Freaky Friday!
Well, here I am, first nightshift back, tonight I was in the snake pit (call handling), there were 6 of us on at first, 2 of which only work day shifts, and finished at midnight, so after that we were left with 4, which for a Friday nightshift is a bit short and we felt it... oh, but I forgot to mention, one of course went sick not long into the shift... leaving 3 of us! It wasn't too bad at first we were keeping on top of it, but then came kicking out time! 0130hrs-0230hrs, it went silly! 999 calls were ringing left right and center, most of them usual tripe.
"I hear my son has been locked up, and i'm worried about him" My standard reply, "You have rang 999, which is for life or death to see if your son is in custody, i can assure you the officers will treat him very well! In addition do not use 999 for enquiries, if you want to speak to custody you will have to ring on the non emergency number! Thanks for your call!"
What possess people to ring 999 for trivial matters like making enquiries? Another excuse is they don't have cridit on their phone! Well thats not my problem!
Getting back to last night, this is just another kick in the bollocks. There are certain people who work hard, certain people who make an effort, and there are certain people who take the piss, sit and chat to others when the phone is ringing, get up and leave to go and have a private chat leaving only a 2 call handlers, yet these piss takers, do they ever get bollocked? do they ever get told to get their finger out? WHO ARE THE MUGS HERE?! I can guarentee that if i was to piss ball around I would be the first one to be humiliated in front of everyone! Like I said, who are the mugs?!
"I hear my son has been locked up, and i'm worried about him" My standard reply, "You have rang 999, which is for life or death to see if your son is in custody, i can assure you the officers will treat him very well! In addition do not use 999 for enquiries, if you want to speak to custody you will have to ring on the non emergency number! Thanks for your call!"
What possess people to ring 999 for trivial matters like making enquiries? Another excuse is they don't have cridit on their phone! Well thats not my problem!
Getting back to last night, this is just another kick in the bollocks. There are certain people who work hard, certain people who make an effort, and there are certain people who take the piss, sit and chat to others when the phone is ringing, get up and leave to go and have a private chat leaving only a 2 call handlers, yet these piss takers, do they ever get bollocked? do they ever get told to get their finger out? WHO ARE THE MUGS HERE?! I can guarentee that if i was to piss ball around I would be the first one to be humiliated in front of everyone! Like I said, who are the mugs?!
posted by CommsOperator at Saturday, May 13, 2006
3 Comments:
Hi,
Have come across your blog today!
Added to my blogroll - it's always interesting to read about life from the other end of the radio! Hehehe!
Its always good to see how the people "behind the scenes" feel about matters! Keep up the good blog!
Welcome to the world of police blogs!
I'll stick your blog on my sidebar to increase your exposure.
I sometimes wonder how the job gets done when the Home Office set targets for different areas of work that completely conflict with each other. For example, you will have a target to answer 99.9% of calls within 2 nanoseconds or something ridiculous, while we have a target to attend jobs within a certain time limit. (About five minutes before they've happened would be the ultimate challenge!)
This sounds fine, but it puts pressure on call takers to get the caller off the line as soon as possible to get the next call answered. This means (and it isn't a criticism) that sometimes, insufficient questions are asked and a resource is sent to a job that could have been resolved on the phone.
The more resources are sent to jobs that they don't need to go to means less resources for all the other jobs. The law of supply and demand applies and there isn't a box of spare bobbies any more.
While I appreciate the thought behind getting calls answered quickly, I believe that quality should always take priority over quantity. It would help both sides if the call answering target was kicked into touch.
I do have an issue with some controllers who seem to think that the screen in front of them should have no incidents on it. The queuing facility is there for a reason. Instead of getting five cars to deal with five jobs in the same area to clear the screen, why don't some of them just queue them up for one car, leaving the other four free for immediate jobs?
Look forward to some interesting debates!
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