Attitude is Everything

Attitude can make you or break you in this profession.  Dispatchers deal with a wide variety of calls on a daily basis.  It is an emotional roller coaster at times.  Sometimes it is difficult to keep a positive attitude when dealing with so many irate people.  I haven’t always had the best attitude in the dispatch center.  There are days when it is really difficult not to speak to people with an angry tone in my voice.  I think when I was younger I was more susceptible to letting this job drag me down.  It took me a while to learn that I can get more information from a disgruntled caller by being sympathetic to their needs.  If I’m just as angry as they are on the phone it takes much longer to complete the call.  It also took me a long time to realize it isn’t my place to judge people.  Everyone is struggling with something. 

When I first started in this profession, society as a whole seemed to be a little more self sufficient.  The majority of people that called 911 truly had an emergency.  It was a simpler time.  In today’s world, people call 911 for everything from a barking dog to their order being wrong at the McDonald’s drive thru.  It’s difficult not to get frustrated.  When I was a child, I was out the door at sunrise and didn’t get home until sunset.  My parents never knew where I was.  I rode my bike everywhere going from one friend’s house to the next.  My parents didn’t fear for my safety.  They knew all my friends and their parents.  They knew the neighborhood.  I grew up with the freedom to explore my world.  My children didn’t have that opportunity.  Admittedly, as a parent, I feared for their safety every time they walked out of my house.  Working in the nerve center of the police department made me an extremely overprotective parent.  Fears of them being abducted by a stranger terrified me.  If my kids wanted to go to a friend’s house, I drove them there.  They didn’t have the freedom to roam – even in their own neighborhood.  I wish they could have had the childhood I did.

 Things are different in today’s world.  Society has changed and I can’t say for the better.  People no longer talk to their neighbors or even know them at all.  People are often afraid to speak to their neighbors about loud music or even a barking dog.  To be honest, I think it’s sad.  People call the police for everything and often tie up 911 lines for things that don’t qualify as an emergency.  Cell phones fall into their own category of nightmare for dispatchers.  911 lines are constantly tied up with pocket dials.  Our agency has a policy that requires us to call each and every one back to make sure no one needs help.  The amount of time I spend a day on cell phone hang-ups is ridiculous.  It creates a lot of frustration in the dispatch center.  It’s easy to have a bad attitude in that type of atmosphere. 

 Every dispatch center has at least one Negative Nellie or Bitter Betty.  It’s difficult to work with people like that and listen to them for an entire shift each day.  There are dispatchers I can’t stand to work with just because they suck the life right out of the room.  They treat people horribly on the phone and I have a real problem with that.  More often than not, we are the first point of contact for citizens calling the police department whether it is a 911 line or administrative line.  If those dispatchers had a family member that called their police department for help, would they want them treated that way?  I would hope not.  The way I see it, you are responsible for the energy you bring into the room.  This job is difficult enough without having to work with someone with a foul attitude.  Dispatch centers are notorious for low morale.  Bad attitudes are a large part of the problem.  That being said, a bad attitude is often difficult to improve if you work in a center where you are underpaid, unappreciated, understaffed, required to work mandatory overtime, and have no one fighting to make things better for you.  I am lucky to work for a really great department.  Our pay is decent and although we are understaffed at the moment, most of us are overtime hounds (myself included) and don’t mind picking up the extra hours.  We do have our own issues in the dispatch center, but the majority of the time, it is a great place to work.  I sympathize with those dispatchers who aren’t as lucky.

 So what can you do to improve your attitude?  Make a choice.  You can choose to see everything in a negative light, speak to callers in an angry, patronizing voice and make everyone around you miserable.  OR, you can search for the good in everything; refuse to let life and the work that you do drag you down into the depths of misery.   Make a choice to be kind and courteous to callers and make a positive contribution to your dispatch center.  If you love your job, but hate where you work, find it within yourself to do your job to the best of your ability anyway.  The citizens and your officers, firefighters and paramedics deserve the best you have to offer.  EVERY SINGLE DAY.  If you can’t commit to that – get out and find something that makes you happy where you can make a sincere contribution to society.  This job isn’t for everyone.  Most dispatchers I know love their job, but hate the place they work or hate their coworkers.  Every dispatch center has its problems.  You have to take the good with the bad.  Whatever your choice is, be aware of the energy you bring into the dispatch center.  If you truly hate your job, you’re doing a disservice to everyone around you that depends on you.  I have seen dispatchers that are so miserable when they walk in the door that they fail to pay attention and focus on their job, putting the lives of citizens and officers at risk.  They have no business being in this profession.  That’s just the way I feel about it. 

