Sometimes you just have to remind yourself, I love my job....

I do love my job. Sometimes however, I need to be reminded of that fact. I am over worked and underpaid, story of America I know. Ya know who else is over worked and underpaid? The officers. Guess out of the two of us who gets more cranky in the run of a shift... You guessed it, the officers. I mean I don't entirely blame them, it's bad enough talking to these people on the phone, they do have to deal with them face to face, however, for the record: they get away with saying a lot of the things I'd like to say to them but can't, because I'm on a taped line. I always try to be nice, I really do, but there are times when I am pushed to my limits. 

Example #1

For some reason recently we have had a lot of "cluster" type situations. The other night we had someone call about a runaway, supposedly the girl was at a particular location with another juvi female who was driving illegally, then we have a separate call about the illegally driving female from someone else who I guess didn't know about the runaway situation. So as both these calls are holding to be sent to officers because we are all kinds of busy and there are no officers to take them, we get yet another call in the same area about a disorder with a man beating a car with some sort of pipe or something. Turns out its related too, I don't remember the exact details but I think it basically boiled down to daddy getting pissed at little miss runaway thinking she can do whatever she wants and he caught her at a local gas station. Now, this is already confusing as bejesus because we have three separate calls and on the disorder we have multiple callers, none of whom want to talk to police and one of whom, turns out to be little miss runaway herself. 

Enter Officer A. [I'd like to use other nicknames here but I won't :) ] Officer A rolls up on scene along with about 3 other officers and begins to try and sort out said mess. 

Officer A: Where is my complainant? 

[aka person who is going to tell me what happened and why they called 911, and they don't have to talk to the pd so they don't always have one]

Now I didn't take any of these calls so as he is asking me this I am asking the call takers

Me: We only had one female who wanted to talk to the police and she was supposed to approach you [she had seen pd pulling up, told the call taker she would approach them and hung up]

Officer A: What's her name

Me: We don't have it

Officer A: Can you call her back we don't see her

Me:10-4

::call taker calls number back, gets male on the phone, as a side note I believe this was the older male little miss runaway had been doing goodness knows what with and perhaps why daddy was so mad.....anyway, male says that the female is already talking to police, call taker hangs up::

Me: Officer A, We just called back and apparently you are out with the right subject.

Officer A says THE dreaded words: go to 2

::I go to channel 2 which btw, is the place the officers make you go when they are about to ruin your life::

Me: Go ahead on 2

Officer A: **who by the way is now starting with an irritated tone as tho I am an idiot there only to ruin his life**  We are not out with any female

Me: Standby, that's what the caller told us.

::call taker calls back again and male tells us again, no no she really is talking to the police::

I take large breath and attempt to remain calm

Me: Officer A, they are advising again that she is talking to an officer.

Officer A: *smartass tone* Can you find out where she is and who she is talking to because none of us are talking to her.

::Meanwhile the call taker, genius that he is, asks the male to hand the phone to the officer. Officer B advises he is indeed out at the same location as Officer A, talking to the female::

Me: Officer A, Officer B is out with the subject now.

Officer A: No, *again with the smartass tone* Officer B is standing right next to me and we are not talking to a female.

::At this point call taker has to take over speaking to the Officer because I might lose my job if I have to any longer::

Call taker: I just spoke with Officer B on the phone, he is out with the female

Officer A: No Officer B is right here with me.

FINALLY, right about at this point Officer A stops ruining my life long enough to realize that the female caller was little miss runaway and they have had her the whole time. Now I really do not blame Officer A, it was a giant mess and extremely annoying but reallllly??? These are the situations that remind me I should make more money. I felt like I was in a bad episode of Reno 911.

Example #2

[this story will also be called cluster #2]

3 separate calls, 2 at the same apt complex, diff buildings, one in the same area at a diff complex. all disorders if I remember correctly.

Officers on scene at 2 of the calls, one at each apt complex. Officer C running one call. Now let me preface this by saying Officer C's radio sucks. I have no idea what he had done to it that night but it basically sounded like he was talking to us from Baghdad.  Ok, so that information in mind, here we go:

Dispatch: Are the two calls that are in the same complex going to be related? 

Officer C: [from Baghdad] 10-4 all the calls over here are going to be related.

Dispatch: Even the one at the other complex?

Officer C: 10-4 all the calls on the North Side are going to be related.

Officer D: Officer C I think I got something over here at this other complex....are you sure it's all related?

Officer C: All the NS calls are related.

Officer E: Yea it's going to be related

Officer D: I don't think it's related, what do ya'll have?

Officer E: Its related.

Ok, so that last part is a little paraphrased because at this point in the night I was incapable of even listening anymore unless someone was foot pursuit or something important, it had seriously been a ridiculous evening, annnnnd I was hormonal so I was basically done. The point is the cluster of officers begin to totally confuse themselves and us about what was and was not related till everyone was so confused it just became comedy. Turns out calls 1 and 2 were, but 3 was separate. Commence hair pulling. So it gets figured all out and I get to go to a different board and not talk to the popo anymore. Until Officer C calls in on the phone! Haha I just have to share this part because it completely cracked me up. Officer C calls because apparently the dispatchers that have gone up to the police board do not understand radio traffic from Baghdad and have told him his radio is useless. Officer C proceeds to apologize for all the confusion and tell me the quote of the evening "Yea, I've been screaming into my radio like a little girl but I guess you guys couldn't hear me" nope Officer C, we could not. Lol. It's about this time I stop wanting to pull my hair out and just laugh at the mess for a while. I love my job. :)