Encouraging bad behavior.

Self-admittedly a nitpicky person, I get annoyed while at work at little things that may be seemingly minor. I'm sure that my co-workers get equally annoyed with me so I don't bring up certain little gripes because I prefer not to have my own shortcomings thrown back at me on a regular basis.

When I was training, training the newbies, not in-training myself, I was pretty strict on enforcing the rule that non-emergency calls get off of the 911 lines. We only have so many trunk lines coming in. Unless the shit really hits the fan, we're not going to see the phone system lit up like a Christmas tree on a regular basis, but one good accident or emergency situation is gonna send us scrambling to get people on and off the phones as quickly as possible.

We had this happen a few times tonight, all by the same person. She's new has been around long enough to know that this isn't appropriate or following procedure. It drives us crazy but we know it's not our place to say something either. When it doesn't belong on 911, there are two good reasons, well, there's many really, but two specifically to stress as to why it's absolutely critical to follow procedure in this regard.

One....control of the call. That's probably teetering up there as one of the most important lessons learned in training. It's cutting that person off when necessary to free up lines and resources for the folks that really do have a need for police or fire. If you're struggling to get a party disturbance off a 911 line, good luck down the road getting information from a shooting victim or someone who's just been raped.

Number two, it's a valuable lesson learned for the citizen. While common sense would dictate that most people know not to call 911 when their power goes out or for illegal parking, if you keep the person on the line and finish the call for service absent a legitimate emergency, you encourage the behavior and they'll just keep doing it.

"Give a man a fish and you have him fed for today. Teach a man to fish and you will not have to listen to his incessant whining about how hungry he is." ---Author Unknown

Whew. It's over.....

I don't like being chaotically busy. That's what it was. Over the top, even for Halloween. It might as well have been New Years Eve for the volume of crime, utter stupidity and lack of balance that the general public exhibited last night.

I don't like feeling out of control at work which is exactly what the radio afforded me last night. While not the entire shift, it was six solid hours of what became the inability to so much as take a breath or a drink without an interruption. While it is understood on such a holiday as this that we will have extreme radio and call volume, I wished from the first radio transmission that I had been answering phones instead.

There's mediocre dispatchers and there are fantastic dispatchers. I wouldn't go so far as to put myself in the latter category, but I consider myself to be pretty damn good at my job. I don't like to make mistakes, not just for the personal satisfaction of a day gone well, but we have a lot riding on our shoulders in this field and screw-ups aren't a luxury we ever have. Just one at the right time can really have an impact that I just don't care to be a part of when it involves an officers well being or life.

Regular patrol units, officers on horses, bike units and the special enforcement arrest team. Officers working special events, police support personnel (non-armed but in uniform and in squad cars), sergeants, lieutenants, gang specialists, and traffic control detail units. I'm sure I missed a couple of categories of specialty units, but by the end of the shift (and still now) I am too tired to bring them all to mind.

The dispatcher is somewhat at the helm of the ship but certainly not directing the show by any means. One can only do so much from the confines of the room. The boys with guns have the most control and our participation is limited to what will be allowed when the officers choose, or are forced by situations, to change directions.

To expect perfection on a night such as this would be silly. No one, even the best of the bunch can control it all. You go into auto-mode on a night like last night and I suppose that the consolation is that I wouldn't have been assigned this portion of the city had they not felt I was trustworthy and experienced enough to handle it.

Everyone got home in one piece. No one was presented with situations that compromised their safety. That is good enough for me.

I'm thinking that next year on Halloween though, I just might come down with the flu.

Halloween in Dispatch

Prediction that tomorrow (Halloween) will go something like this:

Officer: "copy fight"
Dispatcher: "go ahead..."
Officer: copy Urinating in Public"
Dispatcher: "go ahead..."
Officer: "copy d/c (disorderly conduct)
Dispatcher: "go ahead..."
Officer: "copy drunk in public...."
Dispatcher: "go ahead..."
Officer: "copy one in custody...."
Dispatcher: "go ahead..."
Officer: "copy sound of shots....."
Dispatcher: "go ahead..."
Officer: "send me 2 more units to XYZ club...."
Dispatcher: "go ahead..."
Officer: "copy foot pursuit...."
Dispatcher: "go ahead..."

Multiple that by about a zillion and you have Halloween in a party city where the freaks and geeks turn into whatever the hell they want for the night, act retarded and spend the night in jail.

Uphill battle.

I got called out on the air last night by a officer. We're going to call him Lurch just because he's about six and a half feet tall of overpowering, intimidating uniform. You don't want to screw with him in a one-on-one on a call for service or traffic stop. "Failure to obey" just isn't worth trying when he's on the call.

