by Linda Olmstead
If there could be "constants" in this line of work, DMV mysteries would be one of them. True, the oddities only crop up now and then, but when they do, we're expected to decipher them for the field personnel. (Field folks generally have don't understand the fine points of routine information on registration and drivers license returns, anyway, so this can be a challenge.)
Not knocking field folks, but this is one of our areas of expertise, ya know? Doesn't Dispatch Know Everything? Well, except for the times that Dispatch Doesn't Know What They're Doing. You may disregard the ironic tone of type, if you wish.)
Anyway, one of the mysteries sounds like gobbledegook when we attempt to explain why we can run a name and DOB and get no match, but when the subject finally locates his/her license and the officer asks for it by number, the return comes back with exactly the same name and DOB we'd tried a couple of minutes earlier. Now and then, running a number gets no match, and then trying the name and DOB returns the appropriate license information with the same number we just tried. Yah, yah, yah, we're idiots, right? [sigh]
We recently had a Training Day with the most wonderful DMV trainer in the entire state as our instructor. (She's been doing this for about seven years, going around the state to work with Comm Centers. Back when I was a new dispatcher - in this particular agency-I attended one of her classes; I was thrilled to find out she was the instructor my partner Comm Sup managed to snag for this most recent class.)
She explained why those "first you don't see them, then you do" returns occur, to our relief. Of course, since the road dogs didn't attend the class, the reason still comes across as pretty flimsy. You see, there are three DMV databases (in this state): vehicle registration, drivers license information, and "ANI"-which isn't what you think it is. [grin] It stands for Automated Name Index, and this file is totally separate. It can be "down for maintenance or update" at times different from the other two files. So it is conceivable to run a number, not get a return because that file is off in la-la land at the time, but the ANI file says there is such a record. Or, ANI is lagging behind in current information but the other two files are current.
Vacation Is Over
We won't even go into the true mysteries of weird things in DMV files, or this month's column would be totally dedicated to arcane and obscure fields, like X (Index) numbers-which are generated from sources outside DMV (tickets with illegible DL numbers, for one, which they can't match to any existing record with absolute certainty). So, Ms. Ima Driver can have one nice clean record and there's this phantom X file floating around in the database for another Ima Driver, but that individual doesn't have as nice a driving history. [sigh] It's a puzzlement, as the King of Siam would say.
I came back from vacation and my first day of covering a service desk position was disconcerting-I thought there'd been some CAD updates in my absence because [ahem] I needed to be retrained for a few minutes. I guess I should have expected that after a month away from it, but it was nonetheless embarrassing.
Hey! We're almost up to full staffing! We've got two more trainees who will have started by the time this is printed, leaving us with only one opening to fill! The last two hired three months ago are doing very well, too! [snoopydance of glee] However, assuaging my bruised ego, I was still able to answer their questions even while I struggled with CAD commands I'd forgotten.
We should have had the Twilight Zone theme playing in the background one night during a conversation between a dispatcher and a caller who was transferred to us by another PSAP.
The woman safely home, but wanted to contact the FBI (odd, our agency initials are markedly different from those three letters) to report what first sounded like a kidnapping, or maybe an abduction: there were people taking over her driving.
Explaining further, it appears there are people-whom she knows-who have possessed her body as she drove, making her go places she hadn't intended to visit. Possessed, as in demonic possession, so to speak. And she was tired of it. The local law enforcement agency wouldn't do anything about it, either. (Go figure!) Other than that odd situation, the caller sounded coherent and she assured us she was a well-respected member of the community, held a job, etc.
The call had been transferred to us, so our dispatcher took all the information from her and called back the original PSAP to kiss the callerrrrrappraise them of their responsibility to handle the incident. Make a welfare check or something, but just because this occurred while the lady was driving didn't make it our handle. [grin]
Nice try. Not everything involving conveyances with wheels or other reports of something with the word "road" in it is ours, ya know.
Trouble Reports
Then there are those operational issues (trouble reports) involving telephone vendors and radio technicians, each of whom are positive the problem isn't in their equipment. It's a real interesting case of "neener neener neener," but with really polite disclaimers of responsibility. Hey, we don't care which piece of equipment is the source of the glitch, we just want it fixed, okay? [muttering]
I'm proud to report the issue has been solved, after only three or four months. Don't you just hate those "intermittent" things that only show up when you look for a recording later and it's either of really poor quality or simply isn't there? (It wasn't the logging recorder's fault, by the way.)
September 8th-that was one cool night! (Literally, as well as figuratively.) A lightning storm of epic proportions moved into the area and dazzled several counties with an impressive display of natural phenomena. Apparently, these things are common in the Midwest, but we coastal folks never see that sort of storm out here. Not a lot of rain with it, which is unfortunate, because even though most of our officers didn't need to don rain gear, several lightning strikes started some pretty tenacious wildfires.
There are three mountain passes in our dispatch jurisdiction. The storm moved in a wide swath over two of them. One pass experienced rain and the other did not. We received reports of people getting out of their cars in the roadway at the top of that pass to watch the lightning! (I don't know about anyone else, but I was glad to watch it from our nearly sea-level parking lot, not way up there closer to the things! Although the radio and microwave antenna tower right next to our Comm Center did give me pause to think.)
It was beautiful. Awesome. It started north of us. We dealt with associated incidents some distance from the location of our Center early in the afternoon, and could tell it was moving in our direction.
Zapped & Startled
At nightfall, I wandered out into the parking lot to see if I could see any flashes over the hills thataway. A bolt of lightning zapped from a cloud so close and so brightly at the exact moment I turned to look in that direction that it startled the heck out of me.
Over the next few minutes, I called each dispatcher out to see the show themselves. As officers pulled into the parking lot to gas up, they all reported having watched the impressive display for the last several hours. It was just a whole lot prettier in the dark. And moving closer.
Dispatchers coming on duty exclaimed about the bolts they'd seen on the way in to work. One gal had a 55-mile commute and she drove south, so she had quite a spectacular view. Those of us going off duty felt some trepidation about leaving-it's one thing to dispatch the calls resulting from a storm (and this was a dilly!) and another whole issue to leave someplace with a generator, a brand new (working) UPS, and go home to brave the possibly undependable commercial power and maybe nobody else there to "enjoy" the storm with you.
Some of us were greeted by blinking 12:00s on our VCRs and other clocks. Why does my microwave oven blink 88:88? I had anxious companion animals to reassure and warm little furry bodies with me in bed all night. The storm lasted until 5 a.m. the next morning.
And, now, we've got these nasty forest fires with which to deal. [sigh] Big ol' maps on the briefing room wall to show the current location and size of the conflagrations, officers assigned 24/7 to the field EOCs (yup, more than one of them), road closures and evacuation routes we hope we don't have to utilize.
Never a dull moment. Well, maybe one or two, but then someone gets possessed while driving down the road and somebody's got to handle it!
Happy to be here, proud to serve.
Linda
October, 1999
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