A piece of really shocking news (not) in today’s Metro — 999 call takers suffer abuse from callers!
I don’t know where this study was performed, but it certainly wasn’t the LAS. Apparently these unnamed call takers took an average of 59 calls per shift, which is absolutely nothing in my book (I have taken 250 on a Friday night. I think 150 would be about average, though that is a guess) and only four were abusive. It depends on your definition of abusive, of course, but I would say that at least half of our callers are rude/unco-operative/shouting and I would estimate 5% cross the line into swearing, threats, insults etc. It depends a lot on the time of day - this is one of the many reasons why I prefer dayshifts and loathe weekend nights.
I’d like them to do a similar study in our control room so I can see if my guesses are right, and if this control room where they only take 4 abusive calls a shift are recruiting, please send me an application form!
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I’m with you, if that unnamed control only receives 4 abusive calls a shift and its making people want to quit.then
A: Where do i sign up to reduce the amount of abuse i receive and
B: As bad as it can make people feel….its never made me want to leave because at the end of the day….they’re only delaying their own ambulance!
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I agree. It makes me want to whallop them one, but not quit. They’re the ones with the problem!
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
I have to confess, I really enjoy the abusive callers! It livens up my shifts no end. My colleague had a child caller on the line the other night (hoax call) who told her to “F*@k off” and “Go and f*@k your dad in the mouth”. This child sounded no older than 10 - that’s pretty impressive language for one so young! The upshot of this was a visit from the Plod, mummy and daddy weren’t too pleased i doubt!
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Today’s Evening Standard carries the story of an ambulance worker who was assaulted in the tube because he was wearing his uniform (it started out with people hurling abuse at him for crappy ambulance service.) The article then goes on to talk about this latest statistic.
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Hi all
Big Als comments don’t suprise me in the least. When CB radio first came in to the UK (Illegal AM version) it was fine, the costs were prohibative to most peolple so only common sense prevailled.
When they became legal and with FM then the trouble statred. Similar comments over the airwaves from youngsters no older that 10. I challenged one and aksed wht his dad would sy if hr knew he used langauge like that. His da came on the air and I could hear where this lad got his bad mouth from!!
Sad to think you have to take this sort of thing during the course of a shift. Get the police to call them a visit. This usually sorts things out.
Oh for better days.
TM
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:32 am
Is much of the abuse you receive related to the panic of the patient or the people who care about him/her? Or is it generally just abusive drunkenness? Serious question ^^;
March 23rd, 2007 at 10:51 am
Dave, in my experience, most abuse could be due to the patient/caller panicing, and for this reason I find it quite easy to deal with. However, part of the job is to control the call, calm the caller down, explain whats happening and why, and hopefully curtail the abuse. Some call handlers seem to get far more than heir “fair share” of abuse and anger. Could it be due to the fact that their telephone/people skills are somewhat lacking and they may even antagonise rather than calm the caller? Oh, but there are still plenty of calls that are just abusive drunkenness. Love it!!!
March 23rd, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Dear Mark,
As you may know already I have an interest in blogs about work.
I started to look at such blogs two years, but for reasons I won’t bore you with, prevented me from developing the project beyond a questionnaire exercise.
I am now, finally, at a stage where I can spend enough time researching a phenomenon I find very interesting and expect others to do so when I get around to telling them!
So, why I am telling you this?
Well, I’m looking for some input into a research project that investigates work-related blogs – something that hardly anyone has written about before.
I have no intention of ‘outing’, or indicating in any way, any blogger.
The paper is not about sensationalising blogs.
It’s more to do with exploring the significance of a wider emerging trend of ‘ordinary’ people exploiting the web for any number of reasons.
At this stage I would like to first of all request your permission to use excerpts from your blog for my paper.
If you do allow me to do this I promise to consult with you on what I intend to use and how I intend to use it.
Any other feedback or direction from you would be welcomed.
To be more specific, and based on what several sources have said out such blogs in the past (newspapers, trade journals and academics), I’m looking for blog entries that cover the following themes:
1) Postings that would be viewed by your employer, or any other employer, as some sort of nuisance to them.
2) Postings that you believe could lead to disciplinary action if your employer knew about what you were doing (especially if you post anonymously).
3) Postings that offer an ‘honest’ review of how you are expected to work (e.g. outlining ridiculous practices or expectations from management, etc.).
4) Postings that could be viewed as being news from the workplace or ‘spilling the beans’ on a certain work-related matter that you feel should be in the public domain.