He's been at this forever and my service compared to his isn't even worth looking at when you compare badge numbers. Even with my six years, I feel like a novice. You might as well just crawl into a hole if you eff up with him because he's going to shrivel you up verbally on the air and you'll just want to crawl into a hole.

THAT was the case last night. It wasn't even my fault. It was a citizen's inability to provide their correct address due to an elevated BAC that caused us to start our response. When we finally validated the location we were in process of notifying the correct agency when Lurch abruptly dissed us on the air that the call didn't even belong to us.

No shit Sherlock....not our city, we know how the process is supposed to work. Again, we cannot get blood from a turnip and it's amazing how well the system works when the citizen cooperates.

Your sergeant likes you, your squad-mates like you. It would have been nice if the supervisor on duty at the time would have addressed it with your boss. While more than likely it would have been a futile effort on his part, at least I know that him and I are in agreement with the fact that the supervisor should have my back when someone else is in the wrong.

Instead, you sat there silently, therefore in agreement with the treatment as I pissed and moaned for a while. Had you picked up the phone and said a few words to his superior, I might have the bizarre thought that you actually give a crap about your team.

What happens when you go to bat for us when it's appropriate? I start to actually trust you. I think you're maybe not always out to get us, always looking for a mistake. Your words, whether critical or complementary, hold more meaning. I just might start trusting your judgment. I'm less likely to cringe when you come over and sit by us.

Preach trust, and be worthy of our trust. Treat your employees with respect. Periodically admit your weaknesses. Don't just act interested, be interested. Support your team.

You didn't have my back, just as you never have OUR back.

You blew it again.

Bonkers Fruity Screwball, aka the regular

When the crazy person calls you "sweet", can you really count it as a notch on your compliment bedpost? I don't know if that qualifies as a valid one but that's what I heard last night.

I didn't have to ask for her address, I never do. Unless you're brand new, you know it by heart. The officers never double up on calls for service at her home because the intruders she is reporting are non-existent. She is entirely mental and nothing she ever says contains a hint of logic.

There is however, one major looming problem: her house is immaculate and all of her personal effects are in order. That's a kick in the head, ain't it? As a result, no one is going to be able to commit her to a specialized home or institution. Endless calls to the PD mean nothing if she manages to take care of herself.

A verbal pat on the back from a crazy person. I suppose it ranked higher than talking to the dude who fell asleep with a piece of candy in his mouth and a piece of it came out of his nose and freaked him out.

Just another ordinary night in dispatch.........

When the gossip is fact.

Dispatch is a breeding ground for gossip of which no one is immune. Couple that with the knowledge that the overwhelming majority of dispatchers are female and you have a recipe for cat fights. It's "guess who did this" and "what in the hell was she (and occasionally he) thinking." I'd like to say that I don't fall prey or participate in it but if I had to testify, well, I would be pleading the fifth. It's a nasty habit, I think everyone will at the very least, admit to that fact, but we all just keep doing it anyway.

Most chatter is minor but last week brought what was not a rumor, but fact from a dispatcher mega high on the food chain whose word is pretty much gospel. In a world such as this, where monitoring and recording devices reign supreme, one has to wonder why someone with at least eight years in the business would be so stupid as to think they could get away with avoiding work and passing it off to someone else, foolishly thinking that no one is going to have a clue.

Loyalties can change in an instant, well maybe not that quickly, she isn't miss popularity by any means, but if you're going to pull a retarded stunt to overload someone else because the type of call is one you dislike, well....you better think again.

While minor mistake are understood and expected really because we are not pre-programmed robots operating solely on scripts, deliberate avoidance and blatant actions were proven to be not tolerated by the supervisors. Six years in this field and never have I seen anything like this. Details would certainly make this post so much more interesting, but we all know why I'm not being specific here.

Upon my hiring, and still to this day, my ultimate goal was to keep my file out of Internal Affairs for as long as I worked here. Most police departments also have something called the "headline test" if you will, as in, if the media got ahold of this information, would we look like ignorant crackheads because of our actions? This last episode would have failed miserably.

There's gossip for the sake of itself and gossip that is more fact that fiction. It's embarrassing for us as a whole, but more embarrassing for the employee that has it hanging over their head for a long while.

Lesson of the day: do your job, do it well, and don't take the chance of bringing down the rest of us whose good name and reputation can be spoiled by your stupid actions. Our job is difficult enough as it is without b.s. that makes the police look even more stupid than the media incorrectly makes us out to be already.

Have you hugged your Supervisor today?

