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this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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I work in a 911 dispatch center, were starting to do some remote trials, but I'm not part of the test group, so I'm not totally clear on all the details about how we're handling it.
But some concerns I'd have are
Backup power supplies, phone and Internet connections, etc. our dispatch center has massive generators, several redundant phone and Internet lines, etc. You wouldn't want to be on the phone with your call taker and have your call drop in the middle because there's a storm and they just lost power or Internet to their home.
Radio equipment- phones and call taking are only half the game, the other half is on the radio with our field units. If somehow everything else goes offline, the dispatchers still have walkie talkies to communicate with the units in the field.
Security concerns, both physical and cyber. We're handling a lot of sensitive information, have access to various local, state, and federal databases, etc. I'd be a little sketched out by some of that going over someone's home WiFi. Yes, you can do a lot with vpns and virtual machines and such, but it still introduces a whole lot of variables that need to be accounted for. Also if something really crazy happens, most dispatch centers are fairly secure places, I personally work in a underground bunker on the property of a prison, tall fences, armed security, multiple security doors, etc. You also have less control over who is in the room and what they're doing. We're not allowed to take any pictures or video in the room, some dispatch centers go so far as you can't have your cell phone out at all, no one can just walk in unless they have business in there, it's a pretty controlled environment.
Physical proximity to other people is useful, we're always turning around and asking other people sitting near us for help with something or another, whether it's asking them to call another agency while we're on the phone with someone, look something up for us, asking them how to do something in the computer (there's a lot going on in our system, and they're constantly adding and changing how some things work, so I'm not sure anyone really knows how to do everything off the top of their head.) If our computer freezes up while taking a call, we can still yell across the room to the dispatcher that they need to send someone to a location because something is going on there (there's a famous story in our dispatch center from a few decades ago when we were first getting computerized where someone called in that a cop was getting beaten up and couldn't get to his radio, the person taking the call couldn't find the location in the system and had to yell over to the dispatcher for that zone to get backup started for him over the radio.) Also about half of us are working night shift and our hours are long, having people around you and keeping an eye on each other is some easy insurance to make sure no one's literally falling asleep on the job.
Space for the computer equipment. Where I work, call takers have 5 monitors, dispatchers have 6, and we make use of all of them, we have a lot of information we're constantly shifting through, and all those screens are very useful to us, we could, in a real pinch, make do with 2 or 3 screens, but it would be a pretty big hindrance. I don't have space in my home to squeeze in a 5 or 5 screen setup, and I wouldn't really want to work without them long term (once in a while we've had to use aour backup center which has 1 fewer screen at each console, and it's a pretty big pain in the ass)
Some of these are weird edge cases, but that's also kind of exactly the sort of situations that 911 exists for. I do think if done right working from home can add extra redundancy, hypothetically if someone blows up our dispatch center or something it's better if half of us aren't even in the building and can continue working, but on the other hand if there's widespread power and Internet outages, it doesn't do us any good to have half of our staff sitting at home in the dark either. There's a balance to be struck, I'm not totally sure what it is, but it's something that needs to be approached carefully to make sure we're still able to provide an acceptable level of service.
Had the same question when I read the headline and this was super informative. Out of curiosity, do 911 operators have to pass extensive background checks and psych exams to be able to access those databases? Also, I've heard the pay was abysmal - is that still true?
A whole lot in this profession can be summed up as "it varies from one jurisdiction to another" so I can really only speak for where I work.
Some places do much more complicated background check processes than others. Whatever the background check process at my county is, it was pretty streamlined and out-of-sight, out-of-mind for me as an applicant, so I can't give too much detail on it.
I don't remember them calling any of my references, though I was able to get someone who already worked here to put in a good word for me so that may have given me a leg-up on that. There was a psych eval, I wouldn't exactly call it extensive, it was a quick sit-down with the county shrink and then a long multiple choice personality test thing that seemed more like it was measuring ability to play well with others than screening for any significant mental issues.
