by Linda Olmstead
We work in a depressing business, don't we? It's service-oriented, but those services we provide aren't cruise bookings, we don't tidy up the environment (okay, we DO assist with "taking out the garbage" butthat's a task of Herculean proportions because there's more "trash" to handle every day), and it's seldom that we see a group of shining, happy, appreciative faces proclaiming "Thanks!" for what we do. Most of any sense of reward has to be self-generated. People don't call 9-1-1 to tell us good stuff.
We have to make fun (in a couple senses of that phrase) and find enjoyment in our work or it would just be a total bummer all the time. Oh, dang, another report of something awful. Gosh, something bad has happened somewhere and we get to hear all about it, either through the answering-the-call process or by someone in the field telling us "what went down" with the calls we dispatch.
Therefore, it's mighty important to like what we do-for whatever reasons-and have a good combination of like-minded co-workers to help us get through yet another shift of handling and (hopefully) mitigating the bad things that happen to people.
Life is ridiculous. The stupidest things occur and you just have to laugh - or you'd cry. It helps to have a well-developed sense of how irony rules the universe, I guess. There are just so many moments peppered throughout each day to generate a collective "Go figure!" exclamation.
We have fun at work, at my little Comm Center. During National Telecommunicators Week, a local newspaper reporter spent a couple of hours watching the dispatchers take calls, dispatch 'em, talk about 'em and move on to the next ring of the telephone or radio transmission. She was there to write a piece about our Dispatcher of the Year and the resulting article was a really nice bit of positive and informative reporting. The headline for her story, in bold print, stated, "It's great work if you can love it."
Shared Humor
The end of the article quoted our commander, who called us "unsung heroes" and said we did a job he couldn't do. (Go figure, huh? But he IS a great guy.) What was really telling, I think, was the last line in the piece, attributed to him: "They enjoy a special camaraderie that brings them together as a team in tense situations, and as friends sharing humor and throwing out light-hearted jokes when calls slow down."
Some of the stuff that happens is just plain funny. Who wouldn't laugh at this situation? Yet another "open line" 9-1-1 call. From a cellular phone, of course. No location (or even phone number to call back) so ya gotta try to make contact with somebody at the other end of that tenuous line before you give it up as a lost cause Well, when the dispatcher had said, "9-1-1 Emergency, what are you reporting?" a couple of times without response, and yet she could hear movement, she continued with, "Hello? Is anyone there? Do you have an emergency?"
At some distance, not too faintly, but certainly not near the phone, she heard this reply, "Hello? Who is this? Where are you?"
"This is 9-1-1, do you have an emergency?"
"What? Where are you?"
Okay, now, we've had a whole lot of practice with these types of "open line" wireless calls to 9-1-1, so it's not hard to develop a mental picture of this situation, given the audible clues.
This particular call lasted nearly five minutes. He was confused-lucid, but puzzled about the lady's voice asking him questions. He didn't have an emergency and why was she asking him that? And where was she? He was aloneFinally, the man realized he was having a conversation with someone on his phone! "OH!" he said, and took his phone out of the back pocket of his pants to speak directly into it. "I'm sorry, I had my phone in my pants and it must have dialed 9-1-1."
Mystery solved and a successful ending to what could have been just another one of those annoying "open line" wireless calls. The dispatcher said she had a lot of trouble conversing with the gentleman through her suppressed laughter.
Body Cavity
Then there are the operational funnies, when we're asked-by our partners in the field - to make a call for somethingnewor different. Like: call the hospital and see if there's a doctor who will perform a body cavity search on a subject in custody, if we took him to the emergency room.
You see, they chased him down and followed him into the bathroom of a motel room, where he was found-as the officer put it so eloquently-"on the can." He was a known drug user and had some history of providing drugs to other people, too. They snatched him up and suspected he was "holding," hence the request for a body cavity search.
That was an interesting-and hilarious-phone conversation with the hospital. The dispatcher called and had to repeat her request several times before a physician got on the phone. She repeated the inquiry and the doctor asked, "Which body cavities?" Trying not to laugh, she explained the situation, using the same indelicate phrase the officer had used.
The ER doc was dumfounded. "Ewwww!" he said, then added, "You mean you guys don't do that?!" No, not our department. "But I've seen cop shows," he countered. "You don't see officers from [this department] doing body cavity searches!!" she exclaimed, really trying not to laugh.
