White Noise
The control room is a little conglomeration of micro climates. Sometimes they’re linked & others they are totally divorced from even their nearest neighbours. So one area can be really busy with non-stop radio traffic & phone calls both into & out of the control room, while the operators next door are sitting twiddling their thumbs.
I’ve been on a reasonably quiet area this week. It gives you an opportunity to people-watch. There are conversations going on all round the room. Some people are on the radio or telephone in which case you can only hear one side of the conversation, other radio operators & call-takers are talking amongst themselves.
You tune in & out of the conversations much like you would in a busy pub or restaurant.
Someone is advising on the legality of vehicle lights.
Someone is asking their caller to stop swearing, for the third time.
A couple of people are reading out registered keeper details from their PNC screens, while the operator in front of me is passing details of a fight taking place at the local leisure park.
A voice raises across the way, there’s no immediacy, she just has annoyingly loud voice. I don’t know if that’s something she can’t help or whether she just has a need for everyone to know how hard she is working, as if maybe trying to gain the awestruck wonderment of everyone else who is not as good a controller as her. I do know that after 8 or 9 hours oh hearing every bloody word she says on the radio or the phone I just want to wrap a plastic Sainsburys carrier bag tightly over her head.
I can hear somebody else assigning units to some drunken yobs in a town centre who are paddling in the ornamental pond. I have the added benefit of being able to switch over to that area’s CCTV where I can see them frolicking gaily among the water lilies. One of them has slipped & is currently lying on his back in the water as his mates piss themselves laughing. Would be a dreadful shame if he got a mouthful of rat urine while he lay there.
I flit between conversations trying to pick the best ones.
The inspector is discussing an incident with the sergeant, they’re not happy that someone did something before permission was given. They mention a log & I quickly look it up on the system & speed-read it as I try to earwig on who did what. It’s difficult to focus on one conversation among many without looking at the speaker to get all the usual visual clues we get when we talk to each other. I pretend to check out a screen which faces them so I can hear that an officer was told to await the arrival of armed units before approaching a female with a knife threatening to self-harm. He didn’t & by the time the Gucci squad arrived she was in tears in the back of a police car having been prevented from self-harming.
My radio hasn’t burst into life for just over an hour & my computer is threatening to log me off. I don’t mind, the time goes more slowly but sometimes it’s good to have a break from the madness that is a really busy shift. My mates who are busy will have their shots at peaceful serenity some other time.
Voices are raised on the other side of the control room. The call-taker is trying to get someone to stop shouting, unsuccessfully. The caller is cut off & the age-old familiar descriptive term “wanker” fires its way across the control room, swiftly followed by mock gasps of “oooohhh” & laughter.
Civ_In_The_City says:
I`ve been in a police control room once or twice. The really noisy operators stand out, especially if they have a loony on the phone and are beginning to lose their cool. I don`t suppose they last particularly long if they can`t keep a lid on it. Whether they get so fed up with the dealing with Joe Public or their colleagues persuade them they are destined for better things and should apply for that new job in the other building.
Theirs is a difficult job I think. In the same way as a street copper may be called to all manner of nastiness, death, violence, gore, or all four – followed by a lost cat or directions to the station. The control room operator has to coordinate it all by voice alone. I don`t suppose the police call centres are any more adequately staffed than your nearest commercial call centre.
The one point I find strange is when an operator gets a loony on the phone and has established that, yes, they really have called the national emergency number to ask for the nearest place that mends cushions, the operator spends a few minutes explaining the error of their ways. Could your phones not be fitted with a ‘loony’ button that redirects the caller to a pre-recorded message?
“You have phoned Anyshire Constsbulary about a non-emergency, non-police matter. Your call has been transferred to this recorded message so our operator is free to take calls about real emergencies from people in real distress or imminent danger. If you really believe your call is about something the police deal with then try our non-emergency contact number. P.S. You are a loony”.
July 10th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
copper bottom says:
i am on my one-man crusade at the mo- when mrs/mr angry calls in with ‘my next door neighbour’s cat has looked at me funny – I demand to see an officer’- my response is:
‘We are the police – we are an EMERGENCY service- we deal with emergencies as soon as we can and routines within a week or so…so police can deal with the emergencies..
just like the fire service- you wouldnt like it if they didnt turn up to your fire- because they were fitting smoke alarms…
anyway
July 10th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Tom Gane says:
I’m truly amazed by the way we have descended into mayhem in such a relatively short time.
Control rooms terminaly congested with spurious calls while those in genuine need are put ‘in line’ til an emergency service operator becomes available, is madness.
The solution does appear to be the loony button option, sending the lunatic fringe into cyberspace/telephone hell.
The most depressing thing is that it is now the case, members of the emergency service are fair game for abuse. Police officers are brutalised, while ambulance responders are regularly assaulted, and fire officers stoned and abused.
Someone please explain to me where it all went wrong? I suspect that the control room incident related above is a microcosm of a national disease.
July 11th, 2009 at 10:38 am
NARPO GRUMPS says:
Too many many years ago to remember now I was taught in training school you are the one at the scene, you may only be a constable, but you are the one people are looking up to. Not doing something is as bad as doing something and getting it wrong. In fact, not doing something and it going pear shaped use to be a neglect of duty, or that common law offence that i know some have been charged with over the years. So the officer at the scene made a judgement, the right one, and all they get is a ******. Typical!
July 12th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
rafanon says:
Forgive me, Weeksy old boy but haven’t you complained in Bloggs past about others watching while you work your b****ks off? Surely you are now guilty by association at the very least? Could you have not aided your fraught colleagues? Nah, sod ‘em, more tea vicar! lol.
July 13th, 2009 at 6:38 am
200 says:
rafanon,
I think I’ve complained about about supervisors not getting me assistance when I’ve been single crewed. But you also need to understand the different functions. There are radio operators & call-takers. Whilst we are sometimes in earshot of each other (when you speak loud enough) we don’t do each others’ jobs when we/they are busy. It wouldn’t really do for a radio operator to be on a 999 call when an officer calls for assistance and a call-taker isn’t trained to work the radio side.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:41 am