I did have to pass a drug test, and it was a hair test which I believe has a longer window of detection than a pee test, but as long as you can pass that they don't really care about past drug use if you're up-front about it, and honestly I'm pretty sure a pretty decent amount of my coworkers and at least one of my supervisors like to smoke up occasionally, if we ever cause a significant incident or they have reason to suspect that we're intoxicated at work, we are subject to drug testing, but it's not like we're getting regularly tested, and I've never heard of anyone having to get tested in the 5+ years I've been here. Of course we are subject to a lot of different federal and state regulations so of course pot is officially forbidden,but you'd kind of have to really fuck up to get caught for it. Certain things like a DUI could lead to your certifications being revoked.
I've heard a lot of places have you do a polygraph test, mine doesn't (which is good because polygraphs are all kinds of bullshit)
We also did get fingerprinted by our county detectives and I assume that got ran through the background check as well.
We did have one or two hires with some kind of sketchy things in their past that probably shouldn't have made it through our background checks but did, though I will say they were weeded out pretty quickly during training.
As far as pay goes, again it varies a lot. I think I make ok money, I'm not rolling in it by a longshot but I'm staying afloat and managing to save a bit. The benefits are solid of course. Last I checked, I think we're one of the lowest-paid dispatch centers in our immediate area, although we're also one of the only non-union ones around here too, which is probably to be expected. That has its pluses and minuses, one of the first things that usually that comes with the contract negotiations is mandatory OT since every dispatch center struggles with staffing so we've managed to avoid that.
I made about 66k last year after my shift differential (night shift gets paid a bit more,) overtime (I rarely come in for unscheduled OT, but the way our regular schedule works we go over 40 hours a week every other week) etc. people who have more certifications than I do can make a decent bit more than that at my center. I think it's decent pay for the actual work we do, but not necessarily for the amount of liability we take on. There's a lot of places that definitely pay a lot less than that. Some of the higher-ups in our department and county government have really been going to bat for us and wrangled us some pretty substantial raises over the last couple years and I'm making substantially more than I did when I started, so at least here the situation is definitely improving.
Wow that sounds extensive enough to where there should be an expectation of higher pay. There's an argument that for civic duties such as jury duty or political positions, pay should not incentivize prople to seek those duties or positions or you attract the wrong candidates...but I dont really believe thats true. Still, kudos to you for taking on a front line job like that - I've been to the ER a few times and the environment is just so surreal and depressing. I cant imagine the daily amounts of human suffering that you are exposed to. That'd be enough to justify the weed IMO.
On another note, you should totally do an AMA.
I have to imagine this is a stressful job that you can't really talk about with everyone and having other people physically present that can truly identify with the stuff that you have to deal with is psychologically important.
To add to point 4 in small municipalities it's not uncommon that the dispatcher might also serve other roles like a notary or permit processor who have to be accessible to the department or the public.
I've heard of some area where the dispatchers are technically considered LEOs and sometimes end up doing stuff like assisting with searching incoming prisoners and such.
It also kind of highlights another issue with the field, on the federal level we're classified as clerical staff, basically just basic office staff. Different states, counties, and such may make different classifications, but it's a bit of a crapshoot. That can have an effect on what kind of benefits we're entitled to, how much we get paid, when we can retire, etc. There's a bit of a push to have us reclassified to the same category (I believe it's called "protective services" or something along those lines) as first responders (I believe the most recent version of that bill was called the 911 SAVES act, not sure what the current status of that is.) One of our little propaganda slogans is that we're the first first responders. I don't necessarily think we should be in the same category as cops and firefighters and such, were not on location putting ourselves physically in danger, but the kinds of stress and such from the job are probably more in-line with what they do than what some clerk working in an office at the courthouse experiences, IMO a 3rd category is probably most appropriate, but it's probably a lot easier to just reclass us as first responders than to creat a whole new classification from scratch.
And depending on where you work, dispatch may be part of the local PD, it may be part of the county sheriff's department or state police, or it may be part of your county's department of public safety (that's the case where I work)