by The Sage
First, I hope you had a good National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, and that you expressed appreciation for your co-workers, and that someone else-like the chief, officers or firefighters-expressed appreciation for you. It's such a simple thing to say, "Thank you," but it means so much. I remember leaving work one dark night after a particularly bad hectic shift, and walking to my car an officer pulled alongside me, rolled down his window and said, "You know, I never get a chance to tell you, but you're doing a great job up there!" Ba-boom! I thanked him and walked away feeling likehey, bring on the crooks! Pats on the back are good!
Dear Sage,
What have the public safety associations done for me lately? I just read
one of their long range strategic plan status report and all it talked about
was "promoting" and "protecting" and "enhancing"
and "advancing!" I'm sitting here in an understaffed, underpaid,
overworked comm center in dire need of some help! What am I supposed to
think of these groups?
Frustrated
Dear F.,
As they say, I feel your pain. On the other hand, I think you're being a
little heavy on these groups-you're talking APCO and NENA, right?-that are
doing their best to create legislation, standards, certification, training
and education that will form the basis for a better working environment
in the future. Granted, it may be not be the near-term future, but you gotta'
start somewhere. You also have to remember that these groups were never
intended as grass roots, agency-level assistance associations. Rather, they
were created as national, technical-level groups. I'm not the only person
who has suggested some other type of national organization for public safety
dispatchers-short of a union but different focus from APCO/NENA-but it just
ain't happening yet.
Sage
My condolences to the dispatchers at the LA comm center for the CHP, who by now have learned that a study of their radio traffic found that they're handling five channels worth of radio traffic on just one channel! That's a lot of blabbing-who wants radio? Also, my hats off to the dispatchers out in Coolidge (Ariz.), who have been working manually since just before New Year's Day, thanks to a combination of a non-Y2K compliant CAD program, no money and some some non-help from the vendor. A laptop contribution would be appreciated.
Dear Sage,
Are you plugged in to the Internet?
Wired
Dear W.,
Hey, I'm plugged in and wired! Yes, I have a 56k connection into my head
and a virtual screen attached to my eyes. I have to say it's a great way
to keep a pulse on what's happening around the world in public safety dispatching.
Just don't let the screen become the reality-there's a very big, real world
out there beyond the screen, beyond your city or town, and way beyond the
United States.
Sage
Dear Sage,
I'm thinking of applying to my local police department for a dispatcher
job, but I found out they also handle prisoners-echhhh! I don't think I
can bring myself to deal with the people that a police officers arrests!
Grossed Out
Dear G.O.,
Some of best respect goes to the people who work in jails, because they
have none of the protections of a police officer, and usually 100 times
the number of crooks, thieves and what-nots that an officer handles on the
street-all confined to one little space! The skill is 10% handling them
physcially, and 90% handling them verbally, the latter being the real talent.
I dispatch only, but I've seen officers bring in the worst looking, most
unruly person, mad at the officer and the world, and have a jailor calm
them right down with nothing but the right words. So, when you think about,
the addition of jailor duties to dispatching isn't that much out of line,
and it makes sense for smaller agencies who only arrest 4-5 people a day.
My advice: visit the agency, talk to the dispatchers there and get some
on-site feedback on how they feel about it.
Sage
I'm looking for a blow-out price on an Iridium phone-no, I realize they just went bust! But I'm filling out my collection of old Motorola, Ericsson, Bendix and Collins radio gear and have an unfilled niche just the right size for this piece of out-dated equipment. Well, it was just six years ago the system was conceived and then-poof!-it's history. Makes me wonder what will happen to 800 MHz trunked in six years.
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