Friday, August 6, 2010

THANKS TO IN AND AROUND GARFIELD RIDGE

This sounds far and it is but I used to work there and it took me 40 minutes from Garfield Ridge. The incentives are great there. I left only because I could not work full time any longer....


DU-COMM

DuPage Public Safety Communications

600 Wall Street

Glendale Heights, IL 60139

Phone: 630-260-7500

Website: www.ducomm.org

Salary: $44,054 - $70,678

Application Deadline: 8/11/10

9-1-1 Telecommunicator (Full-time)

Glendale Heights, IL

DuPage Public Safety Communications (DU-COMM) is among the largest consolidated 9-1-1 communications centers within the state of Illinois. DU-COMM is a 24 hour, 7 day a week operation serving 30 Fire/Police/EMS agencies throughout DuPage County. DU-COMM is currently seeking 9-1-1 Telecommunicator applicants that have the desire to work in an exciting, challenging and rewarding career field.

Telecommunicator job duties include:

Answering 9-1-1 telephones

Transmitting vital information to emergency personnel via the radio

Relaying information via the Computer-Aided Dispatch terminal

Monitoring fire/burglar alarms

Answering administrative lines serving the police/fire personnel

Salary:

Telecommunicators have a starting salary of $44,054 with an increase to $46,030 after successfully completing 6-9 months of training

The current union contract pay scale allows for a top salary of $70,678 after just six years of service if you are a cross trained Telecommunicator

Benefits:

Employees start earning paid time off at an accrual rate of 8 hours bi-weekly, totaling 208 hours a year after they are phone certified (approximately 6 weeks from hire)

Additional benefits consist of:

Extended sick leave allowance

IMRF retirement plan

Excellent insurance packages for medical, dental, vision, and life

Advancement opportunities include:

Telecommunicator III (trained on both police and fire dispatching)

Communications Training Officer (CTO – help in the training of new hires and continuing education)

Operator In Charge (OIC – assists Operations Managers in administrative and supervisory functions)

Language Operator (LNG – bi-lingual in Spanish or other designated languages such as: Polish, Farsi, Vietnamese, and Mandarin)

Requirements:

Applicants must be at least 18 years of age

Applicants must have a high school diploma or equivalent

Applicants must be able to accurately type at least 35 wpm
Applicants must be able to pass the applicant testing, full police background investigation, polygraph test, psychological exam and medical screenings

Schedule flexibility and multi-tasking are fundamental

Employees will rotate on all 3 shifts during their first 2 years, therefore all applicants must have the ability to work any of the 3 shifts, weekends and holidays along with overtime that maybe mandatory.
Beneficial Qualifications:
Previous experience in a public safety environment

Experience with multi-line telephone equipment

Bi-Lingual Spanish/English skills

Computer/data entry experience

Applications are available starting August 1, 2010 at:
http://www.ducomm.org/
OR
At our facility:
600 Wall Street
Glendale Heights, IL 60139

Applications will be accepted until August 11, 2010 at 1 PM.
Mandatory orientation and group testing will be held on September 1, 2010 in the early evening.
Space is limited for this testing. Applications will be processed on a first come first served basis.

16 comments:

  1. OT.

    Have dispatchers forgot what it's like to take calls? I'm tired of the comments, ignorant messages and screams from across the floor about what they think is wrong with the ticket.

    Stop assuming it's the fault of the call taker when the caller can't or won't answer our questions. There is nothing superior about you or your job, and if you can do it better, by all means sign in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They are bitching about the incoherent language, wrong event type, mandatory arp jobs that are coming over. Granted there are two f2's on 3rd watch that complain about everything. If nobody is complaining about your events then you arent part of the problem. However, if you find that your events are continuously scrutinized aloud then here are some pointers:
    1) Learn to read and write in ENGLISH.
    2) Use proper event types.
    3) If you must send a nonpolice or mandatiry event over explain why and if possible include the name of the supervisor you notified.
    4) Get descriptions. We can tell what time the call came in at and what time you sent it. No reason to spend over five minutes talking to someone and not have a lick of information.
    5) NFI means no further information. Don't use that if you didn't bother to ask questions or get descriptions. If caller doesn't want to give info or hangs up then say that not nfi.
    Just to clarify. If nobody besides the constant complainers is scrutinizing your work then you are doing your job and the above does not apply to you. Keep up the good work. If your events need to be deciphered by CIA intelligence and coworkers regularly ask for clarification or call supervisors to file your events then you need improvement. Lots of improvement.

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  3. None of my tickets have been scrutinized, though I do make mistakes, but I feel the manner in which dispatchers deal with the sub-standard call takers is unprofessional.

    Some of the other ladies are so insulted and so hurt that one of their mistakes is aired like dirty laundry that they are brought to tears. I don't care how it's misspelled or categorized improperly, there is no excuse for that. Let the supervisors handle it. If the call taker has problems, they shouldn't be there. No argument here.

