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YOU KNOW YOU HAVE BEEN A DISPATCHER TOO LONG WHEN...
You answer your home phone "9-1-1, what is your emergency?"
You spend more on fast food than utilities.
You see nothing wrong with eating a Taco Bell Grande Meal or pizza at 3 a.m.
Adult emergency personnel, not related to you, refer to you as mother/father.
You consider coffee an indispensable work tool.
You answer your home phone "dispatch".
You answer dispatch phone "hell" instead of "hello".
The only thing that gets your adrenaline going is the walk to and from your car.
You find humor in other people's misery.
You're only happy if you have something to complain about.
You consider patience a weakness, not a virtue.
Your idea of a good night involves someone getting shot, chased or dismembered.
You have forgotten what it is like to actually eat a warm meal.
Your dog doesn't recognize you and the kids think you're just the person who drops by every now and then to bring groceries and do the laundry.
You think it's funny when a would-be suicide gets bored waiting for the gas from the stove to do it's thing and lights a cigarette to pass the time resulting in an explosion that leaves her neighbors homeless but she still survives.
You truly believe stupidity should be painful.
If an officer screams over the radio that a nuclear bomb has just detonated, you'd just ask the "20" of the mushroom cloud and assign it an eight digit case number.
Dinner consist of a 2 liter bottle of soda and whatever you can scrounge out of the vending machine.
Antacid tablets, or better known as dispatcher candy, become your regular desert.
You read newspaper accounts of a major incident that occurred during your shift and can point out all the incorrect information...and then laugh about it.
Family members comment about how nice you "used" to be before you started this job.
You believe in aerial spraying of Prozac and/or birth control over certain parts of your city.
You have no idea what a holiday is, other than it's the day when everyone gets drunk and beats up their family members.
You can carry on more than 4 conversations simultaneously.
You have the bladder capacity of a tanker truck or of a small third world army.
You can resume a conversation with coworkers 4 hours later, in mid-sentence and everyone knows what you are talking about.
You have a long term telephonic relationship with one or more paranoid schizophrenic PTSD suffering relatives of a public official.
You inform your teenager," I will always know".
You get impatient listening to people relate a story - You want "just the facts".
You believe 90% of people can't look up a telephone number.
You get easily bored with happy, content people.
You have perfected the phrase "I pay taxes, too".
You have perfected some witty response to the comment, "I pay your salary!"
You can talk on the phone, listen to the radio and type request into the computer at the same time without missing anything.
You think it is funny when a "regular client" kills himself while breaking into a business.
You can give directions to any location in your city off the top of your head.
You can relate a 10 minute story over a 2 hour time period, after many interruptions, without losing your place.
You refuse to allow anyone to say "have a quiet shift".
You believe that the statement, "It sure is quiet!" will bring down the wrath of god upon you.
Your friends and neighbors call for legal advice.
You can give anyone the exact address of every bar in your jurisdiction.
You question the motives of anyone who makes an effort to get to know you after they learn your profession.
You know the phone number of every restaurant or business that delivers food, specially late at night.
You spell everything phonetically.
You can only tell time on a 24 hour clock.
You acknowledge your friends and families remarks with the time.
You have spent time explaning to officers, firefighters or EMTs the difference between a dispatcher and a personal assistant.
You live in fear of a full moon.
You are on a first name basis with every crazy lunatic in your jurisdiction.
You find no comfort in knowing that the equipment that you depend on to do your job and protect others was purchased at the lowest bid possible.
You respond faster to the name "RADIO" or "CENTRAL" than you do to your own name.
You find yourself talking to family and friends in codes.
You hear more alien invasion/abduction stories than Scully and Mulder of the X-Files.
You have a tendency to giggle at your friends "big" problems.
You respond 10-4 when told to please pull around to the first window at a fast food restaurant.
You tell cops where to go without fear
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