To: All police officers
From: Communications Division
Re: Common Survival
We dispatchers, being 25% mental and 75% professional, give to you our point of view. Please let it be know that:
1.) When you are given a call, we don't care if you are leaving the east side of Hell; just go!
2.) When given a call, do not say any sentence that begins with "You will have to hold my calls...." When you are on a self-initiated call, say so then; not two days later.
3.)We CALL wreckers; we don't drive them and we can't make them hurry.
4.) It is not our plot to "get you." We really don't know what side of the street your wreck is on. We don't have x-ray vision and never will. Sorry.
5.) If we say something is NOT in the computer, it isn't!
6.) The computers really do go down. And often.
7.) Hang out on your calls. We don't care. But when your buddy on another call does the same thing, and you have to take his calls, get mad at him, not us.
8.) Know that we DO call you names, just as quick as you call us names.
9.) To all desk persons: we are not simply call takers. We are not police and you sure as hell aren't dispatchers. If you have a non-emergency call, use the phone, not the radio.
10.) We really do only have two hands, two feet, two ears, and one mouth.
11.) Emergency traffic means just that....SHUT UP!!! You would be the first to raise hell if you were the one that needed the radio. We don't want you graveyard dead; we prefer you warm and breathing.
12.) At shift change, calls do not stop coming in. We don't care if you pass the call along to the incoming chief himself, as long as it is off of our screens.
13.) Those radios in your hands have a two-second delay...USE IT!! Your transmissions do break up, and above all...we TALK on the radio, we don't work on them. We can't twist our bodies into antennas, stand on our heads, or turn up the output volume.
14.) We know that some of you get excited and scream. That's okay. But to those of you who scream just to check a plate, cram that plate where the sun doesn't shine.
15.) And finally....we all have one thing in common. We all must be a little weird for choosing these jobs, or we wouldn't be here. We respect the job you do, so please, give us the same respect in return.
With humor and well wishes,
Your dispatchers
-Shirley Lee
