Re: 911:: Ten Dispatchers?

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 12/30/01 9:20:51 AM Mountain Standard Time,

rweintraut@... writes:

<< >We're working with 10 dispatchers and still have a minimum

staffing of 1!

Why? >>

Honey, do you really need to ask that?? MONEY!! We're NOT going to spend

overtime to insure there's 2 on duty at all times. That's what we get told.

If it's necessary overtime (example Thursday night I worked graves solo. Had

I called off sick, someone would have had to worked overtime to cover the

shift) there's no problem in paying it out.

You see, this is a big pet peeve of mine. We went to a combo of 10 and 8

hour shifts at the beginning of 2001. There are times, when for a few hours,

we have 4 dispatchers scheduled to be on duty. We only have 3 positions to

" man " . Admin approved this schedule then turned around and have said on

occasion that it appears we have more dispatchers then we know what to do

with. So for 2002 guess what? They (Admin) want to farm dispatchers out to

the property room to assist (on a voluntary basis and a couple of dispatchers

have volunteered for it).

Also because we have a minimum of 1 on duty, this past week, being Christmas

and all, there were only 3 people working per day because gee, why should

soooo many people be working?

And while I'm on my mini-rant, we did our bid for 2002 shifts. One person

who was in the middle of the pack (we bid via seniority) took a shift and was

allowed to totally change it with trades with 2 other dispatchers so there

are 3 people who are not working the shifts they bid for. This chick even had

the balls to ask me on my " friday " if I would change my hours from a 7am

start to a 3am start to help her out with " day care issues " . I'm going to

suggest that when we do the 2003 bid that we just pick what days/hours we

want to work. What is the purpose of having a schedule if you don't adhere

to it?

We did our vacation bids at the same time as the shifts. Each employee

allowed to pick 2 different blocks of time. I took shifts that allow me to

have the weekends off (I've never done this before so it's a new thing for me

to have weekends off) so that means I'm on duty for the majority of holidays

in 2002. The supervisor has already asked me if I will switch my shift from

days to graves on 12/24,25 and 31. I told her that I was already scheduled

to work those days, on dayshift, and that if too many people wanted those

days off, someone would have to have their leave denied.

so you see, no matter what your schedule looks like, if you don't have

support from admin to stick to a schedule, it doesn't matter.

Just my opinion and hope you all have a safe new years eve!!

kathy