 If you choose to become a 911 dispatcher, I wish you the best of luck.  If you can get through the training process and you have what it takes, you will find that even though the job is difficult at times it is very rewarding on many levels.  I believe 911 Dispatchers are an elite force.  My coworkers, officers, firefighters are my family.  While everyone has a bad day every once in a while, make it a point to not bring that negativity into the dispatch center.  Do what you can to improve your dispatch center.  The best way to improve morale is to lead by example.

It’s All Greek to Me

Moving from Indiana to Minnesota 14 years ago was an experience in itself.  Although I was technically still in the midwest, I had no idea Minnesotans had their own language and their own way of doing things that were quite different to what I was used to.

 One of the biggest problems I faced as a 911 dispatcher working in Minnesota was being unfamiliar with the terminology Minnesotans use.   I have been the source of entertainment for many a coworker as I have tried to stumble my way through terminology that has baffled and confused me.   I consider myself a fairly intelligent individual and it truly dumbfounded me that I didn’t understand many of the words that were being thrown at me.  I honestly wondered if I had moved to a foreign land without realizing it. 

Example #1

     It takes a while to get used to a new state,  geographically speaking.   Unfamiliar with the names of the cities in the area, I did the best I could when under pressure.  While training at Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department, an officer ran a license plate for a vehicle registration.  This wasn’t an odd request by any means.  Running license plates is a common occurence in dispatch.  Not being new to this type of request or reading a registration back to an officer,  I keyed the mic to read it back to him ~ failing to read it myself first.  BIG mistake.  If there is one sure-fire way to embarrass yourself in this business ~ not reading a call or registration prior to airing it is it.  I read back the plate, the expiration date on the tabs, the vehicle make model and year, the registered owner’s name, street address and ….oh….(pause on the air as I am mentally thinking “how do you say the name of that city???”)   Well, I did what any normal person would do.  I sounded it out!    Can’t be all that tough, it was only 9 letters for goodness sake!  I gave it my best shot, and really thought I had nailed it and got it right.  I sat back in my chair (pretty proud of myself) and noticed my trainer giggling.  In fact, several of the dispatchers were giggling.  Nothing entertains dispatchers more than someone screwing up on the air.  I even detected a hint of laughter in the officer’s voice as he gave me his response of “copy” on the air.  The city name was Mahtomedi.   Unfortunately, “sounding it out”  made me sound like an idiot.  I pronounced it as “Ma-tom-ed-ee”.  I wasn’t even close.  It is actually pronounced “Mah-ta-meee-de-eye”.  Granted, it could have been worse, but being a dispatcher in training, the last thing you want to do in front of your peers is sound like a moron.

Example #2

     I was in training for about 3 weeks at Ramsey County when a better job offer came through from Bloomington Police Department.  After much consideration, I accepted the job offer with Bloomington PD.  Once I made it through training and was on my own as a 911 dispatcher, I endured quite a few problems with terminology.  Other dispatchers can attest to the fact that working with a rookie dispatcher just out of training as your partner can be a trying experience for all involved.  As a rookie, I was trying to prove myself a worthy “partner” to the other dispatchers in the center and to the officers on the street.  One of the veteran dispatchers, I will call her Lucy, had the joy of working with me as a partner on one of my first shifts out on my own. (Lucky her!)  After sending the squads on a vehicle accident, one of the officers requested a tow for the vehicle involved (simple enough) and “flow dry.”  Not having a clue what “flow dry” was, I asked him to repeat it.  Surely I heard him wrong.  Again he said “flow dry”.  I looked at Lucy and said “What?  What does he want?  What is flow dry?  Is it flow dry or floor dry?”  I continued to babble while Lucy looked at me like I was quite possibly the dumbest person on the face of the earth and here she was not only stuck in a room alone with me, but had to count on me if the sh** hit the fan anytime soon.  She rolled her eyes dramatically (I’m pretty sure she saw her brain in the process), refused to answer me, and turned back to what she was doing.  In her defense, I’m sure she wondered how on earth I made it through nearly 3 months of training without ever hearing the words “floor dry”.  I guessed the officer meant sand, but I didn’t know for sure and the last thing you want to do as a rookie is screw up.  I called the towing company and requested the tow and mentioned that the officer also needed flow dry.  The person on the other end paused and then said “oooh, flooooor dry…yeah, sure, we can bring that.”  Lucy never clued me in on what floor dry was, but I did find out it was sand they were asking for.  In Indiana, we simplified things and well, quite frankly, called a spade a spade.  Unfortunately, there were more difficulties with terminology in my future.    

