Ugh! What a horrible shift! Last year, we were on days for Christmas, and we had a party kind of atmosphere in the control room, with people wandering in and out the room with plates of food and everyone falling asleep in front of the messroom telly whilst a steady trickle of (mostly rubbish) calls came in. Steve came up to the room with a bunch of mince pies, and we all had fun with a raffle and a Secret Santa.
Well, what a contrast. This year, staffing levels both on the road and in the room were at an all time low. The call rate, however, was relentless. I don’t know what it is about Christmas these days. When I was a child (growing up in a suburban, middle class, almost exclusively white/Christian-ish area) absolutely NOTHING was open and it was unheard of for people to do anything other than sit and eat turkey and play board games with their family. These days it’s all different — as I made my way to work, I noticed shops and pubs open in every street, and even on one occasion an open hairdressers! Those shops and pubs were later full of fights and stabbings and people generally not full of festive cheer. There was not one Christmas Comedy incident such as “choking on mince pie” or “impaled on Christmas tree” which was very disappointing. There was instead a steady trickle of green calls (because of the lack of public transport and increased taxi fares), a whole bunch of chest pains (indigestion, anyone?), plenty of Domestic Incidents and a couple of rather sad cases, such as a woman whose sister, far away in Scotland, had taken an overdose alone in her flat, and a homeless lady who had rung for an ambulance in the hope it would take her to a hostel in Central London so she would not have to spend Christmas night on the streets. We felt sorry for her, but not sorry enough to send the ambulance ten miles out of its area when we had a screenful of sick and injured people waiting.
Festiveness was also spoiled by the fact that two lovely girls from our watch had been beaten up for no apparent reason by a gang of horrible teenagers whilst out drinking on Christmas Eve, and whichever Scrooge had pulled my name on the Secret Santa had FORGOTTEN to bring in my present, meaning I had to sit and watch everyone else open theirs whilst I sat empty handed. Bah humbug! By the middle of the night, I had completely forgotten that it was Christmas at all and even caught myself looking at the wall clock to find out what date it was.
Crap call of the night: “My girlfriend has developed a stomach ache after we had sex! No, I can’t drive her to the hospital, I have been drinking all day!” As you can imagine, someone who had been able to spend time with their partner and enjoy a few drinks whilst we were all stuck in Control Room Hell inspired no sympathy WHATSOEVER!
December 26th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Meanwhile I was running around picking little old ladies up off the floor - busy, but satisfying, work.
December 26th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
I think the Christmas dayshift is definitely a million times better than the Christmas nightshift. I won’t be doing that one again in a hurry! (not that I have any choice in the matter)
December 26th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Eh! Sorry to hear that you had such a horrible shift mate! Over on the other side of the pond it wasn’t a pleasant night either- but nothing as bad as yours! Well, good luck on the next shifts… I figure something will come along to make it all better… !
Eug
December 26th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
I feel your pain (kinda!) I work retail and we opened 10 - 7 Christmas Day. We had people in *returning* their Christmas gifts. Who does that? Also people just out shopping for the day. I mean who is that much of a loser that they’ve no friends and nothing better to do on Christmas than go shopping! On the bright side our boss is amazing and brought in lots of booze so we drank Baileys hot chocolates all day
Hope your Secret Scroogey Santa makes thing up to you.
Merry (belated) Christmas.
December 26th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Well, this is too late for anything but a Happy New Year, but to make up for it, consider this a double dose of good wishes!
Festivities are kind of a thorny problem. We need them, but anything bad that happens then is just so much worse. There oughta be a law. But then we’d wind up like in the Pratchett story, where the wicked witch is MAKING everyone have a good time. Very thorny. Anyway, hopefully it’s a dilemma that will keep itself politely out of the way for you next year!
December 27th, 2006 at 12:59 am
Sorry you had a crappy christmas.
Thanks for doing what you do.
December 27th, 2006 at 4:43 am
Now that is what I call a shite Christmas eh!!!
Hopefully next year you’ll get some time off from the madness.
I guess there are always the unlucky few who drew the short straws for Chrissy shifts.
I wonder if your mob over there indulge in the same pastime Aussies do at this time of the year.
