SPEAKING OF TRAINING

We have SOP's. I beleive most city government agencys do. And we have quality assurance. The shift supervisor must do 3 QA's on each employee per month. Our phone calls are monitored then critiqued. Whether good or bad it goes in what is called our pending file. Its a jacket that we keep all sorts of paperwork in for that evaluation year.

You want a good laugh? Talk about background checks, we had an applicant a while ago get arrested at the interview. She had a warrant for obtaining property with worthless checks. Some people have no clue...and they want to work in dispatch. LOL.

thanks for the info. our 2 head honchoes dont help man the center at all.
(i can assure u they cant even work the radio)
they will be quik 2 change how we do things, but aren't the ones working the center to know how things r. (lets make it more difficult for them because thats what we want.) maybe if they'd sit out there every once in a while they would see y we all get so frustrated. its easy to say lets change this when u arent the ones dealing with the stuff everyday. do ur higher ups ever ask the dispatchers for opinions on anything b4 up and changing stuff?

Procedures are occasionally changed without floor opinion, if it is a change that is requested by one of the agencies we serve...(We're technically under SSO management, but we serve the city police, Venice Fire, Nokomis Fire, Northport fire, etc)...So if any of those agencies request a change in how they get dispatched or what they get dispatched to, we normally do not have a say in that.

On the flipside...it's survey central on what chair you like best! :lol:

Top Comm (Admin) Motto...You will NEVER make everyone happy!
Top Comm (Floor) Motto.....CYA

I dropped out of the dispatcher training for Manatee. I can't speak for the radio training, but I can for the call taker stuff. The biggest problem that I saw is tons of book work for things that you don't really need to know at first. I can't belive I had to check off the fact that I know how to use a stapler or load paper in a copier.

A lot of the problem comes from the attitudes of the trainers. Some try really hard but simply should not be teaching. Making someone read the same GO a million times does not mean they can do something. Getting upset when someone misses something small is uncalled for.

When it comes to actually doing 99% of the job (taking calls), there is very little practice other then listening and watching others. I grew up watching sports games on TV, but I wouldn't expect to hit a baseball if I hadn't swung the bat a little first in practice. Yeah, I'd have the general idea, but when someone threw a curveball, it'd always be a swing and a miss. On top of that, there is an impatient "you are inferior" vibe coming from a lot of the dispatchers which doesn't help morale and a lot of confusions about how to do certian procedures which confuses trainees even more.

I enjoied my few months at MSO, but in the end, there are tons of better jobs out there.

Oh ye of little faith. You have no problems till you work in my center. The last in the county to get a CAD system. We have had it for just under a year, and we still do not have an updated SOP's for either Road Patrol or Communications. We are so under staffed that we are forced to take mandatory on-calls on Fri/Sat/Sun - the average is 6 4 hour blocks that the dispatchers have to take each month. We are not compensated for that time, and if we are called in we do not receive call out pay that every other unit get's when the get called out from home. Our center is staffed with all new personal that are being rushed through training just to get them out of the way. There is a major gap in the expierence level in the center, I am the senior person on Charlie Shift with just under 5 years on the job. My other dispatchers (when they are there and not banging out sick) have less then 5 years on the job put together. I don't even want to mention Alpha's gap. Let's see 28 years of expierence, the next person has a little over a year on the job. We have a Manager that can not preform the basics that a call taker could do on day one. She can't work the phones, the radio, or the CAD - Side note on the CAD she was in every meeting step by step of CAD from birth to going live. Can she work it no, can she work a channel for 2 minutes, no. We have been dealt a bum deck, and I have to work with it. What's the worst they can do, put me on midnights with Tue/Wed off ?