Yep, neither have I. My youngest and I were were running some errands today, just the two of us. Somehow the topic of supervisors came up, in particular, why a relative of mine dislikes hers. My son is in early elementary school and so, in terms that made sense for his little mind, we talked about some good and bad things that bosses can do, as it pertains to say....his teacher and how she reacts to the kids in his class.

I continue to peruse the Human Resources sections of some of my local cities, mostly closer to home, for Supervisor positions. Budgets as they are right now don't leave me very hopeful that I'll be able to make a second attempt at a supervisor assessment anytime soon. I've had fantastic, mediocre and shitty supervisors through almost twenty years of full time employment and know exactly how I want to be once I get there: ideally, a ton of number one, minimal of number two and zero of number three.

I happened on the blog of DISPATCHING DISCUSSIONS today and got a look at an example of a thorough and well rounded supervisor. There's something to be said about people in this business that promote and actually have a clue. It's refreshing and open and honest, and complimentary of the dispatchers and the shit they deal with. I don't know you, but I'm betting your employees aren't trying to squeeze into another shift to get away from you.

I currently have someone now that from what I deal with on a daily basis, is nothing of the sort. One of my co-workers and I got into a discussion recently, well it was more of a venting session on her part, about how this one in particular seems to be looking only for mistakes. It's as if his own hatred for life itself (due to some personal issues) has to be carried over and, as a result, bring everybody else down.

I wish I was in the position to choose a schedule based on who I get to work with. With the demands of a husband, kids, and life in general, I don't have the luxury of being selfish in this area. If the stress of this job isn't enough to raise your blood pressure all by itself, working with Lucifer running the ship every night will certainly get you regular appointments with your primary care doctor for happy pills.

I'm being nice. It's enough to make my stomach turn and my face grimace as I eek out a smile. I look at myself as basically a thoughtful person most of the time. I like doing things for other people. This person though, it's a struggle, every shift of every week to work with someone that I disrespect and dislike so much. 'Hate' is an extremely strong word and I almost never use it when it comes to another human being. In this situation though, it's a struggle to keep it out of my vocabulary when he comes up in discussion.

It's difficult at times to leave personal problems at your home but when it affects your personality in general and there is only one person out of several dozen that enjoys having you on their shift, we have a major problem. And when the communications director willingly hires and pushes this person on this department as a supervisor, what does that say about their mindset?

What do you do? Nothing, you just continue to grin and complete your job responsibilities to the best of your ability. Keeping out of this man's office for major or minor infractions will be the ultimate satisfaction in their quest for mistakes.

Protect and serve equals what???

A comment was made to me recently extolling the evils of unmarked squad cars. I heard about how cops were all assholes and only out there to get drunks and speeders.

Drunks and speeders.

I was told they were supposed to "protect and serve." If getting drunks and speeders off the road doesn't fall into the category of "protect and serve," then I don't know what does.

The normalcy of police officers is something I've posted about before on here. I suppose I fell into that category of people who wasn't happy to see a cop unless I needed one before I took this job. I was never a cop hater though and prior to taking this job I only had two experience with officers; once on a traffic stop (where I wasn't cited) and once when I was the victim of a non-injury but car-totalling hit and run.

The "power-trip" that people speak of is no more prevalent with officers than it is with those in power in other professions. You can almost understand it, if it really was the case with officers though, when you understand what aspect of society they deal with on a daily basis.

Officers come in all shapes, colors and types. We have them all and I can count on one hand out of more than a few hundred, ones that I absolutely hate to deal with and wouldn't be sorry to see go.

If you're reading this and outside of the law-enforcement community, let me mention the typical officer and why he demonstrates the fallacy of the stereotype. He's in his early thirties, married with three little girls. A transplant from deep in the south with an accent noticable from the the first spoken word. From his smaller physique you would be suprised by just how much of a pistol he can be when he's pushed by jerks.

I did a ride-a-long with him in my early days when I was training. I didn't pick who I got to go with that night, but he was an excellent example. His ability to read people and deal with them on their level was phenomenal. There was no "asshole personality" until several examples of refusal on the part of the suspect led him to get tough. Until that point, he tried every avenue to be soft and friendly.

He's a training officer and frankly, anyone who is assigned to him is very fortunate for the placement. His attitude with dispatch is cooperative and supportive. His relationship with his squad mates is one of a trusted friend and knowledgeable colleague when needed.

He's a normal officer. He does his job, attempts to weed out the bad and wants nothing more than to go home every morning after a long overnight shift.

I would imagine that, like dispatch, there is a small percentage of people that can survive the academy, field training and the job itself. I don't have to suffer face to face contact with these people and I don't trust anyone anymore. At home I require meeting every parent, at their home before my kids get to hang out. And with the advent of the internet, public records searches make it easy to verify that Billy's mom or dad are clear from anything sinister.

