Main Concern

I have a few main concerns and this one is to the Dispatchers that read this.

Why is spelling so hard on priority three and two calls. I completely understand priority one calls.. they are mainly 911 calls that need to be sent out to the deputy as fast as possible to respond to help whomever is calling. So I'm not referring at any time to the priority one calls.

But why does on a Priority 3 (lowest priority) on a past occurred Burglary, why does this:

Rpet dose not want cont.

OR:

Things was tooken, wants d/s. passed ocured.

Spelling is a reflection of not only yourself but to the agency as well. Media, Private agencies, other agencies from around the world sometimes obtain these CAD screens and the spelling is horrific. Priority three calls can have time placed into the call to get everything right. The reportee, the call location, even the cross street. Please do not tell me that we have the GPS mapping system, map books or Delorme in our computers. Old Polk City Road in ANY map program or book never crosses Highway 60.

Dispatchers on the radios have to take a LOT of slack, not only from the complaint takers but also with the deputies and the supervision on the road. Dispatchers have to dispatch, keep track of deputies, answer to deputies and supervisions every whim (run this tag, call this person, call the reportee back for a cross street, have AIR respond, have etc.) This is on top of answering to the Desk Sgt, training and listening to complaint takers. No I was never a dispatcher, but I have been in there quite a few times to understand what they go through. I also understand that sometimes, what we hear on our WTs are not as clear to the dispatcher. many times my in-car radio wont pick up the signal until half of the transmission has been completed while my WT picked up the entire transmission. You all have an underappreciated job and there are some very great dispatchers in there. I trust some of you with all my heart in not only myself but to my co-workers as well. And there are some that as soon as you sign on the radio, I fear for my life and my co-workers.

I also think with lack of manpower that the SSOs can become field reporters. We have CAPs units that are not helping, crime has skyrocketed in that area. So take away those cars and place SSOs in the vehicle and have them respond to past occurred Burglaries, Retail Thefts, and driver's exchange crashes. I understand some SSOs dont want to leave the safety of their substations. At least ONE SSO needs to stay in the office to complete sorting through reports and answering calls at the substation as well as helping clerical assistants and phones.

Morale is very low, not only with this agency but with the government itself. Anyone who has read the paper has read that the City of Bartow did a survey and 95% of the employees responded with an OVERWHELMING response of low morale. So its not just us... times are down, which means everything else is down (except gas)

I enjoy my job very much and wouldnt change it for the world. I understand 5 minutes of excitement is about an hour of paperwork. I went into this occupation understanding that we dont get paid for what we think we are worth and what we put up with.. but thats the public sector. This is a profession that will weed out the ones wanting to do this and the ones who see this job on COPS.

Everyone on patrols feels like they get screwed because they are always cleaning up speciality units messes. Whatever the specialty units dont want to do, Patrol has to do. Patrol is a variety of calls, deal with it. Dont like patrol, do your time, get your experience and go work towards something you want to do. Then you can see what their job entails and why they sometimes dont answer the radios for the petty part of their job.

I got to work with AG for a few days and I'm still amazed at how much they get assigned to them. One top of following up calls of farm thefts, property thefts, they have to answer to loose animal calls. A very physical job at times. A 160 lb man vs a 2 ton ticked off Bull. Not my kind of Gravy.

I got to sit aside one of the traffic units fatal crashes a couple of weeks ago. The amount of paperwork and math and being correct on it is a large amount of work. If you think THI is easy, go work with them on the calls. Again, not my kind of gravy.

No, I'm not Echo, Cops, BSI, or BCI, Traffic, Ag, or GCU. I'm patrol and I'm very happy to do patrol. I do my 14 days on, 14 days off, 12 hour days. I do the initial report and I'm done with it.

I have sat here for quite some time and read a majority of these articles. Yes Officer Safety is a concern for EVERYONE that understands the job.

My personal opinion, so if you care to read, fine, your choice to gripe or agree. I dont care.

To the Upper staff, conduct another survey, See where the morale is. Dont ask for names, people will lie to save grace. Conduct it without names and youll get the real morale and concerns of this agency. Civilians and patrol and detention have many great ideas, just sometimes they are not in the position that they can relay those great ideas. Sometimes they may help the agency more then you think. Education does not mean Common Sense.. and that is EXACTLY what you need in this field of work. Education just means more money from the gov't and more grants for having so many people in school or completed school and obtaining degrees.

I would respond with some more screens built by the complaint desk that would blow your mind however I cant bring myself to write like im illiterate. lets just say if you put sentences like this together you would not pass 6th grade.

