One of our trainees worked her last night as she chose to resign in lieu of dismissal for poor performance. That leaves our open number of available dispatcher spots at six positions. We currently have three still in training and all of them seem to have worthwhile potential.
Officer Smith started a good series about becoming an officer and what it entails. What's the process of becoming a dispatcher? For many agencies, it's an involved process of 3-5 months and that doesn't include classroom and on the job training, that is merely getting hired. My process from application submission to a conditional hire was just over four months due to the number of applicants. We had about fifteen positions open at that point and a huge rush of applicants.
There's the initial application, role playing scenarios, spelling and other weird tests. If you're lucky to get to that point you have a background interview, psychological exam, drug testing and medical exam. The drug testing part has always puzzled me because it's such a big issue during hiring but our agency doesn't retest the dispatchers ever again.
Depending on the number of people in your hiring group you spend anywhere from 4-6 weeks covering every aspect of phones and the radio. Memorization is a huge aspect in this stage, everything from 10-codes and policies to the entire criminal reporting system, i.e. warrants and drivers license info.
When you've passed every test you are assigned to a trainer. Whether you start on phones or radio is dependent on what trainer is available and what shift works best to start. We generally don't throw a newbie on weekend nights, ultimately that kills the deal right there and stresses them out too much. On the job training lasts anywhere from 8-12 months depending on aptitude and breaks in between positions.
What can you expect when you're released? Anything from chaos to extreme boredom. Feast or famine. Frustration, despair, relief, joy, anger and laughter come and go all night long depending on the calls. You'll inevitably have the crappiest shift on the planet when you first hit the floor. You will question many of your decisions for about the first year. Mistakes will be dealt with swiftly to ensure they don't keep happening.
Then one day you'll turn around and realize time has flown quickly and you have an enormous amount of time under your belt and that you absolutely love, love, love your job. Every crappy, wonderful part of it and you wouldn't choose to do anything else.
3 hours ago