6 Things 911 Dispatchers Wish People Understood

Even though there seems to be more news coverage about 911 Dispatchers, the job we do and the stresses we face, we are still woefully misunderstood. Citizens and even our fellow first responders have limited insight into our world. We are left out of first responder “Thank You” events and often out of debriefings even when we are at heart of a traumatic incident. Mostly forgotten, we work tirelessly handling emergency calls and radio traffic. I recently asked a large group of 911 Dispatchers from around the country what they wished people knew about their work. Their responses were strikingly similar. Here are six of the top answers:

6. We work in an unnatural environment - Although thankfully some things are changing, many emergency communications centers exist in dark, dingy dungeons. Many in the basement of police headquarters or the jail with few, if any, windows letting in natural light, 911 Dispatchers work in stuffy confines, crammed together typing to the glow of half a dozen computer monitors in rhythm with the buzzing of fluorescent lights that never turn off. You never know if it’s night or day until you walk out of the steel reinforced door stepping back into the real world shocked back into reality.

5. We are not JUST on the phone - Have you ever listened to a mother wailing as their child takes their last breath crushed under the family car? What about had a conversation with a desperate veteran suffering from PTSD which ends in his apology, a gunshot, then silence? How about call after call where you are degraded, insulted and cursed at? If you haven’t, then you have no idea. If you have, then you know we are not just telephone operators working a switch board. We are first responders handling emergencies with just our voices. Due to this, we experience the same cumulative and acute stress affecting other first responders, yet we continue to be forgotten and suffer in silence.

4. Our aloofness serves a purpose - Most of the time, when I hear a snippet of a 911 call played on the media, I cringe. The 911 Dispatcher sounds cold, unconcerned and detached. The aloofness is made even starker because it is countered by an angry, terrified or otherwise despondent caller. Night and day. The tone seems out of place, but it is the reason the emergency can be handled in the first place. We may not sound like it, but we do care. In fact, it is because we care that we sound like we don’t. Someone has to control the situation. We care enough to know that if we get caught up in the chaos or the pain, we cannot do our job effectively. Would you like the 911 Dispatcher to get amped up and scream along with you? I thought not.

3. We are not driving over there - If I had a dime for every time a caller said to me, “Please can you just get here? Can I just hang up and you get here?” or something similar, I could outfit every communications center in the country with new sit/stand chairs. I think people deep down understand that we are on the phone sending their information via computer and radio to field personnel who are actually driving their emergency vehicle over to the emergency, but during the situation the caller seems to lose sight of that begging for us to stop talking and just come. Give me another dime for every time I said, “I’ve already started them. They are on their way right now,” and our centers could have new work-out rooms as well. We, meaning my fellow first responders, are on the way.

2. There is a reason behind all the questions - 911 Dispatchers don’t ask dozens of questions because they are bored and just nosey. (On a side note, yes most of us are incredibly curious people but we stopped wondering about the exact situation creating a caller’s particular dispute long ago.) Each one of the questions we ask has a purpose. From the very first, “Where is your emergency” (which changed from “What is your emergency” years ago because we realized where is actually the most important thing for us to know right away) to descriptions of the caller’s clothes, we have a reason. Understanding the exact nature of the situation improves officer safety and knowing what the suspect looks like before getting the description from the caller face-to-face prevents an officer from driving right by the person while en-route. Our questions improve safety, efficiency and successful outcome. Believe me, there were many times that I wish I could stop talking to someone and just hang up, but we have a job to do so we do it.

1. We are human - The number one thing 911 Dispatchers wish people, both externally and internally understood about us and our work is that we bleed too. We are not just heartless, vampire robots moving through our day typing 90 words a minute and saying the same thing over and over again. We have emotions just like everyone else. We are all individual people with unique experiences and varying backgrounds, education, hobbies, homes and families. We’re cranky sometimes and sometimes we’re so happy we sing. We cry, we love and we laugh. Things make us angry and we get tired, not just body and brain tired from long hours, mandatory overtime and shift work, but heart tired from all the hatred and pain that we deal with on a minute by minute basis year after year. Many 911 Dispatchers are exhausted and it’s easy to get hopeless when it seems like the world is full of ugliness all the time. We create a hard, exterior shell of sarcasm and callousness which adds to the aura of our inhumanness. Inside that crusty shield is someone who cares very much. Someone who dedicated his or her life to helping others. Someone who gives up home and health to do an essential, but unheralded job with ungrateful, dismissive people in an ugly environment. A real person. Someone just like their brother and sister first responders.