I am a Communications Officer for my county. I dispatch Police, Fire, EMS, Animal Control, and provide EMD to callers. I also take emergency (911) calls and non-emergency calls. I work in a small county and there are only two dispatchers on call at a time. So we are trained to do everything, not just focus on a specific role/station at a time. We do 12 hour shifts, and rotate days and nights every month.
The parts of my job that I like include the actual dispatching over the radio, and the 12 hour shifts. Yes, I actually like the 12 hour shifts. We don't work more than three days in a row so it's like getting everything done at once. I have to work weekends as well, but get every other weekend off so it's not that bad.
The parts that I hate though are the call taking and the monthly rotating. The reason I don't like call taking is because I have a hard time interrupting people. When people call 911 it's generally because they are injured, hurting, scared, or at a low point in their life. And as a dispatcher you need to get all of the pertinent information as quickly as possible, and pass it along to the respective department. One thing I'm constantly being told by my coworkers is that you need to take charge of the conversation, and for the most part I believe I do. I just feel like I'm being rude, or disrespectful when I have to cut people off when they are not giving the appropriate information.
Also the monthly rotating sucks. When doing 12 hour shifts and going from day to night, your body just doesn't have the time to adjust. I would prefer just working nights (a lot less non-emergency calls to deal with), but the supervisor won't let us. Somebody fell asleep on nights, and ruined it for all of us. So now nobody has a permanent shift. Plenty of people want just days and plenty are willing to do just nights, but guess that doesn't matter…
Anyway, end of my rant. Ended up being longer than I expected, but it's 2:30am and I'm bored and tired. Have to stay up though cuz I'm on the night shifts for this month and need try and get my body to adjust. I like what I do, but I feel the burnout creeping up more and more every day.