Call them jerks and assholes all you want. Like a parent that is disrespected by their child, they'll still come when you need them, no matter how much you're badmouthed or disliked them. They'll rush to save your life or protect your property when doing so puts themselves in possible danger.

Everyone hates a cop until they need one.

So easy a (blank) could do it.

Who we are and what we do is something that you probably already know about in some form or fashion. If you're not in the field of PD or fire, you're either reading more than just this blog or have some kind of vested interest in a city government type thing-a-ma-jig.

I don't to pretend to know the ins and outs of every career field and therefore make a valiant attempt to withhold judgment and criticism when it comes to policies I may not be familiar with, even though they may piss me off as the consumer on the other end.

Dispatchers, be they pd or fire only, or some combination of the two, are more than an answering service. Often times a transfer is needed to another agency, such as the fire department since we don't take those calls directly, although we do stay on the line during transfer to monitor whether or not the police department is needed to assist. This post was conceived as the result of a under the breath comment made by a caller from a rather large elderly care facility.

This lady is a regular, I gather from her voice she is not that far off from actually living in the care facility herself and she works the night shift as I do. She starts off with the same line quite often, "we need a 911!"

Fantastic lady, that's what you have, 911....the same people you get every damn time you call, which incidentally is always for the same type of issue: medical. Which means that everytime you call you always get transferred to the fire department/paramedics. If you just fell off the turnip truck and have never conferenced a call ANYWHERE at any job that you've had in the past, you wouldn't know that there is a little bit of time in there where I CAN STILL HEAR YOU mid transfer.

I use my mute button on every transfer. In the event of a cough, a laugh or some amount of muffled swearing due to your ridiculousness or piss-ass attitude. Every time. One day, when I'm having a really baaaad day, that button is going to be my savior. So.....when you mumble, mid-transfer, that "She just answers the phone, she isn't a dispatcher, she just transfers calls around," I get annoyed and I start posting.

I'm not the lady that takes your call after your dentist closes for the day and tells you to call back tomorrow for an appointment. I am not an answering service or a chimpanzee that sits around waiting for the phone to ring so I can push a few buttons and then clap for myself. I took a call tonight where a fight broke out and five males pulled out guns. I do waaaaaay more than just what you would call answer the phone.

My husband gave us folks a nice compliment recently in his field of work. When a colleague from another company said he would just go get an easy city job if the private sector field he was in were to go sour, my husband chimed in with the work we do and how "easy" just doesn't fit into the description.

This occupation is either feast or famine. It's volume is determined by officer and citizen activity, neither of which we have any control over at all. There are periods of extreme down time (such as this as I write this post) and times where getting up to use the restroom is done in record time so as not to allow a 911 line to ring for more than 10 seconds.

No one calls when they are having a good day. The emotions are that of anger, fear, disappointment, rage and confusion. The problem may be minor or that which may end a life. There is no choosing what work you will do in this field, and when YOU the dispatcher are having what could be YOUR worst day, you are expected to turn off your emotions and be a piece of the puzzle that will help others with theirs.

I'm not an answering service. You are more than welcome to ask at any time just exactly what it is we do and i will be glad to clarify it for you.

Did you see my manhood?

What's your most common call at work, well call for service anyway? One of our top ones is family fights. Be they verbal, physical or ass-backwards stupid with weapons I never realized how really retarded people are until I started this job. I've been married 15+ years and there's never been a god damn minute where I felt it worthy of a police response.

It was a surplus of girl on boy violence, as in girl hits/beats/humiliates boy. Usually it's the flip side and what follows is an extensive history in our CAD system as girl returns to boy after each and every beating because she "looooooves him." Screw that shit.

Two men got beaten up on my watch. I'm saying on my watch because I got to talk to these wusses, both of them. Neither one of them had balls because their lack of reciprocal smacking had nothing to do with not wanting to get in trouble but sheer wussiness. That's not even a word really but that's about as complementary as I can get in referring to these two.

Crying, most of it absolutely unintelligible. Moaning and sobbing from :01 seconds to the officers arrival. I'm all for men showing their emotions, for crying (no pun intended) out loud, knock yourself out. Drive the stock of Kleenex up 1000% for all I care, just do it in the appropriate setting, like say, a funeral or during Schindler's list or even the latest episode of Gray's Anatomy. Not, NOT when you act like the idiot that you are, screwing up your relationship with an asinine, ridiculous mistake and as a result, she blows up at you.

Take it down a notch people. Have a little argument, swear a little, blow off some steam and then head to your respective corners for a cool down.

If you claim to be a man but turn around and take a beating by nightgown, well, odds are you probably deserve it. Grow the hell up and stop calling.