Guest guest Posted July 10, 2003 Report Share Posted July 10, 2003 Dispatchers all: It's been so interesting reading your emails. It is helping me get the " feel " of you guys. I have a few fundamental questions for anyone willing to answer. Is there a difference between a 911 dispatcher and a police dept. dispatcher? Do police stations have dispatchers separate from 911 dispatchers? If so, what is the difference? I'm assuming the police dept. dispatcher would have to be a cop and 911 doesn't? Jolene Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 15, 2003 Report Share Posted July 15, 2003 On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 at 13:03:06 EDT Missblue1966@... wrote: > > That's all I'm asking folks. I just wanted to > understand what it's like for you. A guy who sat with me back in my dispatching days (all of 7 months ago) later emailed me saying he didn't think anyone would really have any idea what we do unless they learned to do it themselves. He also thought there was a remarkable difference in experience. While he was sitting with me at a fire dispatch console at Walt Disney World, we got to talking about dispatching at a far busier center like Washington, DC. He had a hard time comprehending having to prioritize emergency calls because there are 20 calls in the pending queue and only 12 available units to respond. Then we got a call for a robot fire with flames showing at Epcot and he got all engrossed in that and we never got back to our original conversation. There is an absolutely eclectic range of experiences in the profession and on this mailing list. I looked back through the Yahoo Groups archive. I recall your first post with the questions. I don't recall seeing the post where you introduced yourself or explained why you were here and asking questions. Couldn't find it by searching, either. Maybe it got lost or I just wasn't searching very well. No reason to leave. We've had non-dispatchers on the list before. We tend to be a suspicious lot, tho. Comes from spending hours trying to coax accurate information from an excited or ill-informed public, perhaps. Bear with us and our peculiar way of looking at the world. We may be a strange lot and do our jobs in many different ways at many different locales, but no one remains a dispatcher who doesn't like the feelings that come with it: being part of important things, knowing that sometimes you actually did something significant for someone else, sometimes even knowing that someone lived because you did your job right and got them the exact kind of help they needed quick enough to matter. Welcome. -jackie Jackie McElroy Washington, D.C. http://www.mcjackie.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.