How these people get hired is beyond me. Im not talking about spelling. Im talking to BASIC english grammar. Lets bare in mind these screens are public record and WOW the public would laugh their #@@$s off.

I do know how things go in comm ctr and yes with low priority calls, there is plenty of time to type correctly. Its just that they do not KNOW how to form sentences or spell, etc.

Then these disasterous forms of the english language get to the dispatchers who cannot decipher them either.

It is not only the comm ctr that has bad English grammer/spelling, I've seen alot of deputies reports that could use some help also. You guys even have spell check on your laptops :lol: Everyone has faults, no one is perfect! I also wander how some of these people get hired!! I know the SO is short handed, but dang where is all that "schooling" that we are suppose have?

I have to agree... there are several deputies that need serious help with their grammar and spelling.. and to me seems like the HIGHER the member number of the person creating the screen in comm ctr, the more illiterate it sounds... Im sorry everything at this agency is public record. How do screens like the original message writer quoted make this place look, like we hire people who cant even obtain a GED.

It is very embarassing. I have had to sit back several times while reading a screen and either go HUH ????????????? or just laugh because it is just ridiculous how five years olds can write and spell better then people working for a governmental agency!!!

[guestt]

haha you guys are so right..there have been times when im looking up something and im trying to read the CAD screen and im like "what the f---? am i supposed to know what that means?" im all for using shorthand and 10 codes but come on....when shorthand turns into giberish it just isnt worth it anymore...i would hate to be someone in the public who requests some of those screens and take one look at them and think i was looking at a foreign language or something a kindergartener brought home from school....come on guys lets TRY and disprove those stories of the illiterate dumb folk of polk county....

heres one for ya..... THIS IS AN ACTUAL screen yes that the public can get ahold of...


His ex live-in girl want left him get his thing.

uhhhhh whaaaaaat?????????


and some more ive heard and/or seen thru deputies...
"she got beat up by her FINANCE" (hate it when that happens my finances beat me up all the time....)

"her heard five gun shoots" --------- classic

"she said there was someone in her ATTACK"

"the doctor removed a shoot from his chest" ----------- hmm bamboo maybe ???


Ok im sorry as a civilian I cannot believe these are works of government employees...

I understand spelling in a hurry isnt anyone's forte. HOWEVER!!!! priority three calls should be written correctly.

I understand there are poor spellers out there.. but basic words like THE and REPORTEE and PAST and OCCURRED, arent in the National Spelling Bee as hard words.

Sometimes I dont know whats funnier, the person calling in the call or the spelling that the complaint taker uses to explain the person calling it in.

And burnedout.. theres a low 2400 number that cant spell. AND im only meaning LOW priority calls. I probably couldnt spell some words right on 9-1-1s when people are yelling and screaming.. totally understandable...

As for deputies who cant spell... sometimes writing a 4,5,6,7 page report at 3,4,5,6 in the morning or even 9 in the morning after pulling a 12 hr plus job is tough on ANYONE. Words bleed together. If you are a poor speller, dictionaries are tax write offs.. they are being used for your job. Buy a GOOD ONE. I'm in a situation where I read not only complaint taker calls but deputies reports.

I think the school system needs to stop pushing the FCAT so hard and push for better math and better spelling.


Anything we do is public record, which means it is a reflection of yourself and the agency.

I work as a dispatcher (at another agency) and I have to admit that I'm appalled sometimes at the mangled, illiterate CAD comments the call taking dispatchers send to me. I sometimes have to ask them what the hell it even says before I can dispatch it. We have one girl who is so bad I thought she wouldn't make it through training because her reading skills and spelling are so bad. She was constantly asking, "What's this say? What's this word? How do you say this?" And, I sh!t you not, she actually sent out a BOLO one time that was SUPPOSED to say something like "WF with double weaves in hair LSW red sweater" but it actually said, "WF with dubble weeves in hair LSW red swetter." She puts 'nurce' for 'nurse,' 'handycap' for 'handicap,' 'moter' for 'motor....I could go on. She also constantly puts 'there' for 'their.' Irks the hell out of me. We just hired another one who is just as bad, and claims to be dyslexic as her excuse. How they ever graduated is beyond me, and I get so tired of correcting their (or should I say 'there') mistakes out of embarrassment!

So how in the heck do these people pass the "tabe" test or Civil Service test???? There is a grammer/spelling section on those test???? Are we just "letting them through" because everyone is so short handed???

oh yes THERE is another BIGGER reason that they are getting hired.... and a majority of you know what im talking about

oh yes THERE is another BIGGER reason that they are getting hired.... and a majority of you know what im talking about



you're an idiot!!! sounds like a little undertone racism to me... i swear thats what you folks are good for.