Example #3

     A few months later, after settling into my job a little more, I was hit with another Minnesota term I was unfamiliar with.  It was during the winter and we had a fresh layer of snow (maybe a few inches) on the ground.  I took a call from an angry homeowner complaining about a couple of kids in a truck “whippin’ shitties.”  Momentarily stunned and obviously confused, I questioned the caller again about what these juveniles were doing.  My first thought involved the  possibility of kids throwing feces.  Well, that certainly would make me angry too and yes, that is a problem!   I also wondered what kind of place I had moved to where children did this???   The caller, frustrated with someone who didn’t “speak the language” (English), told me “You know….  Whippin’ shitties…  Driving in circles in the lot real fast and spinning out…” in a tone that indicated I was a complete idiot.  My response (grateful that the call did not involve feces in any way) was “Ooooohhhh…  You mean doing donuts?  Okay…  We will send an officer out when we have one clear.”  (Sigh….)  Honestly, who came up with whippin’ shitties???

Example #4

     Perhaps the most entertaining of all is a call involving fire.  I was working dogwatch (11:00pm – 7:00am), a shift that the majority of rookies get “stuck” on due to lack of seniority.  I was on dogwatch for many, many years.  I took a call in the early morning hours from a male caller reporting a satellite on fire in one of the city parks.  My first thought was “what is a satellite tv dish doing in the middle of a park ~ and why is it on fire?”  When I questioned the caller about what exactly was on fire in the park, in an excited tone he said ” you know, the satellite….oh wow, it’s really burning….you know where I am right?”  His location wasn’t the problem.  At all.  I just had no idea what was on fire.  I continued to say “the satellite is on fire?” just as he continued to confirm that “yes (dumbass), the s-a-t-e-l-l-i-t-e, is on fire!!!”.  When I dumbly said “what do you mean “the satellite???”, he finally came up with an alternate word for it.  (Yay!  Perhaps I would understand this one!)  He said  “Yeah, the biffy!”  Oh. My.  Lord….  Would this dilemma never end???  Does anyone around here speak English???  As my partner heard me struggling to understand what a satellite or a biffy was, he helped me out by telling me “Hey (stupid) – it’s a port-a-potty!!!!”  When I asked the caller if it was in fact a port-a-potty on fire, he excitedly said “Yes!!!  Yes!!!  That’s right!  The PORT-A-POTTY!”  As time consuming as this conversation sounds, it really went pretty fast.  I was a little relieved to hear that no, they don’t have satellite dishes in the parks so people could watch television here in Minnesota.  But I  was sad to learn of another term I had no clue existed.  As I toned out the fire department, I proudly aired the location of the park and the problem (a port-a-potty on fire) three times per protocol.  I’m sure those firefighters wondered what kind of dimwit says “port-a-potty” on the fire main!  

     Language barriers, on either side of the line, can be a real problem in this field.  Thankfully, for those that truly do not speak English, dispatchers have the option of using Language Line.  This is a service that can get an interpreter on the line quickly to translate for the caller and the call-taker.  Unfortunately for me, they do not have a translator available that speaks Minnesotan.  As the years have gone by, I have gotten better and no longer make such a fool of myself (at least in terms of language issues).  Every once in a while something funny pops up though.  Thankfully my coworkers are more apt to help me out now that I have proven myself to them.  It helps to have things like this to laugh about.  It helps to know we’re all on the same team in here.  If you can’t laugh at yourself, believe me, you leave the job to others.