A vent

[Guest guest]

I'm sorry, seems all I can do of late is vent.

Is anyone else experiencing a deluge of " prickliness " among coworkers? Right

now, my department is a VERY unhappy place to be. It seems like everyone is

growling at everyone else. There is NO such thing as a discussion or

conversation...everything is either a shouting match or gets " reported " to

someone as " being jumped on " . Disagreements are rampant, rumors are going on at

every corner and half the department isn't speaking to the other half!!

Our records department has decided that dispatch doesn't need access to search

their records. This means, we will only have history from 20040412! Our old CAD

system is not compatible with the system we got on that date, and shortly after

it was installed, before the new information could be retrieved etc, the system

died and there is no support to bring it " back to life " in order to recover the

information. The chief's secretary, who used to be a dispatcher, says " we never

had access before " . I told her, but we did, until records went on the new system

years before we did. Once that happened, we didn't have access, and the officers

griped all the time, although we did have access to the information in CAD at

that time. Once records and CAD became compatible again, we again could access

records prior to our going live on the new CAD. We do not need access to change

etc anything in records. We do need access to read for information. Again, I'm

told by the secretary, " if dispatch would fill out the CAD entry completely,

they'd have all the information " . Well, even those of us that fill it out

completely don't get all the on scene information from the officers! And, there

are some that never add enough basic information to the card.....just as had

been the case since they began working here!! The primary culprit is an

" untouchable " , so even ordering him to do so will result in no improvement or

consequences. One of the funny things is, this secretary has not worked dispatch

since about 1999, with more changes going on in there than I can even think

about, but she can definitely tell how she did this and that when she worked

dispatch! Within the 6 years or so since she did dispatch, we have moved into a

new center, we have a new booking camera system, we have a new fingerprint

system, we are now using NCIC 2000, our CAD has been changed totally, the phone

system and radio systems are totally new and numerous policies have been updated

and modified.

I love my job. Dispatch is something that fits a part of me so very well. Right

now, I am seriously considering if this is worth the strain to my life. My

husband has worked our financial plan and if I can hang on until Oct, 2006, I

could easily take a job making half what I do now, and we would not suffer. At

the rate things have gone down hill in just 2 weeks, I will be doing good to

hang on by my fingertips til Oct 2005!!! It is a crying shame that people cannot

carry forth a spirit of teamwork and cooperation in something like public

safety. If we can't work together, then how in the world do we expect others to

do so? My once heroes, police and fire, have developed clay feet and tarnished

halos too. I'll never see them as the selfless, brave and caring souls I

believed them to be before I came to know at least a portion of the professions.

Freida