It seems as soon as Chrissy and Easter start there are thousands of people who take to the road and try and hit things or each other in their cars / trucks / buses.
It’s like a national pastime or something, plays havoc with the trauma units and hospitals.
December 27th, 2006 at 9:50 am
Sorry u had such a bad day…
U do a wonderful job, I really hope your have a better new year.
That was really horrible of your secret santa - prolly had forgetton to buy something and just used forgot to bring it in as an excuse.
If u are reading this SS - u really need to make it up to your colleague.
December 27th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Well, as I posted elsewhere, I spent Christmas with my gf, my sister and her bf, and one of my mates all round at my house. Every 15 minutes or so we heard another siren go past. So, ever mindful of the pressures on your Glasgow-based colleagues, we:
Handled hot things carefully with dry, clean dishcloths (oven gloves are an accident waiting to happen)
Carved the roast leg of lamb carefully with a freshly-sharpened knife (less chance of it slipping)
Drank responsibly (I’d brewed some fairly mild IPA, about 3.2%-3.6% so ideal for quaffing all day)
… and a good time was had by all, without disturbing the emergency services. Why can’t my neighbours manage this?
Hope your New Year is better…
December 27th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
Bummer Mark. I’ve just discovered your blog whilst trying to find out what pay band you guys are on in control (I work for another service as an EMD but am considering moving back to London, my hometown).
I worked day shifts on christmas and boxing day. Fortunately where I’m based people tend to stay in their homes because nothing is open and there’s nothing else to do and nowhere to go. I managed to get four miles to work (this in the middle of a city, but the service is probably the most rural in britain) without seeing another vehicle at 5:30am. And we had to get police control to fax us a list of the petrol stations that were open because the poor roadies couldn’t find anywhere to fill up! We had ONE rtc in my 10 hour shift over the entire three counties we cover.
Owed to management deciding to pay us double pay AND an extra £8.70 an hour attendance bonus for the two days, everybody was in a thoroughly festive mood. There was good food and space hoppers and laughs all round.
My christmas call of the year: “My son came down all overexcited to open his presents and he was running round and round in circles and ran into the wall, he’s out cold!” “Are you with your son now?” “Yes” “And how old is he?” “…Seventeen”. He sounded ashamed.
I’m on a night shift over new year, so if you’re working too: best of luck!
December 27th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
Tried to leave you a Christmas greeting but your page would not come up for some reason….hope you had a good one anyway. Will need you for mobile control/comms for SWAB Team 6.
All the best…kingmagic of purpleplus.
December 27th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
I worked xmas & boxing day, days & on call overnight. We had 6 jobs on xmas day, 7 jobs on boxing day. Not as many as some LAS crews, perhaps, but we tend to run further on each job. So I feel for you, because most of my jobs were utter nonsense.
December 28th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Well i do agree - i was glad to see the clock hit midnight on my christmas night shift just to know that christmas was over!! What ever happened to happiness and no fighting and spend nice time with your family at christmas….every call i had was just fighting and assaults…what a way to ruin my christmas!! However, i have to say that you are winning due to your mean secret santa partner…..highlight of my night was the buffet we had on - that we only just managed to eat before it went manic and the emergency bell judst rang and rang and rang so iwent home with echoes of it in my ears…..
HMPH!
December 29th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
I’m sorry you had such a crap time, I hope your secret santa turns up… but more importantly.. what is this wonder you speak of? A Hairdressers open on Christmas day? I must know it’s location, information like that could prove invaluable on a Christmas bad hair day!
January 1st, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Happy New Year to you and yours from over here in California. I wish you all the best for 2007.
I think I came to your blog from PGR.
January 3rd, 2007 at 4:26 am
What Dave M said.
January 4th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Please come back!
January 4th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Was working Christmas so can empathise. Was off New Year and had a fantastic time. Hope yours was good too.
I also understand that the government is about to introduce a law requiring Chavs to muzzel themselves in public, so things coud be looking up for 2007.
Hope it’s a good one for everyone.
January 4th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Christams day was pretty haphazard here in the States. Lots of the old triple D (domestics, drunks and dipshits) but nothing like what you had. Sounds like the London I visited in the 70’s is gone forever.