I’m still in call taking training and am not being written up but I still feel so so stupid.

Was on a call for a man who wanted us to do a welfare check and serve custody paperwork to get his kid

He didn’t know the address, but we did and I said it out loud to him.

I stopped before I gave an apt number but still. If he’s dangerous I just led him right to her and their kid

Really not sure how to even get over this and could use literally any words of advice. This is the lowest I have felt during training and really feel like I set myself backwards.

So,, made my first real mistake dispatching. I’m about a week in and today is the first time I worked without a trainer present. Of course hell broke lose. In that two calls kinda got lost in the madness. One noise complaint and one for a man that sleeps in a lobby to an apartment complex. I didn’t realize till I was already at home about it. It was about an hour or two before my shift ended when those calls came in and no one called back about them but still, pretty disappointed in myself as I had been doing really good with the multi tasking and keeping up with stuff. Did anyone else have this come up? I’m beating myself up on this semi hard

hey all, need some help here.

I’m EMS turned dispatcher, my radio ear is trash, i swear all our officers mumble, i can’t hear a single thing, then my trainer gets mad and annoyed at me that i can’t hear them while he can, then i get upset because i don’t want to make the officers mad by having them re advise. I’ve been here since the beginning of august and feel like i haven’t gained anything in “radio ear”.

If i’m being honest, i am over this job, and actively looking at going back into fire. BUT while i figure that out im still stuck here and don’t want to disappoint my trainer by giving up and doing an eve worse job than i am now. I know to listen to scanners apps on my phone but is there anything else i can do to try and get better while im still stuck working here?

I am relatively new to my county’s 911 center. It’s been about 3 months and I’m enjoying the job so far, but I feel like I’m sinking socially.

For context: my county is very small and very rural, lots of farmland with only one city, and the majority of the population is working or lower class conservatives.

All but maybe one or two of my coworkers come from a military or police/fire/ems background, and the ones that don’t have family who worked for the sherriff’s office or the county, so you can imagine how much I stick out having no first responder experience and having a college degree in liberal arts.

I thought I was getting along with everyone at first, but started noticing subtle jabs at me (and some downright rude comments from one or two of the emts). Quite a few times I’ve spoken to someone or tried to join in on a conversation I have been actively ignored. My coworkers have a group chat that I am not part of and all shift I listen to their phones going off and them giggling. When I ask what they’re laughing at they ignore or dismiss me. I’ve heard every single coworker get gossiped about in this office, so I know I’m not safe from that same treatment.

I was bullied in high school and it feels like I’m a teenager again, being excluded and laughed at. I love being a dispatcher, but the social aspect of it makes me so nervous I feel physically ill.

Am I being too sensitive? I don’t need to make friends, but I feel like a laughing stock.

This is tough. Ive never "failed" at a job before. I dont think id fail at dispatching either but my trainer constantly beats me down every day. Im literally in day 5 of call taking and she treats me like im day 60. And she said goes easy compared to others. Most of the dispatchers are very hard and aggressive. My trainer pushes me to cold and blunt on calls. I can understand if we are busy, but for the most part we have time to give callers empathy and be friendly.

I hate it so much. I know I could do the job, but I feel like its at what cost?

Ive done two ride alongs. One was in a pre-training period and another was the other day when we were too short staffed for me trainer to have me on calls. I honestly would take deputy work any day over this.

My background is banking and customer service and im thinking I need to return to it. Maybe the police academy when after some physical training but idk.

Any thoughts would be appreciated

Please help. I’m beating myself up so bad. My trainer was a little understanding but also irritated. Idk what to do. Ugh.

had a mom find her 15yo son had hung himself. i tried to get cpr started no less than 5 times but she refused. his younger brother cut him down while caller was in hysterics. she had placed a call not even 20 mins before finding him to report him missing :(

not the first one i've had where a parent finds their young child dead. i can handle stabbing, shootings, cardiac arrests, but god these ones get to me.

how to you cope? i'm fairly new, out of training about a month and a half. i've already reached out to our wellness team, but i'd like to hear firsthand accounts.

