Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Train 10, keep 1! Dispatcher turnover....here we go again!

Just cruising my blogroll and ended up over at 911 Dispatcher. The most recent post, entitled "Training again", though short, really sums it all up doesn't it? Seems to be an endless cycle, at least in my agency. Every year, it's the same old bag...Train 'em up and watch 'em leave...over and over again!

Train 'em... "Where ya' goin? Oh, Police Academy, huh?"

Train 'em... "What, EMT school??"

Train 'em..."Dude, you knew there was no money in this when you started."

Train 'em..."No, wait...this one's an idiot, he can't be trained."

Train 'em..."Now you want to be a firefighter??"

Train 'em..."WHAT?? POT?? IT'S PUBLIC SAFETY, MAN...HAVEN'T YOU EVER HEARD OF A RANDOM DRUG TEST??? SHEEESH!"

Train 'em... "Man, you can't spell, you can't type...you can't even stay awake! How'd you get this job, dude? Did you even graduate from high school??

Train 'em... "Dude...wake up...hey dude...wake up...DUDE!

Train 'em ..."Man, you gotta talk and type at the same time, bro. It's called multi-tasking!"




I wonder if there is an emergency dispatch center anywhere on this planet which remains fully staffed with fully trained dispatchers for one full year. Hell I wonder if there's such a thing as a "Retired Dispatcher"...not one of those "I used to work the road but then I hurt my back, so now I dispatch."...I'm talking about an honest to goodness, no joke, 30 year dispatcher. Ain't none of 'em here, I'll tell you that much! Got some that are pretty close, but...not yet.

6 comments:

John Bailey said...

What you say is true. In my 16 years dispatching our center has been fully staffed only once - for a couple of years.
I've only seen one dispatcher reach full retirement. And two others at our center are near the 20 year mark.
As far as wannabe cops, we've had 2 people use dispatch as their stepping-stone. And for some reason they then forget everything they learned in dispatch as far as radio protocol, etc.

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean. I did it for 25 years full time, have been part time for the last 2 years and I still love it for some obscure reason. Not many idiots like me around huh!

Anonymous said...

every single one of these i had a name or face to go with..that's sad...i met once at ppd...but she's retired now....but starting working there when she was 18...

sgtsuth said...

OMG!!! I am the assistant training coordinator at the agency where I work and what I do is take the newbees after two weeks with the training coordinator. If they are gona show their true colors it wont be during that two weeks. It will be when they come to me. Just like one of the other comments that was posted I can put a face to every thing you said. I thought that all the stupid people lived here where I work. Guess not LOL.

Edward said...

We have some. I don't expect too many more now that they've "tweaked" retirement plans.

Anonymous said...

Great work.