Various ventings

[Guest guest]

----- Original Message -----

About TV's, we have one in the phone room ... good when you need to amuse a

trainee with an instructional videotape ... great during hurricanes and

major news stories ... not so great when someone with a hearing problem

wants to listen to music videos all freakin' day.

About the woman who witnessed her husband's suicide ... you have to at least

give the woman a chance. She's a single mom now with children to feed and

that's one of the greatest motivators in the world. You also can't judge

future performance on past traumas. Everyone is different. If you don't give

her a chance you are opening yourself up to a world of problems. It should

be evident during training if she's just not up to the job, in one way or

another.

On officer safety ... I used to be one of those dispatchers who said " my

guys are going home no matter what. " A buddy of mine (who later got shot

while I was on duty, working another radio channel) used to call me

" SuperDispatcher " because of that attitude. With his tongue firmly planted

in cheek, he was indeed correct. I used to think that if I cared enough, fed

the cops enough information, checked on them until they said " you nag me

more than my wife/husband does " ... that everything would be perfect. And it

was ... until the day I got to dispatch a call for an on-duty officer

suicide.

Talk about a reality check. It was a brutal way to discover that sometimes

everybody doesn't go home safely.

Those of you who were on the list back then will recall that I beat myself

up over it for the longest time, Monday-morning quarterbacked myself to

pieces over it. Thought there was something I could have done differently

even though all the proof in the world said nothing I did would have made

any difference whatsoever.

The best intentions and correct actions will sometimes end in the worst

possible result. That's not pessimistic - it's realistic.

To the person with who had the call where the 5 year old died - someday

(probably not anytime soon) you will realize how important it is to hear

that you did a good job even though the call had a bad outcome. Perhaps you

will be able to say it someday to someone in a similar situation. Examples

from my dispatching career: no " good job " after the officer suicide, coupled

with scorn and derision from supervision, and it still haunts me to this

day. Heard " good job " after the officer shooting, backed up in writing by

chain of command, coupled with numerous " update " phone calls from another

officer who went to the hospital with him and seeing him alive and well

later that day at the debriefing ... doesn't worry me at all.

Michele Hriciso

Brevard County Sheriff's Office, FL

website: www.thecluster.com

email: mhriciso@...

ICQ 28949458

AOL IM - E911Tigger