STANISLAUS COUNTY - Stanislaus County is facing a critical shortage of 911 dispatchers. County officials there hope a $90,000 allocation to the agency will help recruitment efforts.
Inside the Stanislaus Regional 911 dispatch center, the staff is cool, calm and collected. They have to be when speaking with people in crisis.
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This is nothing new for Stanislaus County. I worked with a guy at the ammo plant 35 years ago that was married to a 911 dispatcher, and her regular work schedule was six 12 hour days. The turnover rate was so high she was the senior employee after only 3 or 4 years.
Stress wise that 911 job is probably right up there with the Air Traffic Controllers
ReplyDeleteTwo airliners collided on the ground at O'Hare a couple days back, and we just had an ATC try to land a 767 on top of a propjet. Luckily no fatalities on the jet, but 5 on the prop are dead. The more the FAA demands this DEI shit, the more accidents and deaths we can expect.
DeleteI wonder what that $90k will actually get them in this day & age?
ReplyDeleteBut is there a push on to hire emotionally and psychiatric meat bags to man the phones like the FAA.
ReplyDeleteJob description says you will work 3-12 hour shifts with mandatory OT, and during your time off you may be called in to work, you must be on call and since 911 center runs 24/7 good luck trying to plan or have a life.
ReplyDeleteI once had a family member who worked as a dispatcher. When asked what I would change about dispatchers were I in charge, I immediately replied “Eight hour shifts, five day weeks.”
ReplyDeleteHe insisted that he liked his 12-hour days. I said, “No, you like three days off one week, and four off the next.You will soon realize that with four days off you spend the first one trying to catch up on sleep, and one dreading going back to work. Twelve hour days have a way of becoming sixteen or twenty hour days. Start a family, and see how long you stay with that job.”
He pulled it off for roughly five years.
In my experience, it takes three years to get good at dispatching.
Clearly they need more diversity hires.
ReplyDelete"Nine wun wun... whacho problem?"
"You wants the five-oh oh de ambulamps?"
My son is a dispatcher for a town north of Austin (spit,hack). He's been at it for 5 years; but never has been "allowed" to advance, ie; become training officer, computer guru.....because the supervisors he's had are....DING<DING<DING you guessed it...ALL WOMEN.
ReplyDeleteIf "they" can't get more dispatchers; in any jurisdiction; I would check to see who is in charge.
My wife did that a few years. When we moved to Johnson County she went through their training but the trainer failed her for being too white.
ReplyDelete