HA. HAHAHAHAHA. You actually said PTSD. Their sort of calls are our sort of calls, 99% silliness, stupidness, or average at best. The “horrible” 1% are still usually not tragic. The really tragic calls are pretty few and far between in the grand scheme.  Obviously they happen, they CAN affect a call taker, but it’s not knocking all of them out of the business every couple of years. It’s the shitty pay doing that.

ETA: all the thin x line bullshit has completely jumped the shark. It did that when fire jumped in with the coppers so we could get out of tickets. PTSD has turned meaningless too, everyone has it now, what a bunch of weak ass bullshit.

Tow truck drivers are doing it too, in between repos.

This was hung up at work recently.  I want to ask questions but I'm already known as a smart ass

YOU'RE WELCOME FOR MY SERVICE!!!

What is with the infinity sign on the lower right side?

Haha. My first thought too.

They're now considered first responders here in Texas.

There's a few of them in the drop off /pickup area at my kid's school. TBL hearts and skulls all over. Decals with the families names and everything

Need the Oprah meme...

You get a sticker, you get a sticker, even the dispatcher gets a sticker!

Some of the analysts at USDOS Diplomatic Security are whackjobs, with Terminator quotes in their email siglines and weirdo crap like that.  Obviously couldn't get past the psych exams to go to special agent school...

Meh

That push wasn't so much for the "pride" of being recognized as a first responder, or perks, or discounts (although you will likely hear a lot of that).  A huge part of it was dispatchers have been historically considered as clerical workers and managed like any other civilian employee of the city/county/district/state.  Because of that, they fall under the scope of FLSA regulations that limit schedules, hours per week/period, benefits, etc.

With most 24/7 dispatch centers across the country being critically low in staff, it really sucks for employees to be limited to a base 40 hours schedule due to FLSA regulations when a 36/48 12-hour rotating or compressed schedule (like many officers work) would go a long way to spreading the work load and make schedules more predictable.  Many dispatchers are already working  60-70 hours per week, but due to FLSA, they can't structure their schedule to make things easier on them.  Instead, they have to stick to a "normal" base schedule and get called in a short notice, get told they have mandatory OT 30 minutes before the end of shift, or have to work quick turn-arounds (8hrs between shifts).

And while it's true dispatchers are not first in a physical sense, they do have to hear and experience a lot of shit they simply have to brush to the side when they move on to the next call, such as my former co-worker who took a call from a man who set his house, family, and himself on fire while on the phone with her, or myself who was the last person the caller talked to when she said "Tell them it's not their fault" before hanging up and putting a shotgun to her chest.  I was already bitter and jaded and exposed to shit before I took that job, so while I certainly have memories, I'm no more mentally fucked up than I was before.    PTSD can be a real issue with many dispatchers/call-takers, and it largely goes unrecognized since people generally don't give a shit about what the dispatchers do or experience.

There are all flavors of personalities in the dispatch environment, and of course, not all dispatchers are created equal.  A dispatcher in a one-seat center working with three cops and a VFD will be much different than the ones managing 20-30 beat officers, 20 detectives/SROs/brass, and 10-20 full-time fire stations.

There are definitely some whackers out there (uniforms, 5.11, patches, pins, look-at-me-i'm-a-dispatcher, etc.), but I think a lot of that comes from the culture of their environment.  For every one of those, there are 99 others who are perfectly content to do the job and go about their business without making it a big deal.   In my observations, it's usually the smaller agencies that have the whacker dispatchers who gorge on pot-luck and beat off to LivePD while waiting for one of their two 9-1-1 calls on a shift.

It must be since the training program where I worked was 6 months to a year, and only about 10% of trainees were able to complete training.

I suspect I know who you're talking about.  

Next they'll be asking for double discounts at Lowes.

I remember one summer when a dispatcher on one channel had just over 100 elements to keep up with.  Something out of the ordinary was going on in that patrol division and they had the entire gang unit, auto theft and a couple of other units in addition to the large number of patrol units.

Adavanced
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TAE=Taylor Swift

i sleep easier knowing these heroes are out there

Errbody is special.

They are operating, bro. Hence the skull. Operators love skull stickers.

A couple of ours are also VFF.

If any of you are limping along on an old Cassidian or Plant system hit me up.

I work on (ie: configure/administer/troubleshoot) Vesta 9-1-1 systems  (currently Motorola, formerly Airbus, formerly Cassidian, formerly Plant...).

My wife does this. No she doesn’t have this sticker.

Yes, there are days she comes home upset because she’s been on the phone trying to help someone with a dead spouse or child. Kinda puts a downer on the whole household for a couple of days.

Great post. Every job has their idiots

I’m upgrading my last site to have an old system and will be recycling a lot of spare parts if nobody wants them.

Any issues with the latest? The last release had a few hiccups and not everyone at Motorola was up to speed.

IM sent

Holy shit! That explains everything!!!

Very well said.

And some people just can't fucking do it. Period. At my agency after someone was near the end of their training and mostly by themselves, the trainer and supervisor would casually find some excuse to leave the room leaving them alone to answer all calls. Then one of the officers would pretend to be in an OIS, or would call 911 and pretend they area citizen getting robbed/raped/whatever. I shit you not when I say that after that little test fully half the people said "I can't do this" and quit on the spot.

Your wife has my utmost respect