911 dispatchers sleeping on the job.

[Archae]

Really inspires confidence in the system, wouldn't you say? :sarcasm:

12 News Discovers 911 Dispatcher Sleeping On Job

Former Co-Worker Blows Whistle

Colleen Henry, WISN 12 News Reporter

MILWAUKEE -- Dispatchers are the front line in an emergency, but 12 News uncovered troubling and potentially dangerous details from North Shore Public Safety Dispatch

Debbie Baumberger says she quit her job as a North Shore dispatcher, and she's not going quietly.

"Will they say you were a disgruntled employee?" 12 News reporter Colleen Henry asked.

"I was disgruntled when I worked there," Baumberger said.

North Shore dispatch is the emergency brain center for seven communities and 65,000 residents of Milwaukee's north shore. Baumberger said safety concerns brought her to 12 News with tales of unanswered calls at North Shore dispatch -- unanswered, she said, because third-shift dispatchers were sound asleep.

Read more: http://www.wisn.com/news/29643910/detail.html#ixzz1cTmqT1hc

[hunter]

1. Hey, it's always daytime somewhere in the world...

Time to contract this 911 service out to India, perhaps?

:sarcasm:

I've worked graveyard shift answering urgent phone calls. There were many dead calm nights with one or two mundane calls, and too many nights with numerous and infuriatingly pointless or absurd inquiries, and the much rarer panic-button life-or-death organ transplant situations that justified the job.

But most nights were dull.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) the phone ringers in the place I worked were loud enough to wake the dead. But it was always a big waste of adrenaline when we got calls that could easily have waited until morning. For some people every damned thing is a crisis.

[lib2DaBone]

2. You've summed it up nicely... I have spent many long nights in dispatch..

Hours of boredom interrupted by a few seconds of chaos.

It is a thankless job for those that sit up all night manning the dispatch centers... they don't get paid nealy enough...