being in a room with intoxicated individuals, they can be intimidating situations for anyone.  How about you?  Have there been situations where you felt unsafe?  What did you do to help yourself feel more safe in the future?

Duty Before Phones

In a blog post last month, I talked about technology and how it has affected duty.  Today I had a thought, "what was duty like before phones?"  The concept seems so foreign to me because every duty round I have ever had involved carrying a phone (except the one time I broke the duty phone-I will save that story for another day).  I am most likely in the majority with that concept and it is quite possible that other current staff members have never thought about what duty would be like without a phone.  So I would love to hear from the "more experienced" Student Affairs members about what duty was like before cell phones came around.  

How were problems communicated to you?  

Were there other challenges that you faced?

It would be great for the current generation of on-duty staff to hear about what life was like in the past and how technology helps them today!  Leave your feedback in the comments or send it to thedutybag@gmail.com.