aariakon

You're a fucking cool dude. This AMA has been awesome to read

Another 911 guy here. Nope. But don't make a habit of it :)

As a fellow 911 operator and police dispatcher, how big of area do you dispatch for? What shifts do you work? Do you guys have retention problems too? I started 2 years ago, and already 24 people have quit due to crap hours, being treated like shit, and insane overtime... For example, over the course of 7 days I worked 106 hours. It was very common for most of us to work 70-80+ hours a week.

Last but not least, best call?

911 operator here... When you guys are just plain dickheads to us. I work in a larger city and try to be as nice as possible to everyone, but fuck man it's just my job. I have to send you to a shit call sometimes. I know it's shit, we know you know it's shit. But we can't do anything about it.

Granted there are terrible dispatchers, who it a wonder that they made it so far.

My biggest pet peeve is when an officer says, hey make this call for me, and every other officer heard that... But then everyone also wants to ask a million questions while I'm on the phone. You get used to it, but it never fails. Once I'm asked to make a call, I've got 2 officers calling out stops, other officers asking questions, and some dumb new Calltaker asking me about policy and if we will go out on the call.

I guess some officers forget how much multi-tasking we have to do. But also some dispatchers need to realize what the road and being on patrol is like. It's a two way street.

Another 911 guy here... Oh yeah. Most of these people are actually mentally impaired though so we just do a welfare check to make sure they are ok