Internal Politics

[sgt. w-2]

How bad are the politics in your agency. The agency I work in has got to be at the top of the list, but I wanted to hear some other horror stories.

It could be the size of the department, we have 11 full time dispatchers. Everyone is always squabbling with each other like a bunch of first graders. Nobody has anything good to say about another dispatcher and everyone is out to cut each others throats.

It starts from the top on down. I'm interested in hearing from departments with five or six dispatchers on per shift. How bad is it in your agency?

I like the public safety dispatching work but I don't like the political games and squabbling. Is every agency like this or are there better depts out there?

[MrJim911]

Well we only have 3-4 on per shift but compared to what you said we are better at interpersonal relationships. We go out with each other often on weekends or other days off. Friendships are a plenty with each other and our officers/firefighters. We realize that it's easier to sit in here for 8 hours a day if we all get a long. Does that mean that's the way it is all the time? HA! No. There has been arguments and such but that's to be expected when people sit with each other everyday. But it's not like what you described. No one cuts throats or bickers constantly. Sometimes you realize that someone else is giving another person the silent treatment but their talking the next day. No grudges exist at my agency either. I consider myself very lucky to work with the people that I do. :)

As you would guess we have more issues with our admin staff then we do with each other.

[Noodle]

We only have 8 dispatchers with one to two on everyshift. For the most part we get along great, but we do have one bad apple, and then the rest do have bad days. When I first started I did see a lot of arguing and unhappy employees. But the person who is causing most of the problems slipped up, and everyone realised that most of the bad carma was coming from that direction. After that people started holding their tongues more (which really helped), and let her dig herself in deeper. Now most of us are pretty happy with the one major exception and everyone knows how to handle those bumps now. We get enough stress from the public and with emergancies and do not need it from each other. I guess my team just figured it did not want anymore drama and grew up. Trust me it needed to. Now don't get me wrong, it was not an easy thing to do, and it took a little more than a year to square away. But it is much nicer to work here, we are supportive of each other, and I feel that I am a much better dispatcher now than before. Good Luck.

[DispNowCopL8r]

Ok we have about 6 dispatchers per shift(plus about 10 call receviers) like you asked, and we have our squabbles and dislikes of other people in here, but I don't think we'd get any award. Actually we get along pretty well, especially in our work conditions. That's probably why though, our command staff and others in our department have decided, for whatever reason, that we are at the bottom of the hill (and they let it all roll down, if you know what I mean). We have had many problems with our union and command staff these last couple of years, and our comm center has kinda come together and teamed up against the monster!

I wanna be a cop someday, and even thought I don't really look foward to going to work each and everyday (like I hope I will when I'm a cop) the biggest part of this job I'm gonna miss is the people I work with, we got a great group of people! Now if only the big boys could be nicer this would be the best place to work!

[KYEMT325]

I've worked with or been in several law enforcement, fire and EMS agencies in the past 10 years in this business, and they're all the same way. I think the majority of the problem has to do with the fact that people in these professions risk their lives to do a job and protect people, and get paid peanuts for it.

And DispNowCopL8r, did you say UNION???? That would be a great thing to have here, but I was told once that if you even uttered the word union that you could be fired for it. Plus, unions for police and fire agencies that have them around here don't have a good track record...it costs you money, and they never accomplish anything that they're supposed to.

Not to say that I don't support unions, because if not for unions in this country, we would be making 3.00/hr to do what we do and the work would also be backbreaking, but in the police and fire professions, you're talking about government agencies, and I don't see how unions make much headway with agencies that have sovereign immunity and are public agencies.

[ladymoonlite]

I agree - there's only so much a union can do for a public safety employee. I'm management, so it's not applicable to me, but what good is a union if you have no mechanism to stop labor? The strike is the classic negotiating tool, and you, the dispatcher, can't use it. The Air Traffic Controllers (including my own father) in the 80s lost their jobs for striking and jeopardizing public welfare.

Union employees at my agency actually have, in my opinion, fewer benefits than employees who are non-union and fall under the city employee handbook. The unions here have actually kept employees from benefitting from employee incentive programs because it wasn't in the contract that was negotiated several years ago. Frankly, federal laws cover employees so well that I think most unions have outlived their usefulness.

Just my 2 cents!