Today work sucked. I mean really, truly sucked. Most days things go along as expected...I can't get enough done in the day and most nights I bring work home. I didn't bring a thing home today besides a HUGE headache.
A little background about me before I get into this. I started life at the police department as a dispatcher. I continued that job for 18 years when I received a promotion to the first ever dispatch supervisor in my department. I worked that position for 3 years, then the city decided to purchase a computer-aided dispatch system. I was recruited to set it all up and get it going - CAD, Records, mobile units. Somehow I just slid over into that job and I've held it for the last 10 years, in addition to being "attached" (so to speak) to the Communications Center as a consultant. Being a consultant just means that I have been there the longest, so I put my two cents in on anything I'm asked to. I usually start those conversations by saying "back in the day we...".
My job often requires diplomacy and tact, neither of which were around today. Technically I work for my city police department, but I also administer the public safety computer system for the entire county. That includes the city police, the city fire department, the county police and 26 volunteer county fire departments. Each one of these entities has an idea of how things should be run. The sad part is that I have been chronically short of tact and diplomacy since birth.
In the last year I have been dragging the fire department kicking and screaming into the 21st century technology wise. We implemented mobile computers in the apparatus in December and it has been nothing but fun since. I think I probably get about 5-6 emails a day about problems that aren't really problems. What I mean is that they are inexperienced with this technology, so when they have what they believe is a problem it is usually operator error, or easily explained.
The biggest problem is that I'd had enough today. I have what I call a bullsh*t indicator in my head and when I've swallowed enough crap from someone/something it eventually gets into the red. When that happens, I blow. Today it was all over the correct response order for fire units. Imagine that.
I have changed and retooled and changed again the order of responding units for the fire department until I'm blue in the face. In fact, I've changed it about 5 times, which is not an easy task and too complex to explain here. Anywho, I wrote an email that I'm guessing will come back to haunt me tomorrow all about how they need to make up their minds and LEAVE ME ALONE.
On the surface this doesn't sound all that bad...or I'm hoping it doesn't. The downside is that I copied the fire chief on the email...and I'm pretty sure I'll regret it. I like him, he is a great person, but I have had enough. It just probably wasn't too smart to add him to the email.
I guess we'll see tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
It's never as bad as you fear!
Sometimes people need to hear it like it is - tact goes over their heads. A direct "cut out the nonsense" email might make them step back and say, "Whoah, we really pissed her off..." and then maybe, just maybe, they'll examine their own behavior.
The fire chief probably should be aware of what's going on. Maybe he can pound some sense into the people who need it.
Does this potentially affect people whose houses are burning down? "You go first." "No, you go. We went first last time." I mean, come ON!
Post a Comment