5 ms·

Holy hyperbole. Definitely seems like this worker is frustrated beyond sense or has an agenda with saying things like: They give rookie operators two months t

by 300bps 13y ago

Holy hyperbole. Definitely seems like this worker is frustrated beyond sense or has an agenda with saying things like: They give rookie operators two months training, and after that just throw ’em in. They’re not ready. Two months training is not enough training? This is implausible. At its core, they're answering the phone, determining the reason for a call and typing information from the call into a computer. They're not driving out to a site and performing cardiac bypass on people having a heart attack. The whole thing seemed targeted toward eliciting an emotional response rather than a rational one.

eksith 13y ago
>Two months training is not enough training? You've never answered the phone, have you? I've worked in customer service and (while that's not exactly any way on par with what these operators go through) there's an entire volume of stuff to keep in mind before going in. Being an operator involves engaging in a fundamentally unnatural mindset that's often completely antithetical to what your normal responses would be. No matter who's screaming, shooting, dying, it's still your job to remain calm, clear and transfer as much information as possible to emergency workers. Try listening to a few 911 calls. There are tons on the interwebs (LiveLeak has a whole lot). Be prepared to lose sleep for a day or two.
- 300bps 13y ago
  You've never answered the phone, have you? I was the CTO of a large publicly traded insurance company that had 3 call centers across the country and thousands of sales reps and customer service agents. I designed user interfaces and system architecture that enabled them to rapidly quote and service prospective customers and existing customers. I spent 1 day per week in one of our call centers every week with a headset on listening in on calls eight hours per day. I did that for 10 years. I know call centers and I most likely know them better than you do. I think considering someone being given two months training "throwing them in" to be hyperbole.
  - eksith 13y ago
    None of that meets much of the training necessary to save lives. The insurance company has to keep current customers and make sure to gain new ones. That's it. Only monetary loss or gain. The callers at 911 centers (and I'm guessing you still haven't listened to any of these calls) have to handle different systems (with no ability to modify the UIs) contact different services, handle vital data and filter it out from non-vital ones when anything critical lost would mean deaths (as it had been). E.G. To become familiar with police, emergency medical and fire codes. Respond to caller situations appropriately, calmly and above all else, cogently. This is a far greater burden than any insurance operator will ever face in the line of work. It's most definitely not hyperbole.
    - 300bps 13y ago
      You've proven that no matter what I say, you will discount my experience and make guesses as to what I have or haven't done. Why would I continue writing to you? Have a nice day.
- EvanAnderson 13y ago
  I can't agree w/ this assessment more. I did some contract work on network gear in a rural Ohio county's 911 center a couple of years ago and spent a few days around the dispatch center. I have a ton of respect for the work that the dispatchers do. I listened to them stay calm, cool, and collected while taking calls from people who were completely freaked-out (angry, injured, scared, etc). The job is certainly a lot more than just answering the phone.
  - eksith 13y ago
    Obviously there's a whole heap of details, systems and other areas to be thoroughly familiar with. My criticism was of OP suggesting that somehow 2 months not being good enough was a stretch and the story was hyperbole. Although I haven't dealt with 1/100th of the stress a 911 operator has to go through, I can say that sentiment is quite silly.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - EpicEng 13y ago
      You can say that based on experience? I don't know. I hear account A from someone who actually does the job, and retort B from some guy on HN who says little more than "answering phones can be stressful, but it's not hard." I'm inclined to believe the guy who has experience in the matter.
    - doorhammer 13y ago
      I'm pretty sure everyone responding to the 'hyperbole' comment in this particular thread is agreeing, but in a really confusing way
    - scott_s 13y ago
      EvanAnderson is agreeing with you. Perhaps you misread his comment?
- LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  aren't you simply wasting a tone of precious time checking the details? Can't you find out the cause, send the folks the help, and only later gather all the details and pass them on to the crew on the way?
  - eksith 13y ago
    Just a couple of things callers are surprising ambiguous about (this is just from the calls I've heard): - Where are you calling from? (Shockingly, this one is absurdly difficult to get from some people) - What's the emergency? (Often times, they don't even know) So you have to decipher, poke and prod until you get a response. You have to also understand that emergency resources are limited. A cop at one address is one less available at another, more critical, location. Same with ambulances and firefighters. What may turn out to be a mundane call could have diverted precious rescue resources form where it's really needed. So it's not that simple.
megablast 13y ago
I don't think it is just computer training, it is complete 911 training. Maybe includes emergency procedures and even simple psych profiling. This system is disgraceful, and endemic of cheap outsourced computer systems that places like EDS have been getting away with for a long time.