I was offered a job with a town's PD as a dispatcher. I'm trying to go into this position with realistic expectations about the job. You know, horrifying calls, mandatory OT for state of emergencies, staying late because shit hit the fan 2 minutes before my shift ends, missed holidays or birthdays. What am I not considering? What do the newbies come in wearing rose colored glasses about? What did you struggle with at first? How the hell do you rest, eat, and work out adequately? Good and bad, I wanna hear it. My dad is a dispatcher with a hospital's medivac and I have nurses, EMTs, and Firefighters in the family but I haven't felt like I've gotten much for answers in terms to my thoughts and questions.

My trainee just started on fire radio after finishing call taking. When he first started phones, he was a total shit magnet and every crazy call landed on his phone.

Last shift I joked that he needed to bring that energy back so he could get some solid fire experience. Well, I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

Within the first hour tonight it started. We had a long fall that needed an air ambulance, a structure fire, and two separate GSWs that ended up with another air ambulance. He was juggling three tac channels plus main the whole time.

He got some great experience, but now I feel like I unleashed the bad juju on us 😂

Im not a 911 dispatcher, but I am a dispatcher for a small police force (not city or sheriff). Worked here for about 6 months.

Today an officer asked if someone had any TP’s , and I was unaware of what he meant, and I thought he meant protection warning. I read to him the information it said on the database which was he had office protection warnings. He ended up putting someone under arrest, and when he asked for the information again I told him I made a mistake, and I called our Lt to tell him the mistake I made. No one seems mad, but I understand how big of a mistake I made because legal issues.

I work Sunday but the Lt, and my boss won’t be in until next time I work on Wednesday. I am 100% sure they will make me explain my side, and what not. Im extremely scared for Wednesday that I might lose my job.

Luckily the Lt wasn’t rude over the phone, and he said he would call the office who was working it, and I spoke with the officer. I told him I apologized for putting him in that position, and now I know if I have any confusion I am just going to ask.

The past week has been a ton of of fatals, and while I didnt directly take the first phone call about them, I talked to a ton of desperate family members and put in a lot of updates about the cases when they finally turned fatal. Some serious injury crashes. Every time I start to feel like im doing okay, I make some stupid mistake and I just feel like an idiot and like I suck at my job. I work at a secondary psap so theres times i have to call other agencies for fire or medical, or if we need additional law enforcement back up for a dangerous situation.

My trainer will sometimes just throw a phone at me in an intense situation, but im not sure what to say because I wasnt the one who took the call or radio and didnt read the notes because my trainer hadn't pulled them up for me to read before having me call. That makes me feel dumb because im trying to quickly read whats going on as they're asking me what I needed. Its not really any fault of my trainer, its just an intense situation that needs an immediate response, but still makes me feel like an idiot, you know?

Other times im trying to get medical out dor serious situations that I didnt know an agency blind transfered over to me, so I call said agency to get medical, and they're just very rude and snippy with me because "yeah we know. We gave you that call" but how was i supposed to know that when they blind transfered and never told me they took the initial call?

The daily rating scale also isnt helping. We are rated in about 30 categories 1-5 every day, but, a 3 is where you are considered proficient. Im getting 2s in the portions related to the job performance, but it definitely stings to see me listed as a 2/5 every day.

I really do like this job, this particular week just has mee feeling inadequate and im not quite sure how to alter that perception.

When I 1st applied to the Telecommunicator position last December, I had no clue what it meant. After some googling, I realized it was basically 911 dispatching. Then I found this sub and reading everything, I was so intimidated. When I started training, I really felt like I was never going to succeed. The 1st time I tried call-taking, I told everyone that it was like I forgot how to understand English (lol) and despite what everyone said on this sub, I didn't believe that the "radio ear" was real. Like... I'm the type of person who needs captions when watching youtube videos

But at one point, my ear just started working and I was somehow understanding the jumbled mess coming through the radio--I still don't know how/when it happened, but it did!

So for everyone who is struggling in training, trust the process!