The two at my agency are Caucasian, with English as their first and only language, so there's no quota or affirmative action behind it. They're also both very young, around 20 or so, so maybe the schools around here have slacked off in recent years....

As a dispatcher I do agree with what alot of you have said. I am constantly correcting misspelled words or sentences that make no sense. It's embarassing to me when I see these calls and see how poorly the screens are done. Not only can deputies and brass read the screen but if the call isn't fixed, then once it becomes public record, anyone can see it and it looks bad on the agency. I always fix the screens, including misspelled addresses.

Our complaint desk is under constant pressure from above to have screens built in a certain (very short) time period. Now, they can go back and fix a screen after it has been sent to dispatch but they don't always have the time. There are times when a complaint taker will send a call and then have to answer the phone immediately afterwards just to have to build another screen one after another. I can understand typos because your trying to type so fast to get the screens out but you can tell if it's misspelled or the letters are transposed.

Now I'm not saying I could win a spelling B (and I'm probably not smarter than a 5th grader) but I can definitely spell common words. We have many resources to look up words (or ask someone else) so there's really no excuse.

We have several younger complaint takers that type up screens as if they're on instant messenger. They'll abbreviate a word using one or two letters or use some sort of abbreviation that is not common or approved to use. I don't know how many times I have had to ask these people to translate the screen so I can understand what I'm evening telling the deputy. Some of them just look at you like. DUH! I can't believe you didn't know that.

I think one of the most common errors I've seen is not dropping the "E" when you add ING.

This job in here is stressful and not as easy as some think. There's plenty of times where things are so crazy and fast paced that you barely get a chance to breathe (or go to the bathroom). But, there are little mistakes that are commonly made in here that shouldn't keep happening daily by the same people.

I agree that there are spelling and grammar errors that call takers make that should not be made. But in their defense, they are constantly told that they have under 1 minute to get calls out from the time they start typing a complaint screen and priority 1, 2 and 3 calls not just priority one calls . That is also considering that in that 1 minute we have to calm a caller down and get all of the pertinent information from the caller to get a call sent to dispatch in that 1 minute. Call takers and dispatchers do not have spell check on our current CAD as those that write reports do to help correct their errors before they are seen by others. I have seen some reports that were written by deputies that apparently don't know they have spell check.

And, just to make things clear, we have had light duty deputies working in communications that also send calls to dispatch. Their spelling is not always up to par either. Call takers and dispatchers are under constant stress, not only from incoming calls, but from constant scrutiny from higher ups to get calls out in less and less time.

Let's also not forget that radio transmissions are taped and are also public record. That being said, maybe some members of the agency that transmit across the radio should use more professional terms and speak the english language they way it should be. Dispatchers sometimes sit back and say "what did he/she just say"? and they ask the unit to 1009 and it is said in a completely different way and still makes absolutely no sense. Then when the dispatcher has to 1009 a second or third time, the unit gets aggaravated and wants to make the dispatcher feel stupid by slinging attitude. Little does he/she know how ignorant he/she sounds to the dispatcher, Sgt, Lt, Staff member, media and public when that tape is reproduced.

I am not trying to bash anyone, we are all under a tremendous amount of stress due to the nature of the business we are in. We are all working undertaffed and at most times overworked by the sheer volume of incoming calls to communications and patrol, so we need to work together and try to help each other instead of finding faults. We should all work at being more professional both in our written and verbal communications. and v

You guys in the Comm Center do a GREAT JOB!!! Thank you for all that you do!!!

I have Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus saved to my favorites right on my computer. Comes in real handy sometimes.

There's one 10-37 down there from New York I think that mumbles so bad and has such an accent I cannot hardly understand her! And another from Minnesota that drives me nuts! Road is not pronounced "roood". Come on guys, have pitty on us poor southerners!

But I agree, most of you do a great job and I appreciate you all!

i agree please take just alittle extra time to get the right cross street and sector how much time is lost with "no thats sector 31 or 22 or whatever 10-4 i'll tot to them then it comes back and the spelling and phrases i'm not a english major "but damn" it would really help and i know what the comm center gang puts up with and they do a great job

I appreciate most patrol deputies also. But if we're going to complain about 1 or 2 dispatchers, one from New York and the other from Minnesota can we make a list of mumbling deputies on the radio. Or the echo units that whisper into their shoulder mike and expect the dispatcher to hear them or the ones who speak broken english or the ones who speak in ebonics or the ones who have such a thick southern accent you can't understand them or the ones who give you a bedtime story everytime the key up on the radio, or, or, or...

Most of you do a great job though.

Hoked un foniks werekd fur mi