Night of a Call Handler!
Can I ask a simple question?
Why is it that people seem to think the police have the ability to stop dogs fighting in the street when their owners dont seem to be able to? Dogs can't be arrested.
Or what about a blue light taxi service? A boy had rang his foster carer to say he wasnt coming home so she would ring the police and waste everybody's time in giving all the details for a missing person report only to have the boy call on 999 to tell us where he is so the police will take him the 6 miles home from his friends house so he didnt have to pay for a taxi!
Missing Persons - "I want to report our Amy missing", "How old is she?", "18", "When did you last see her?", "Dunno, er she went out about 10 minutes ago" - suitable advice given!!
"I want to report John missing, but I think I know where he might be" ????
One gentleman called me and became, lets say, "F**king Horrible" when I could not immediatley find a telephone number for a person in Cambodia that had sent him an email asking him for charity as their whole family had been kidnapped - you know the ones - anyway, he wanted me to call the sender and tell them to stop sending emails!! Why would they listen to me? How could I stop them? At the very least I cant speak the language...
"Can I report my wallet being stolen?", "Yes Sir, certainly, where has it been stolen from?", "Im not telling you because then you will know who has done it"- Give me strength!!
There are funny ones like a man who had been the victim of a crime in which he was slowly walking home with a broken leg when he had ONE of his crutches stolen - officers were going round in circles trying to catch that offender.
Or how about the 999 call because someone had found a hair in their takeaway curry!!!
May I refer to my good friend, Commsoperator's remark about ringing the police for a fire... I, myself, have also taken a similar call in which I asked "have you informed the Fire Brigade?" to which the caller replied "No I didn't want to bother them". OK then... Thanks!
I promise you all of the above have been actual conversations I have had with the public as a Police Call Handler... ill keep you updated on the next Fruit Loops that I have to answer the phone to.
Why is it that people seem to think the police have the ability to stop dogs fighting in the street when their owners dont seem to be able to? Dogs can't be arrested.
Or what about a blue light taxi service? A boy had rang his foster carer to say he wasnt coming home so she would ring the police and waste everybody's time in giving all the details for a missing person report only to have the boy call on 999 to tell us where he is so the police will take him the 6 miles home from his friends house so he didnt have to pay for a taxi!
Missing Persons - "I want to report our Amy missing", "How old is she?", "18", "When did you last see her?", "Dunno, er she went out about 10 minutes ago" - suitable advice given!!
"I want to report John missing, but I think I know where he might be" ????
One gentleman called me and became, lets say, "F**king Horrible" when I could not immediatley find a telephone number for a person in Cambodia that had sent him an email asking him for charity as their whole family had been kidnapped - you know the ones - anyway, he wanted me to call the sender and tell them to stop sending emails!! Why would they listen to me? How could I stop them? At the very least I cant speak the language...
"Can I report my wallet being stolen?", "Yes Sir, certainly, where has it been stolen from?", "Im not telling you because then you will know who has done it"- Give me strength!!
There are funny ones like a man who had been the victim of a crime in which he was slowly walking home with a broken leg when he had ONE of his crutches stolen - officers were going round in circles trying to catch that offender.
Or how about the 999 call because someone had found a hair in their takeaway curry!!!
May I refer to my good friend, Commsoperator's remark about ringing the police for a fire... I, myself, have also taken a similar call in which I asked "have you informed the Fire Brigade?" to which the caller replied "No I didn't want to bother them". OK then... Thanks!
I promise you all of the above have been actual conversations I have had with the public as a Police Call Handler... ill keep you updated on the next Fruit Loops that I have to answer the phone to.
posted by PitSnake at Wednesday, February 14, 2007
1 Comments:
As a comms operator also, I deal with many maddening calls. Wanted to tell you of one that I received the other night and this is truly genuine!!
I took a 999 call from a female who was reporting her 15 year old son missing again. He regularly went missing every night and had only been gone for 15 minutes so I advised her to ring back on the non-emergency number and I would take the details.
She advised me that she had no credit on her phone. I stated that was no reason to use the 999 system and to ring the non-emergency number. She then stated that she did not have a pen and paper to hand and could I hang on a sec whilst she finished what she was doing on the toilet and she would go and get one. After a few seconds of her grunting and obviously attempting to finish her "dump" I had to hang up on her before I said something I might regret!!!!!
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