By Violet Rymshaw It’s the elephant in the room…or more accurately, the elephant on the dispatch floor. Almost everyone has experienced it. No one likes to discuss it. It’s the delicate balance between dispatch and management. Now before going any further, I just want to stop and acknowledge all of the communications supervisors out there who are doing a fantastic job of building a team culture. It is no easy task! So many different personalities under one roof - usually wit

Even Those on the Mountaintop Need Support and Encouragement, Too.

By: Violet Rymshaw I’m a former telecommunicator, and I’ve just earned my doctorate in psychology. One of my goals in using that doctorate degree is to help improve wellness for telecommunicators, both on and off the clock. For my doctoral project, I asked telecommunicators to give me their ideas about changing the work environment to help them recover from the constant barrage of trauma involved with the job. By a landslide, the most popular suggestion was to create a “Quiet

by Samantha Hawkins In our line of work keeping up a strong and pain-resistant emotional veneer is harder than ever to do these days. Some days are more stressful than others, and some days we may feel like just turning in our two-week notice and searching for anything other than “911 dispatcher” and “call center agent” on Indeed.com for available jobs in our zip code. Being an essential worker in public safety isn’t particularly fun, I know. I feel exactly the same way. As