He said, "Well, now I'm really disillusioned. But I suppose the guy could have swallowed something, or Well, bring him on over, we'll see what we can do for you. I can probably perform a rectal exam, I guess."
By the time they hung up, we were all suffused with laughter. (It turned out the sergeant vetoed the plan before it came to passerrrwellthat didn't happen either, butoh, never mind.)
Smaller Type
Then there are the simple processes of-well, let's just call it "maturing not so gracefully" and leave it at that-which impact the manner in which we perform the various tasks necessary to do our jobs. Somebody's snuck in and re-printed all the resource manuals in a smaller font when I wasn't paying attention! (Yeah, right! Go figure!) And what's with Thomas Bros. Maps and all that itsy-bitsy print? Some of those street clusters are printed in type so small it doesn't even help to hold the book at arm's length any more. (Do I need to be issued longer arms?!?)
I went out and bought myself one of those handy, flexible plastic strips of stuff you can find in good book stores that [ahem] magnify small print. It fits real nice inside my Thomas Guide and is more discrete than the Sherlock Holmes investigative tool with a handle that simply shrieks "What are ya, blind?!?!?"
Some of the dispatchers need-let's say "want" because that sounds like more of an elective than a necessity, and therefore nicer - more light than others. The individual console lamps make for a cozy environment, but some folks need more illumination than those lights offer.
So there's a bit of a wrangle over the overhead light switches, now and then. To everyone's credit, the dispatchers who prefer dim light will concede to the others, but as soon as someone goes off duty, there's a poll taken: "Can we turn off the overheads now?" And the room may once again be plunged back into Stygian darkness, punctuated by pools of light washing only over the individual consoles.
I can work with just the console lights, myself, but if I have to operate the fax machine or find something in a resource manual in the bookcases, I gotta flip the light switch and brighten up that section of the room again. (I do announce the necessity before I run the risk of dazzling anyone, though.)
Same Side
Dispatchers who like it one way or the other will try to work the same side of the room as someone with the same preferences, if we've got personnel with differing needs working at the same time.
The room is set up with the two radio consoles against one wall on either side of the room, and the four phone consoles are positioned against the opposite wall. Two banks of overhead fluorescent lights "split" the room into halves. The "middle" two phone consoles are in a sort of buffer zone, so if half the room is brighter than the other, they're in a medium-bright area, and the two "end" consoles are either in the well-lighted area or the dark zone.
Wrangling over the situation can be a source of amusement, instead of a struggle. (Thank God! We have enough stressors without harboring resentments over stuff like that!) As long as the ability to laugh at one's own foibles is used to temper disagreements, we'll do fine.
Change can galvanize or petrify some folks. Our most recent, significant change has really helped to keep morale floating at a pretty high level: we've changed from the traditional five 8-hour shifts a week to a 4/10 alternate work week schedule. (Well, the dispatchers have changed to it; we two Comm Sups are still working the traditional schedule.. but not by choice. Let's not go "there" right now) Anyway, the dispatchers are jazzed-and we're excited for them too. :)
It took a whole lot of work to formalize the process and develop the most workable schedule for our operational needs and get it properly implemented. Although it was a concentrated effort of management and staff, my partner Comm Sup did the lion's share of that task, since she's the scheduling supervisor. (She works the day shift and does most of the administrative tasks. I'm the "technical" one of the duo here, in charge of CAD stuff and the peccadilloes of the phone system and whatnot. We each get to do what we most enjoy. Well, for the most part, anyway. Let's not go into that other stuff right now.)
It's been very interesting, given our staffing situation-3 vacancies causing some holes in the schedule, plus another 3 of the dispatchers are still in training status-but it's actually permitting better coverage than the traditional schedule had provided!
It's a lot more difficult to manage in a small Comm Center, but well worth the expenditure of effort, in my not-so-humble opinion. We're tweaking the schedule as we go along; hopefully within a month or two we'll get all the bugs worked out.
Staffing relief is on the horizon, too. (No, really! We've got a transfer reporting in next month, a former employee returning to the fold and someone else has expressed an interest in transferring here, so that's three for three!)
And the pair of swallows has been checking out their old nesting site in the carport by our back door, so we're feeling pretty happy and Right With Nature. Life and circumstances continue to throw us funny situations; what's there to bitch about?
Don't answer that--I'm on a roll, here.
Happy to be here, proud to serve.
Linda
May 2000
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