It is that time of the year again! National public safety telecommunicators week, the one week out of the year when 911 dispatchers everywhere are celebrated. I’ve asked myself multiple times why we feel so entitled to an entire week of being thanked and showered with gifts and goodies. It wasn’t until I made a career change that I could clearly see the answer to that why.
I removed myself from the communications center and stepped back into the world everyone else lives in. I was hit by a freight train carrying four years worth of calls I had never taken the time to process. In between sorting through that mess and running a new business, I continued to plug in my headset a few times a week. Flipping back and forth from my happy little business to sitting at a console taking 911 calls was a huge eye opener.
The answer to my question as to why we feel so deserving of this one week was found when I was running my business one Monday morning. None of my customers knew that the day before I was coaching a father through CPR on his three-month-old daughter. She didn’t make it. Nobody knew. Nobody thanked me. Nobody asked if I was alright. I didn’t care about any of that either. I didn’t care because I was just doing my job one Sunday morning. That day when I got off that phone call the 911 line rang again and I answered it. Even though I was going to have nightmares the rest of the week from the previous call, I still picked up the next one.
While I was on that next phone call my coworker walked over to me and set down a piece of chocolate, nudged me on the shoulder and smiled at me. On the inside of the dove chocolate wrapper, it read “It’s your call.” It was my call. I was going to process it however I needed to and then I was going to come back on my next scheduled shift, sit down at the same console and plug in my headset again.
To all the 911 dispatchers out there, IT’S YOUR CALL. Every time you pick up the phone, it is your call. You calm the caller, you send the help, you do exactly what you are there to do and then you continue to do that every single call that follows.
I will no longer question the reason for this one week out of the year because 911 dispatchers show up all the other weeks out of the year too. It’s our call. One week of thank yous, gifts and goodies is not too much, 911 dispatchers more than deserve it.
Happy National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week!
It’s your call, Be Brave -B