    Does yelling across the room or sending a msg to everyone in order to belittle the call taker make them feel better about themselves? How pathetic their lives must be...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Everyone needs amusement and a way to deal with the stresses that come with being a PCOI or PCOII. If some incompetent fool wants to send over incoherent jibber jabber and add stress to the over stressed dispatchers then I and many others see no fault in the dispatcher making mention of the substandard calltaker that sent the job over in the first place. It is funny how you mention supervisors handling the incident. Well it is a two way street. You don't like how a poor quality event was dealt with by a dispatcher then notify a supervisor. When the supervisor fails to do a dam thing then you will know how the dispatchers feel when they complain about said subpar calltaker. If a call taker is brought to tears by seeing someone laughing at their poor quality event then imagine how the same calltaker will feel when in front of some slimeball lawyer, a judge, 12 jurors, and a courtroom full of people whdn their event is read repeatedly, disected, audio tapes played and then asked to explain why the event was so poorly written. The call taker in question will be the laughing stock of the local, national, and possibly world news as everything in Chicago has been lately. Now since you mention not having your events questioned, I thank you for your hard work. Go mentor some of the less fortunate.

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  5. To Aug 9th 7:26 AM
    Don't talk about what dispatchers do unless you are one. Maybe you should address your peers and get them to take pride in their work. Because the select few "special people" do not take advice from dispatchers. If they did we would not be discussing this problem.

    ReplyDelete
  6. oh please....lighten up!! Its called constructive criticism......if the tickets were sent over in "english" we wouldn't be having this conversation.....

    AND how about don't send a "batip" ticket over to the zone where the narrative states "someone stealing batteries out of a car" wtf is that.....how are we supposed to read that over the air....no lie....real ticket!!!


    and doberman pincher is not spelled doverman pictcher...............I wish we had spell check....ugggh!!

    please read your tickets before you send them over..I should not have to read and re-read the ticket b4 reading it over the air.....it is too busy on the zone for all of that!!!

    and the tickets are not coming from the new class!!!

    SIGNED, FRUSTRATED DISPATCHER

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's not constructive criticism when it's said in malice. How is it constructive when you say "english"? What language is it written in?

    Those tickets are written in English, although misspelled. You suggest insult, not a helpful critique.

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  8. Battery in progress, stealing car battery. Thats priceless!

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  9. English is not a string of misspelled words coupled with made up words, made up abreviations and grammaticaly incorrect babble. Everyone misspells words now and then. A dispatcher should not have to decipher some made up language like klingon that some of these events are written in. This is a 911 emergency center it should have professional calltakers and not CPS rejects who can't read or write at the 3rd grade level making the rest of the calltakers look bad.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm a calltaker and I'm embarrassed by what some of my fellow coworkers send over. I used to print up the events when it was possible and paste them on my fridge. When guests or family came over they couldn't believe the substandard employees that were working at what the mayor proclaims is one of the most state of the art emergency communicagions center in the country. I used to laugh but it is actually pretty sad that some people do not believe in themselves enough or have enough pride to actually try in life. No person can actually think it is acceptable to have no comprehension of our language, grammar or spelling. You would think that they would have paid attention in school and actually tried to better themselves. What is even more sad is that our OEMC hires these fools in the first place. Supervisors feel free to chime in. I mean you do nothing to correct these mistyped, miscategorized events that have no information and are unable to be deciphered without help from the calltaker who wrote it in the first place. How about you watch manager? What say you? Since you are ultimately responsible for the operations floor. Is this acceptable to you. Would you be proud to have some of these events in your resume to describe the quality of work that you encourage? How about the 3rd watch manager KB since most of these PCOI's are your friends?

    ReplyDelete
  11. it is not said in malice....everyone has had the same training...and I stand by my comments....if you send the event over with out proof reading whose problem does that become...the dispatcher...work the zone for one day and see what it is like to constantly read out events that are not in proper english/grammatically correct and takes 4 or 5 times to actually understand what is being said....

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  12. Bottom line is that there are a handful of employees who do a poor job and are not held accountable for the less than adequate quality of work they perform.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous said...


    English is not a string of misspelled words coupled with made up words, made up abreviations and grammaticaly incorrect babble. Everyone misspells words now and then. A dispatcher should not have to decipher some made up language like klingon that some of these events are written in. This is a 911 emergency center it should have professional calltakers and not CPS rejects who can't read or write at the 3rd grade level making the rest of the calltakers look bad.
    ________________________________________

    I could not agree more. There are a few that stand out as problematic and are products of nepotism and illegal hiring practices, and they do bring a bad name to the rest of us that take pride in our work.

    The other comment was accountability; there is none if you are friends with the supervision. That needs to change. We all are spending too much time and energy discussing what should not be a problem in the first place.

    My original point was the way the dispatchers (actually just a few) that try to embarrass the call takers. This superiority complex needs to stop just as much as deficient call takers need to improve or be fired. If I was a supervisor I would be dealing with both issues. The II's who throw insults are just as wrong as the I's that produce poor work.

    Practice professionalism and the people with problems stand out even more.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Does anyone know if a "rockwelder" is a person who fuses two or more rocks together with a torch or is it a large breed of dog that is in the mastiff family better known as a ROTTWEILER but refered to as a rockwelder if you work south of madison, north of monroe, east of laflin, & west of loomis.

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  15. Practice professionalism my ass. All the fools and useless employees stand out. Nobody cares. All they want is a body to fill a chair, thats it. Supervisors and watchmanager's are spineless and won't call out anyone who is not performing their duties. This place would be completely different if it were a private corporation. You think the employees at google or apple would get away with the stuff that goes on at oemc?

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  16. O.T. I just have a quick question. I didn't want to post this under Fireman Wheatley's posting. Is the new guy DD on zone 09 a trainee or something? He doesn't seem to pay attention to the air, constantly asks the officers to repeat themselves, mumbles often, but G-d forbid you don't answer him right away. Just curious if you know. He may need some more training....

    ReplyDelete

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