Posted on 12/15/2007 8:26:11 AM PST by 3AngelaD
D.C. Council members yesterday complained to the head of the city's 911 communications center about operators who are rude or dismissive with callers. Council member David A. Catania, at-large independent, said he placed a 911 call at about 1:15 a.m. yesterday after he was awakened by screams from a woman being robbed outside of his home. Mr. Catania said the experience was "entirely dissatisfying" and that at one point during the call, the call-taker asked if he was drunk. He said he was "so off-put, it made it more difficult for me to gather my thoughts."
Janice Quintana, director of the Office of Unified Communications, defended the call-taker's handling of Mr. Catania's call, but said there were "a few things" the operator needed to do differently. Miss Quintana, who was appointed by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty last year, said that call-takers are trained to be "firm" with callers who often have difficulty staying calm enough to communicate effectively during an emergency....
Several other council members used the oversight hearing to repeat stories they have heard from residents in recent months about the unprofessionalism and unhelpfulness of 911 call-takers. Jim Graham, Ward 1 Democrat, spoke about a resident who called to report a person smoking crack in public. He said the resident told him the call-taker seemed unwilling to send a police officer to the scene....Miss Quintana said a quality assurance program monitors about 1,000 calls a week to the city's 120 call-takers.
Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association president and D.C. Council candidate Cary Silverman, a Democrat, said he was not satisfied with the office's quality control measures in light of 24 complaints he received from residents.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Call 911 and die.
It's certainly not Mayberry, U.S.A.
FOX played a call to Britain’s 999 emergency number. Some guy called to complain that his wife only left him salmon sandwiches. LOL
However the dispatcher was polite.
Someone needs to start a professional organization that makes 911 audit calls to test the clowns working there, but then just like cops no one would ever fire them.
The more the government grows, the more the nation will look like DC.
A few years ago we watched cops in London, it was hysterical. Even the criminals were polite.
Check this out. (humor)
http://www.gofish.com/player.gfp?gfid=30-1078739
Replace the “11” with “mm” and you have a more effective solution to most emergency situations.
Unless you are gun-grabber Carl Rowan.
Well, was he?
They have 1,000 calls a week, and 120 call takers. That’s an average of 1.19 calls for each call taker each day. Seems like better customer service wouldn’t be all that hard to provide.
One of the problems is that they are impossible to fire.
I prefer to add a "1" to the beginning of "911," but either method is vastly superior to waiting for the cops to show up. Like they say, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
The MONITOR a 1,000 calls a week. The get 985,000 calls a year.
That makes more sense. My math was good, I just didn’t read the article close enough.
That’s closer to 22 calls per taker per day. Still, three or four an hour? My original (futile) point stands, I think.
I also think that they are not all working at the same time, and that there are times and days of the week, for instance, Saturday night into Sunday morning, when all hell breaks loose in DC. So some are going to get three or four calls an hour, and at times, 20 calls an hour.
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
Well I would hope they’d have more working during peak hours, but this is the government we’re talking about. The whole thing sounds like poor excuses from incompetent management for incompetent employees. But we can trust them, because they’re here to take care of us.
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