The "I couldn't do your job" comment

I get this a lot when I tell people I am a 911 dispatcher. The instant interest and the comment "I couldn't do your job". In a lot of cases, that's probably true. Not everyone can do the job that myself and my fellow dispatchers do. It's not easy. I tell people it is the best, worst, most rewarding, hardest, most stressful, amazing job ever. The first and easiest thing you have to do is be able to multi-task. You must be able to simultaneously listen to a phone call, radio traffic, and your fellow dispatchers all at the same time. It's a lot to keep up with, and yes, I did say that was the easiest part of my job. On top of keeping up with all of that, you need to also be able to remember where every officer said they were and keep it logged in the computer. If you do not keep up with where your units are, whether they are police, ems, or firefighters. If you do not know where they are then you can not send help when they yell for help. The tiniest piece of info can be vital. An officer may tell you that he has stopped at a particular gas station. It doesn't sound like a vital piece of information at first. But what if he walks into a robbery in progress? What if he walks in and gets shot and only has time to yell for help? What do you do if you can't remember where he said he was stopping to get a soda? The one piece of information that slips through the cracks can be the piece that keeps someone safe and gets them home to their families at the end of the night.

Next is the level of busy. People call 911 constantly. It is rare, even in my smallish town, that an hour passes without at least one call. On a busy day, where there is a storm or a big event, I may take upwards of 300 calls in an 8 hour shift. I looked one time at the end of a huge storm and saw I had taken about 312 calls. Some of the people who have been there longer than I have have seen even more than that. There are times when it is all you can do to keep up. You may be hungry, but you have no time to eat. You may need to go to the restroom and have no time to go. Your needs and bodily functions wait if need be. It is not a desk job where you can walk away and your paperwork will still be there when you get back. If you leave, and there aren't enough people to answer the phones, a missed call can be someones life ending. Is every day that busy? No. Can you predict when it will be like that? Again no. You never know what you are walking into in my job. You never know when it will go from being quiet, where you are settled back reading, to chaos in a second. You will never know if the call coming in is something basic or a disaster. The stress level fluctuates and it can go through the roof in an instant.

Now, to the most complex part of my job. The callers. People call 911 at some of the worst moments in their lives. You have to ask them to try to calm down and answer questions while their lives are falling apart. My number one least favorite part of a call is when I ask "Where are you?" and get "I don't know" in return. The first and top piece of information I need is where you are. I can work through everything else to get you help if I know where to send it. Keep aware of where you are. If you need help, you want them to be able to find you. As an emergency call taker, we have certain information we need to get from our callers. Our responding units need to know what they are dealing with when they get there. People get angry at us for asking questions because they are panicking. They don't know how to calm down and answer. I've had people cuss me and scream "Just send them just send them just send them". I don't get to give up and hang up or throw in the towel. I have to fight through their panic with them and get the information we need. We need to know if there is danger for the responders and we need to prepare them. We have to find out what the situation is, because in certain situations we can help. If someone is not breathing, we can help the caller by giving CPR instructions. If someone is bleeding we can help with instructions on how to apply and maintain pressure. We need information so that we can provide information. We need information so we can make sure that help gets there quickly, safely, and with the right equipment.

So could you do my job? Maybe, maybe not. It's not an easy job. I've cried with callers and felt my heart break for them. I've been screamed at and wished I could yell back. I've heard some of the most pointless things and wanted to be a smart aleck. I've rolled my eyes, I've sighed, I've been rendered speechless. I've cried, I've hurt, I've gone home to stand and look at my family and reassure myself they are safe after some of the stuff I've heard. I've left my home in the middle of a storm where I worried for my family and gone to work to help keep other people's families safe. I've gone to work, sick, injured, exhausted. So have the other amazing people I work with. We endure because we are needed. And we will keep doing it for as long as we are needed. It's an amazing job, it's never the same two days in a row, and it's never easy. But we will be there when you need us, a calm voice on the other end of the line, ready to send the help you need.