I’ve had rather large problems with spam lately and am no longer using the email address mark@neenaw.co.uk. Anything else @neenaw.co.uk will get to me.
I suspect you will get even more spam that way. Better to use a good spam filter and pick a single email address, but don’t put it on the web without obscuring it e.g. pkNOSPAMlong(a)btinternet.com. Mozilla Thunderbird comes with one for free. That is unless you get a lot of rich readers from Nigeria or buy pills from dodgy strangers on t’Internet.
So far all the spam I’ve got has gone to mark@neenaw.co.uk, which I guess is something to do with one of the sites I signed up to trying to promote this blog! I already use Thunderbird but it annoyingly still bleeps when you have new mail, even if it is spam. Plus I sometimes check my messages on the mess room computer using webmail and there’s no spam filter on that.
You’d be wise, following Flip’s format, to write maNOSPAMrk(a)neenaw.co.uk. It’s amazing (and depressing) how good spammers and their cohorts are at picking up addresses. Back in the dim and distant past of the Web (not all that long ago in ordinary Earth years), I posted a message on a bulletin board. Nobody had ever heard of spam in those days. It’s the only place where my main e-mail address has ever appeared in public. I get spam from that, though fortunately not very much.
Just wondering how changing the order of the questions is going. It suprises me that it’s not a liability issue to change it. For example…what if you get disconnected before getting the address/telephone number? If the caller passed out, or once saying what they deemed necessary, becomes hysterical? Hangs up? I’m sure some people are easier if you let them talk first, but in my own opinion others in a high stress situation (the ones who really need the ambulance the quickest) need the structure, the simple questions to answer. Instead of them having to think “what do I need to do/say”, the call-taker is taking control of the call first, not battling them for control later, to get the information that’s necessary. And do more people hang up after saying what they think is necessary, even if you don’t have all the information you need?
Just the questions floating around in my head, being a dispatcher myself.
I prefer the new system. It’s a bit trickier for me to write down what’s going on, but before it was brought in, nearly every call would start with a battle of wills between call taker and caller: “What’s the address?” “Can I tell you what happened first?” “No, the address” “But it’s an EMERGENCY!” “Yes, and that’s why I need the address”. By the time I’d finished confirming the address and phone number and access details the caller would be exasperated and grumpy and start accuse me of wasting time (which I know is silly because the address is the most important part, but that’s what happened). Apparently another ambulance service has been doing it this way and have cut an average of one minute off the time taken to start the Orcon clock, which, after this debacle I am guessing is a priority for the London Nee Naw Service.
I’ll reply to the points you raised one by one:
- We have CLI for every call now, so we automatically have the phone number and we if get disconnected before we get the address we can ring it back. Sometimes a problem if the person is calling via a switchboard, though.
- I’ve only ever had one caller pass out whilst on the phone to me. A lot of the time we’d be able to get the address from CLI or registration of the mobile phone.
- A few people do become hysterical/hang up/whatever after saying what has happened, but not as many who hung up/became hysterical after being asked too many “irrelevant” questions about their address.
- Letting the caller have control of the call at first *is* definitely a problem, and most of them speak a lot faster than I can type, so then I have to make them repeat themselves, which they don’t like. However, one they’ve said their “piece”, they are more willing to let me say mine. Several people who’ve commented on my blog have mentioned that they already knew what they wanted to say when they called 999 and felt as if the call taker was “getting in the way” and “being irrelevant”.
- A situation when the new system definitely doesn’t work is when talking to a fourth party (ie. a careline, fire brigade, heathrow airport etc etc) because most of these people are used to calling 999 and are thrown by being asked things “the wrong way round”.
- I find less people are hanging up on me deliberately, but yes, some people do think that the call is over and hang up. This isn’t too much of a problem, though, as they can be rung back and we still have enough information to send an ambulance if they don’t answer.
- One major positive is that with the call over quicker and with the caller less stroppy, I have far more success in getting the caller to perform PAIs (CPR, controlling bleeding, airway maintenance, etc).
In summary, I think the old system would work better than the new one if callers were actually listening, and weren’t determined to take charge of the call, but you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole, and letting the callers have it their way means less hassle for everyone, quicker ambulance dispatch, and shorter queues for calls to be answered. Definitely worth a few seconds of mayhem at the beginning of the call!
Thank you for taking the time to respond, I really do appreciate it. I agree if it works, it’s definietly worth the few seconds of mayhem, and it sounds as if it does! It’s given me something to really think about.
