Wishing to be one of you

Hi there. I just wanted to rub elbows with some of you. I have for sometime now wanted to join the dispatcher work force. I live in Wasilla, AK; its a small-medium community. I recently took some tests for becoming a dispatcher in training and my overall score was 85. It wasn't quite good enough to be accepted. I felt sooooo bummed. I was wondering if any of you have tips on how to improve any of the necessary skills just to get in the door. Memory & recall skills? Ah, for that matter, I would love to just hear how some of you got involved in dispatching....how it has evolved for you over the years...stuff like that... New friend and hopeful partner. Luna

Welcome Luna, I wish I had some tips to help you get into the field... I kind of fell into it... I live and work in a small county, 120,000 residents. We do not have tests to pass before getting hired, I had no experience, no knowledge of the county (I had just moved here after seperating from my now ex husband), or anything emergency services... I have learned alot over the past 3 years... I hope you are able to take the test again, and can join the ranks of the (underappreciated) dispatchers haha!! Good Luck Brianna

Thank you Brianna. I visited your home page and its great. I love all the little personality quiz results too. Went and took a few myself. Yah, the tests (20 of them) consisted of maps, audio recall and memory skills. Lots of typing and all the while simulated emergency calls would come thru and you would have to dispatch proper response teams to that emergency while info is still coming in for you to type and be quized on. All my dispatch responses were correct. My map reading was 100 percent. The part that kicked me was the audio recall where they read off a series of letter/numbers about 16 codes long, then 5 seconds had pass and then you had to type it back in while still doing emergency responses. The thing that bothers me a bit, is that this was not a test to get the job...it was tests to get into training for the job. I thought for sure I would get in. Also,I used to have a pretty good memory, but after spinal menengitis two winters ago it has not been the same. I am looking for ways to excersize it...hoping to restore it like a weak muscle. Not sure if it will work or not. Another member sugested going in to watch sometimes too. I have some time on my hands while I am recuperating and think I will do just that. When I was taking my test it was right next to dispatch and I could here them in there doing their job. anyway, thanks for sharing your experience with me. Good Luck today and all tomorrows. Luna

Hi Luna, I started dispatching for the city of Providence,RI fire dept. in 1973(retired in 2004). When I started nobody wanted the job, because it was one of the lowest paying jobs in the city. Back then you needed a city councilman to talk to the right people. Now a days any new dispatches come from the local union, if nobody in the union wants the job it is offered to the public. Have you talked to any of the dispatchers in your area? Stop by, say hello and ask if you could sit and watch for a little while. We had people stop in and visit all the time. In 1973 we had 1 radio and had to repeat everything the companies told us. If we had a multiple alarm fire, the dispatcher had handle the fire and stil dispatch all other runs. In 2004 we had 4 radios and every run (except rescues) is assigned a channel and every firefighter has a portable radio. I wish luck on your weight loss and becoming a dispatcher Doug PS In 1973 we had a total of 12000 runs with 9500 box alarms In 2004 we had a total of 36000 runs with 26000 rescue

Wow how times change. Thanks for sharring your history with me. I think I will do as you suggested and see if they will let me in just to watch. I know when I was taking the tests I could hear them dispatching and chatting with eachother. I do hope something can come out for me from this. Thanks again. Luna

Hi Luna! I see we both had Dr. Aguirre! I saw you over on the SOTB forum! My recommendation to you is to take your computer and open the Word processing program then turn on the TV and try to type everything as you hear it. Then try to make sense of what you are hearing and paraphrase it. Over time you may be able to weed through the junk and get to the meat of what is being said and be able to keep up as it is going on. I'm not sure what kind of testing they are doing where you are, but with the dispatch simulator we have a lot of it is being able to switch gears quickly and make decisions about what type of call is what. Then being able to cull pertinent information from a call and be able to relate that to the incident. Just keep trying and hopefully you'll get there. 85% isn't bad at all, so I'd say you should keep trying. If you have more specific questions, let us know! Dina

Thank you Dinka. I will try what you said. Excellent advice.