Oh ye of little faith. You have no problems till you work in my center. The last in the county to get a CAD system. We have had it for just under a year, and we still do not have an updated SOP's for either Road Patrol or Communications. We are so under staffed that we are forced to take mandatory on-calls on Fri/Sat/Sun - the average is 6 4 hour blocks that the dispatchers have to take each month. We are not compensated for that time, and if we are called in we do not receive call out pay that every other unit get's when the get called out from home. Our center is staffed with all new personal that are being rushed through training just to get them out of the way. There is a major gap in the expierence level in the center, I am the senior person on Charlie Shift with just under 5 years on the job. My other dispatchers (when they are there and not banging out sick) have less then 5 years on the job put together. I don't even want to mention Alpha's gap. Let's see 28 years of expierence, the next person has a little over a year on the job. We have a Manager that can not preform the basics that a call taker could do on day one. She can't work the phones, the radio, or the CAD - Side note on the CAD she was in every meeting step by step of CAD from birth to going live. Can she work it no, can she work a channel for 2 minutes, no. We have been dealt a bum deck, and I have to work with it. What's the worst they can do, put me on midnights with Tue/Wed off ?

MOTHER OF GOD!!! I get left out again? I know who you are and you know who I am. I've got just over 3 years of experience and am on midnight/afternoon(whichever they decide to put me on this week) just because I'm leaving soon doesn't mean that I'm gone. BTW you forgot to mention that we have 3 lead dispatchers and that we're understaffed by atleast 10. We have a relatively small center where days get approx 14 ppl, afternoons gets 7 or 8 and alpha is lucky to get 5 lol. But that goes back to our glorious leader. We also just got a Lt. stationed in dispatch who hopefully will start to correct the many probelms that we have.

Hey iTo, dont you guys have a union???????? How about checking into labor laws? That CAN NOT possibly be legal!!! They can not require you to be in an on call status and not pay you for it, how can they justify paying every OTHER DIVISION in your agency for their on call time except for Communications?? Its called time to check into Federal and State labor laws and get cracking. Geesh and we thought BSO had it bad. All I can say is "WOW".

MOTHER OF GOD!!! I get left out again? I know who you are and you know who I am. I've got just over 3 years of experience and am on midnight/afternoon(whichever they decide to put me on this week) just because I'm leaving soon doesn't mean that I'm gone. BTW you forgot to mention that we have 3 lead dispatchers and that we're understaffed by at least 10. We have a relatively small center where days get approx 14 ppl, afternoons gets 7 or 8 and alpha is lucky to get 5 lol. But that goes back to our glorious leader. We also just got a Lt. stationed in dispatch who hopefully will start to correct the many problems that we have.

Hey iTo, don't you guys have a union???????? How about checking into labor laws? That CAN NOT possibly be legal!!! They can not require you to be in an on call status and not pay you for it, how can they justify paying every OTHER DIVISION in your agency for their on call time except for Communications?? Its called time to check into Federal and State labor laws and get cracking. Geesh and we thought BSO had it bad. All I can say is "WOW".

Alright this is going to be a two for one deal. I will respond to the last two posts in one.

Sorry, but what can I say out of site out of mind, I know you “were there” however you were on leave. Yours being justified not because you went out drinking all night and you think that people are talking behind your back. Oh my god I called out sick yet again, do the people that got mandated for my sick time again hate me ? What do you think boyo ? I got nothing but love for you and you really did get the short end of the stick on that there deal.

As far as a union goes, no. You know how it is, what's the point joining a union. I was a member of the union in my last city but it was a general employees union. So we have all of public works and utilities and every other person in the city all lumped into one. Do you really think that they are going to care about our issues. Do they work 24/7 ? NO ! Are they on-call ? Well maybe a select few are, but they are compensated for their time. As far as being on-call and not compensated for it, well I don't think the city even knows about it. Everybody is very strong in their convictions until it comes time to put there name down on paper and stand up for what they believe. In the past any time somebody has done it they are met with nothing but the cold shoulder and suffer the consequences of the higher ups who brought forth this policy. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place with only a slight glimmer of hope.

Ok but does that violate any labor laws, if so, wouldnt the Whistleblower law apply to you? Now I dont really know the specifics, so I am only asking.