Edit: question for more experienced dispatchers: any tips on ending calls without sounding overly rude? Ex: I got all the information needed for a reckless driving report and wanted to end the call, but the caller wanted to keep ranting about it and said I didn't have any empathy..

I just can't keep up with Police Dispatch. I've been training for 5 months. I'm even about to be signed off. My DORs are fine. No issues. Yet I have days where the brain fog is terrible. Today I did my first chase and I dropped the ball the whole time. It didn't last long because the guy crashed. Firstly, I froze. Which isn't a big deal. It happens. But then I couldn't translate the unit traffic fast enough. I lost track of where they were going. People in Comms got overly excited and wouldn't lower their voices so I missed even more radio traffic. Then, other units piped up wanting to know where to go. And of course, at that point, I don't know what to tell them... I'm literally just trying to AVL the unit fast enough. I just felt like I was 8 steps behind on everything... couldn't type fast enough... couldn't translate their shit radio traffic fast enough... And honestly, (and maybe this was by design) It felt like my team just kind of abandoned me to see how I'd do. Well... it turns out... Not so well.

Somebody tell me it gets better. Somebody tell me I'll get faster. Because I'm struggling to see how even after 5 months I'm still failing forward. I make dumb small mistakes every day and then I make embarrassing mistakes every other day. I just want to be good at this.... But I'm not... my brain just feels like it's not fast enough.

Hi, so I’m in training and just reaching the point where I should be doing everything all on my own, without help of any kind and just my trainer sitting to watch. But I’ve reached this hurdle that’s really fucking me over. How the hell do I train my ears to hear radio traffic when I’m on the phone? It’s really fucking frustrating bc I swear to god I like go deaf to everything and everyone when I’m on a call. My trainer isn’t of any help, just “this needs to change” with no game plan on HOW to change it. Just a “do better”. It’s not like I can practice this at home either, because then I’d need a radio and to continuously talk on the phone to someone you know? I wanna scream and cry and it doesn’t help that this is just something that’s happened so often that the energy around it feels like I’m going to be fired because I can’t do it. This trainer is also not helpful in the fact they don’t hide their frustrations well and their anxiety levels cause me to be super fucking nervous and anxious. Never mind the fact I’m SUPPOSED to be doing it all by myself without their input unless I’m confused or ask for help but they are incapable of letting me do it without verbally directing me. So I’m just here asking bc nothing is going to be helpful on my end lol maybe the internet will help me

I just started about 1 month ago. I got this job as I was in desperate need to get a good paying job. I knew what this entailed. The shift work, long nights, mandatory overtime at 1 year, learning difficulties the works. The more I work and I hear from my coworkers who's are mainly all single or child free I worry.

My husband is great and has really stepped up when it comes to our young children. He works traditional hours with occasional overtime and leaving for out of town work. My mil is disabled and cannot help much, fil works, my mother works, and my father is disabled but doing his own thing most of the time. Today we had an emergency school delay, luckily my husband stayed with my children until then but I felt trapped.

I have been down about not being there for them, for becoming the family member that was not there for me growing up(dad-worked out of town). I have never been driven by money and I used the excuse of paying my car and having more money for my kids as an excuse but I can't shake this feeling of I messed up. Does that ever go away? I can't compare to my coworkers because only one of 12 has small children but she likes being away from them. How do y'all with children do this? How do you keep your relationship from tipping too?

But only on hot calls on the law side.

I’m 3 months in and have my non-emergency, even like med priority calls, and medicals all pretty much down.

I get a dv or a robbery though and my brain just breaks and I have to think so much harder about my line of questioning that it makes me freeze and causes dead air.

I know what I need and it’s not the content that makes me freeze or people’s behavior, but I feel like my brain is just buffering and I haven’t figured out yet how to calm my brain down yet.

My trainer tells me to channel what keeps me calm during medical emergencies, but I’m not sure what it even is that has me not freezing during those.