5) Postings that you feel could shape public opinion about what you do or how your job has an impact on others, even if your blog is read by a small number of people.
6) Postings that are about you, whether you intended at the onset to do it or not, revealing aspects of your job that others could learn from, i.e. tricks of the trade or tacit knowledge.
7) Postings that reflect the possibility of loneliness at work, i.e. writing in a manner that indicates you wish you had more support or chance to discuss matters with others at work.
Some of these requests may appear similar or vague and it’s unlikely that you will be able to provide examples of all of the above, but any examples of any category will be appreciated.
Like I said I before, posting can (and will be) changed in a manner that protects your or anyone else’s identity.
I should also say while I’m at it that I am looking for bloggers to make a contribution to another project that I intend to get started on very soon.
It would be an edited book (many contributors) that would a) cover research on work-related blogs, b) allow bloggers to tell their story of what blogging about work has done for them.
For bloggers this could mean anything and I mean anything. For example, if blogging has won you an audience and adulation then write about that. If blogging has helped you meet people who have helped you in some way that would be excellent too. If blogging just ended up being a burden that has brought no advantages then write about that.
Again, I’m not sure how I want this to go and would appreciate any ideas from you. For example, you could write this all yourself or I could interview you and take it from there.
Anyway, these are my ideas and I’d really appreciated any input from yourself.
Please free to contact me about this.
We can speak on the telephone if this would help.
In total confidence and sincerity.
James Richards
Lecturer in HRM
Heriot-Watt University
Edinburgh, UK.
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Many of the abusive calls I get are just people panicing, there no problem at all. Calm them down, control the call and all is good.
The ones that really get abusive are the weekend drunkards who are convinced that all you need to do to get an ambulance is repeatedly shout “It’s a f’in emergency, don’t you understand, it’s an f’in emergency, just get ‘ere now!” and never actually tell you where they are. Or the old dears who are so full of their own importance, that the fact their husband is stuck in his armchair IS more important than the 5 car RTC/cardiac arrest/crashing 747, and start being abusive and patronising because it’s all just such an inconvinience to them.
Panic and scared callers are part of the job and no problem, but there is never an excuse to be just plain rude.
March 24th, 2007 at 12:12 am
12 staff to deal with an average of 59 calls per shift. Wow that would be great. We deal with an average of 150 a shift with 6 staff. We get the odd abusive call but as BabyEMD said they are only delaying the process for themselves
March 24th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Perhaps it was a PAS control room? We have far less abusive calls. Oh wait a minute, that’s because we do fucking stupid mickey-mouse jobs.
Anyway, we’d like to borrow you for our division too Mark! Can you get in touch somehow? Do you have visibility on my e-mail address?
March 25th, 2007 at 4:03 am
How long are the shifts at Nee Naw?
March 25th, 2007 at 5:24 am
I’m glad some others have had better experiences! Re 999/112, I would favour 112 too, but the “works on all networks” thing is a myth — in the UK 112 just redirects to 999. But 112 works throughout most of Europe, whereas 999 only works here and a few other faraway places you will never go to, so 112 is a better number to know. 911 works too, btw.
Anyone wanting to use me for training, my email is blog [at] neenaw.co.uk - feel free to drop me a line!
NZEMD - the shifts at Nee Naw Control are 12 miserable hours long. As long as a flight to Kuala Lumpur!
April 10th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
The research you mention was done by a prof at Sheffield University (my county) but I don’t know if she did her research in our control room. Our EMD shifts are 8 or 10 hours (depending on which crazy random shift pattern you are on). No idea how many calls we take per shift - the 999 calls are all mixed in with the Dr’s urgents, referalls for ECP’s from incoherent nursing home staff, general calls, calls from our staff (for various reasons), police and fire calls and the blessed NHSD redirects. I just know sometimes it is a lot (like today - first ‘working’ day haha after Easter or a weekend night.) But if we were flat out on 999 calls, they take on average 3 mins each (I guess) as some are stay-on-the-line-unstable-patient and others are quick chest pain jobs where you finish promptly) we could in theory take up to two hundred 999 calls each per shift - but I know it’s a lot less than this because of all the other calls in between. The percentage of ‘abusive’ callers is higher than we should have to put up with, but not so high we refuse to do our jobs (yet). You wouldn’t want a job here - they are proposing they close our control room and move us 30 miles north - what a lovely commute home from work after a hectic night shift that will be.