Councilman irate over treatment on 911 call {Wash. DC}

Washington Times ^ | December 15, 2007 | David C. Lipscomb

[3AngelaD]

Life in your nation's Capital. The attitude of the 911 call-taker was all too typical. And the caller is a member of the City Council! Not that ANYTHING would ever allow David Catania to gather what pass for his thoughts.

[null and void]

Call 911 and die.

[SamAdams76]

In all fairness, how can you not become jaded and cynical working the 911 line in D.C.?

It's certainly not Mayberry, U.S.A.

[cripplecreek]

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.

[org.whodat]

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.

[Vision]

The more the government grows, the more the nation will look like DC.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

A few years ago we watched cops in London, it was hysterical. Even the criminals were polite.

[cripplecreek]

Check this out. (humor)
http://www.gofish.com/player.gfp?gfid=30-1078739

[Cheburashka]

He's a D.C. Council member. He probably was drunk.

[bolobaby]

Replace the “11” with “mm” and you have a more effective solution to most emergency situations.

[Sgt_Schultze]

Unless you are gun-grabber Carl Rowan.

[Sherman Logan]

at one point during the call, the call-taker asked if he was drunk.

Well, was he?

[phrogphlyer]

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.

[3AngelaD]

One of the problems is that they are impossible to fire.

[phrogphlyer]

Replace the “11” with “mm” and you have a more effective solution to most emergency situations."

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.

[3AngelaD]

The MONITOR a 1,000 calls a week. The get 985,000 calls a year.

[phrogphlyer]

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.

[3AngelaD]

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.

[Natural Law]

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

[phrogphlyer]

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.