Hi Mark,
We run a work related website and would like to post some your blogs on our site which will increase you readership, raise some of the work issues, increase your page rank, amongst other things. Let me know if you are interested. Thanks,
October 30th, 2005 at 7:10 pm
I suspect you will get even more spam that way. Better to use a good spam filter and pick a single email address, but don’t put it on the web without obscuring it e.g. pkNOSPAMlong(a)btinternet.com. Mozilla Thunderbird comes with one for free. That is unless you get a lot of rich readers from Nigeria or buy pills from dodgy strangers on t’Internet.
October 30th, 2005 at 7:23 pm
So far all the spam I’ve got has gone to mark@neenaw.co.uk, which I guess is something to do with one of the sites I signed up to trying to promote this blog! I already use Thunderbird but it annoyingly still bleeps when you have new mail, even if it is spam. Plus I sometimes check my messages on the mess room computer using webmail and there’s no spam filter on that.
October 31st, 2005 at 2:19 am
You’d be wise, following Flip’s format, to write maNOSPAMrk(a)neenaw.co.uk. It’s amazing (and depressing) how good spammers and their cohorts are at picking up addresses. Back in the dim and distant past of the Web (not all that long ago in ordinary Earth years), I posted a message on a bulletin board. Nobody had ever heard of spam in those days. It’s the only place where my main e-mail address has ever appeared in public. I get spam from that, though fortunately not very much.
October 31st, 2005 at 6:43 am
Just wondering how changing the order of the questions is going. It suprises me that it’s not a liability issue to change it. For example…what if you get disconnected before getting the address/telephone number? If the caller passed out, or once saying what they deemed necessary, becomes hysterical? Hangs up? I’m sure some people are easier if you let them talk first, but in my own opinion others in a high stress situation (the ones who really need the ambulance the quickest) need the structure, the simple questions to answer. Instead of them having to think “what do I need to do/say”, the call-taker is taking control of the call first, not battling them for control later, to get the information that’s necessary. And do more people hang up after saying what they think is necessary, even if you don’t have all the information you need?
Just the questions floating around in my head, being a dispatcher myself.
October 31st, 2005 at 10:41 am
I prefer the new system. It’s a bit trickier for me to write down what’s going on, but before it was brought in, nearly every call would start with a battle of wills between call taker and caller: “What’s the address?” “Can I tell you what happened first?” “No, the address” “But it’s an EMERGENCY!” “Yes, and that’s why I need the address”. By the time I’d finished confirming the address and phone number and access details the caller would be exasperated and grumpy and start accuse me of wasting time (which I know is silly because the address is the most important part, but that’s what happened). Apparently another ambulance service has been doing it this way and have cut an average of one minute off the time taken to start the Orcon clock, which, after this debacle I am guessing is a priority for the London Nee Naw Service.
I’ll reply to the points you raised one by one:
- We have CLI for every call now, so we automatically have the phone number and we if get disconnected before we get the address we can ring it back. Sometimes a problem if the person is calling via a switchboard, though.
- I’ve only ever had one caller pass out whilst on the phone to me. A lot of the time we’d be able to get the address from CLI or registration of the mobile phone.
- A few people do become hysterical/hang up/whatever after saying what has happened, but not as many who hung up/became hysterical after being asked too many “irrelevant” questions about their address.
- Letting the caller have control of the call at first *is* definitely a problem, and most of them speak a lot faster than I can type, so then I have to make them repeat themselves, which they don’t like. However, one they’ve said their “piece”, they are more willing to let me say mine. Several people who’ve commented on my blog have mentioned that they already knew what they wanted to say when they called 999 and felt as if the call taker was “getting in the way” and “being irrelevant”.
- A situation when the new system definitely doesn’t work is when talking to a fourth party (ie. a careline, fire brigade, heathrow airport etc etc) because most of these people are used to calling 999 and are thrown by being asked things “the wrong way round”.
- I find less people are hanging up on me deliberately, but yes, some people do think that the call is over and hang up. This isn’t too much of a problem, though, as they can be rung back and we still have enough information to send an ambulance if they don’t answer.
- One major positive is that with the call over quicker and with the caller less stroppy, I have far more success in getting the caller to perform PAIs (CPR, controlling bleeding, airway maintenance, etc).
In summary, I think the old system would work better than the new one if callers were actually listening, and weren’t determined to take charge of the call, but you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole, and letting the callers have it their way means less hassle for everyone, quicker ambulance dispatch, and shorter queues for calls to be answered. Definitely worth a few seconds of mayhem at the beginning of the call!
October 31st, 2005 at 8:16 pm
Thank you for taking the time to respond, I really do appreciate it. I agree if it works, it’s definietly worth the few seconds of mayhem, and it sounds as if it does! It’s given me something to really think about.
November 13th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Hi Mark,
We run a work related website and would like to post some your blogs on our site which will increase you readership, raise some of the work issues, increase your page rank, amongst other things. Let me know if you are interested. Thanks,
Leo
December 5th, 2007 at 10:34 am
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