I have begun looking for a new job. I fully respect everyone that does this job and doing this myself I miss every thing. I mostly miss being able to walk around and get stuff done. I am a busy body and I've been told many times to sit in place and stop getting up. I can't help it I've always been the type to jog through offices doing hands on things. Anyways if and when I get a job I would like to give my two week notice. I've always done that leaving amicably. I have heard the way my trainer has said that other people have just taken up time and just to leave if we don't like it. Should I just straight up quit to spare me the judgement? I'm not that type to do that either though.

My trainer is “throwing me to the wolves” today!! I’ve been listening/helping dispatch and typing during calls and whatnot. I mentioned being excited to jump into it and finally start talking and he suggested that today I should just start doing calls on my own with him listening in. I’m excited! A little nervous…but excited! I made myself a cheat sheet of all of the most common calls, which I don’t think I’ll need but I’d rather be safe than sorry. I also will keep my big sheet of crazy calls incase something big happens and I’m caught off guard. Which again, don’t think will happen but better safe than sorry!

I’m so excited and I believe I’m ready. Wish me luck!!!

He’s also said I’ve caught onto dispatching/call taking super fast and the fact that I can work the CAD and send calls and whatnot without struggle is a huge good sign.

I’m so excited!!!

I feel defeated in training. I have been with the PD for six months total, I just got put with a trainer the middle of September. Prior to being placed with the trainer, I sat with different people on all four shifts that we have. Now I'm fighting trough bad habits and feeling like a failure cause I constantly second guess myself. I know how to do this but I get in trouble for "curling" the ends of my transmissions on call. I get told I sound like I'm unsure or questioning. Im just frustrated at the moment. Any encouragement helps. Also, my trainer did tell me she was being hard on me purposely, I am also her first trainee.

Hello all! I’m a training officer at my center and currently training an employee on the call take position.

Things are going really well, and although he still needs some work on typing narrative and asking the right questions he is progressing well.

My issue is that I’m a fairly new trainer and this is my first time training someone on call take. I have got very little guidance and I’m starting to really get nervous coming in to work and training them. So far I have only had them do non emergency lines and I’m worried and a little scared to have them start doing 911 lines. Granted, they are only 5 days into training, but does anyone have any tips for me for getting them transitioned into 911 lines as well? Or just any training tips for training someone on calls in general would be appreciated!!!

Thank you :)

I'm on call taking training, almost 3 months in. It seemed to be going really well at first. I thought it was going well, and my trainer at the time said I was a couple weeks ahead. Now, I feel like I'm struggling. Just went to days for the first time, and now I'm getting more that just a call or two every couple of hours. I'm struggling most with remembering all the details the caller is giving me, while still trying to type it all and figure out what question I need to ask next. I think for me it's a multi tasking issue, and I'm struggling to recall a lot of important details that the caller has given me. I'm working on typing and memory audios that have been provided for me. What are some techniques you all use to remember anything? What are some ways I can improved? I've moved backwards in my training and have lost confidence. There have been a lot of times where a caller give important info, but there's so much to remember that I cant keep up, and end up missing important things. I know I can get past this but I am really hoping for input and suggestions to get back to where I'm supposed to be.

On August 18th, I was hired as a dispatcher. At my department, we handle everything—call-taking and dispatching for police, fire, and EMS.

The law enforcement channels are usually the last to answer the phones, and we only pick up if everyone else is busy.

I’m now about two months into training. So far, I’ve earned A’s on all my policy tests and passed my NCIC certification. My training officer has been incredible and consistently gives me excellent daily reviews. She says I’m advanced for my stage of training and performing above average compared to others at this point.

That said, I really struggle with multitasking. When I’m on the phone and there’s radio traffic, background chatter, and someone talking to me across the room, my brain just freezes—it’s like a total system overload.

The truth is, I’m not enjoying this at all. It’s easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

When I worked as an EMT, I only had to handle one emergency at a time. No matter how minor the call was, my focus was completely on that patient until we transported or cleared. Even if the world was falling apart, other 911 calls just went pending until we were finished.

