Your Dispatcher (Part 1)

You sprained your ankle the other day and your manager is going to let you work inside the office for a couple of days until it heals. As your dispatcher is out sick with the flu, you’ll actually be helping out – maybe.

The first day on the job you go to the kitchen and grab a cup of coffee. Back in the operations center you sit down in the dispatcher’s chair. All of a sudden your coffee goes flying and you let out the most blood curdling cry since having to work late last Friday evening. You jump from the chair and collapse on the floor. That chair was so hot it singed your pants. Actually this scene didn’t happen, but it will.

You’re really looking forward to going inside for a couple of days. After all, Suzy just talks on the phone and radio and plays on the computer. You’re wrong. You don’t know it yet, but you will.

One half hour into your first day as the substitute dispatcher and you catch your first glimpse of the new world. Bob, the service manager barrels into the ops center. His head is beet red and his eyeballs are protruding from his eye sockets (note to yourself: this happens in real life, not just the movies). He starts to scream something but gags on his own spit. For the next four minutes the only words other than cussing that you can make out are: “who was on call last night?”

You had just taken a phone call and transferred it to Bob. The customer had mentioned something about someone was supposed to be out first thing this morning but wanted to talk directly to the service manager.

You recognized the game at once. The technician blew off an emergency service call last night and told the customer the office would have someone out in the morning. Except the tech never told anyone. Strange, you had done this a few times and even forgot to call the office once, but no one ever said anything.

Emmie, the admin assistant hands you a piece of paper. “Suzy normally gets to this before 8 o’clock.” You look at the paper. It’s a list of the emergency calls from last night…

Part II picks back up on Monday, September 28.