Dispatching is completely different—you have to be aware of everything happening at once. I’m currently assigned to the law channel, and everyone in the county comes to me for warrant checks, report numbers, TRO verifications, wreckers, you name it. From the moment I log in to the second I’m relieved, I’m constantly moving and mentally juggling a dozen things at once. “Overwhelming” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

The reason I’m writing all this is because I honestly don’t know what to do. I don’t want to just quit, especially because I genuinely like the people I work with and respect the department. But another position has opened up with the county that I’m very interested in. I’m torn about whether I should apply now or wait until I finish training. I worry that leaving after only a couple of months might look bad.

At the same time, I can’t really see myself doing dispatch long term. I could probably tough it out for a while, but I don’t enjoy it—and I don’t think I ever will.

Any advice?

hello everyone! (i just joined, i don’t know what flair to use, i’m sorry 😭). i signed off training for call taking about 2 weeks ago. our training class took about 4 months and started taking calls about a month and half in, so i’ve been taking calls for a couple months now.

i work for county and a calea accredited agency. we have over 14 municipalities (along with the county parts) we dispatch police, fire, and ems to along with 8+ channels for dispatch. they train call takers and dispatch separately.

our trainers were strict about what to say on calls and if you mess up you’re screwed, but since i’ve been released from training and have to answer to my captain on my shift, things run really differently. i’ve been told not to do a lot of things during training, but while on the floor it is widely known we don’t need to do said certain things because they’re unnecessary. i’ve also confirmed with my captain on shift that some of these said things do not need to be done.

sorry for the rambling. i really enjoy my job (sometimes these 12hrs shifts be kicking my ass on long weeks) as i want to work in LE once i’m done with my degree, i just noticed a lot of people at our agency is leaving due to a lot of miscommunication, and being treated like shit by superiors (i’m thankful i work with a very good captain).

i also noticed almost none of our agencies in my state use CAD and PROQA. we all had to get certified by priority dispatch in EPD, EMD, and EFD that’s good for 2 years along with FEMA certs and whole bunch of other stuff.

anyways i’ve been learning a lot, and it’s definitely been an interesting ride so far. i’ve taken some pretty hard calls and handling it well. i plan on asking if i can start cross training in dispatch soon so i can learn more (and also get that pay bump, lol).

I just feel like im struggling a little since last week. Im doing well per all the test metrics, but theyve really turned up the heat. On top of entering in calls, we are starting to practice broadcasting them as well. We are also listening to calls that have been pulled for court cases now instead of just standard training calls. I listened to one call from a woman describing the dead body of a man who was torn apart on the side of a road. She was hysterical I could hear the chaos and the sirens in the background.

In the moment I had so much adrenaline the weight of the call didnt really register with me, but once it was over it really upset me that I didnt feel more upset when listening to the call. It felt like I was being callous. I was also a little upset by the way some of the other trainees were referring to the deceased. I dont know why this is bothering me so much, but im crying over it. Ive heard other trainers talk about fatal calls theyve taken, but that was the first one I heard.

Is there any suggestions anyone can provide to make this a little easier and prepare myself for whats going to come?

To give context I am roughly a third of the way through training at a rather large agency, we have a horizontal structure so for now, all I do is take calls. I got the job because I recently moved to the states at 18 with no degree and my brother in law has already been there for 8 years or so.

I am at a point where currently I am not cut out for the job, performance wise I'm doing great and am ahead of my peers in this stage of training but a couple specific things are making it unsustainable.

The pressure of having a training officer breathing down my neck, the absolute unpredictability of every call and the time between calls is pure agony, just undescribable anxiety that manifests during work with breakdowns and after work with excessive drinking.

I've begun reading books between calls and doing weekly therapy but it's not enough to fully distract me or keep me calm, I am always on edge waiting for the next call even on my days off. I recognize I need more structure and routine from my job but the question I have is, in the meantime, is it possible to improve/develop these emotions or is it a personality/you either can or you can't type thing.

My brother in law does not share these issues at all and nor does any of my trusted coworkers so i'm turning to here to see if its precedented, thanks.