HCIdivision17 13y ago
I thought it was very easy to believe. A central conceit of the piece is that the system's maddeningly insane and needlessly difficult to interact with. If the system actually worked as advertised, you would certainly be right, and no doubt that was a goal of the refactor. But training people to deal with crashes and exceptions is very hard, especially if it is under pressure. Often, this sort of training only takes places as catastrophes happen. Imagine you're an operator, and you have to use a system that's made of failures and bugs, you're exhausted from working doubles, and you can't debug anything: when it fails you have to rely on someone else. (I have never worked in 911 operator facilities, only industrial operations.)
frossie 13y ago
Have you called 911? The operator essentially does triage over the phone, and advises what intervention the caller should engage in. They are not just there as dial-an-ambulance.
javajosh 13y ago
That would be true if you were a sociopath. But those with empathy need to learn to deal with stressful calls, and I imagine that would take some time and effort.
arkades 13y ago
I've done Lean work for hospital new patient intake centers. When it comes to triaging patients in extremely homogenous centers, the real training period is a few months long (formally it's one month, but that's really just to learn your way around the computer systems). In disease centers where the patients are calling with heterogenous complaints, the formal training period is also a month, but everyone agrees the real training period is just about two years plus weekly meetings with docs to learn about how to triage that week's oddball/edge cases. I suspect 911 calls are no less complex than scheduling people for a doctor's appointment.
moocowduckquack 13y ago
Don't be ridiculous. From that kind of perspective writing software is just typing. Say, did you hire the programming team that wrote the software they are using?
- crististm 13y ago
  some managers seem to believe exactly this
doorhammer 13y ago
I'm mostly glad to see a lot of reasonable responses to this. This attitude is one of the reasons why so many people have such terrible experiences calling in to companies. I'm talking about companies that have nothing to do with real life emergencies and life threatening consequences. Management tends to think "they just answer phones, so we can hire anyone, put them through a week of training and bam, they should be good to go, right?" I work in a pretty standard e-commerce environment. I was in training for awhile, and now some data analysis and software development. It's like just about anything else. Predict how long you think it will take to competently train someone and triple it. It's not easy to get people ready to handle the majority of the calls you get in a call center, and it's really really hard to get them to handle the absurd number of one-offs you might have. Again, that's without even considering the number of call types and the weight of the calls I'd imagine 911 operators get, all while having to stay polite and calm. Two months for a 911 operator in a major city like NY sounds kind of nutty to me, especially if the training is in the format I'm expecting it would be, and not something totally out of the box.
- 300bps 13y ago
  This attitude is one of the reasons why so many people have such terrible experiences calling in to companies...Management tends to think "they just answer phones, so we can hire anyone, put them through a week of training and bam, they should be good to go, right?" You've missed the mark pretty terribly on this. The reason why so many people have such terrible experiences calling in to companies is because of substantial training. People in call centers today are trained to give you poor customer service. I can't tell you how many scripts I've seen that are written like: 1. If customer asks for X, tell them we can't do that 2. If customer insists, explain we can't do X because of A, B and C. 3. If customer still insists for X, tell them we can't do X but we are willing to do Y 4. If customer still insists for X, tell them we will call them back and then don't call them back. 5. If customer calls back for X, give them X And these types of scripts are written for things where a company is legally obligated to give their customer X. Sure, there are training issues but by far you are receiving poor customer service because the company doesn't really want you calling in the first place and they're training you not to call.
jrockway 13y ago
It's a tabloid, what do you expect?
- doorhammer 13y ago
  I can say that this is HN and I expected more than a completely uneducated dismissal of the complexities that someone else's profession might contain.
wisty 13y ago
Here's the problem: "911" "You have to send the cops over!" "What happened?" "It's my parents ..." If they don't triage properly, they'll be sending the police to deal with angry kids whose parents won't give them their pocket money. Or they'll not send the police to a violent confrontation. Also, you have to consider the kind of people who make a lot of 911 calls. It might be a drug user getting threatened by a dealer. It could be a drunk guy, who's had an accident. It could be something really embarrassing ("I fell on it"). Doing triage can be quite difficult, when the caller doesn't really say what has happened, but they need to find out enough to justify sending help.

by 300bps 13y ago

eksith 13y ago

>Two months training is not enough training? You've never answered the phone, have you? I've worked in customer service and (while that's not exactly any way on par with what these operators go through) there's an entire volume of stuff to keep in mind before going in. Being an operator involves engaging in a fundamentally unnatural mindset that's often completely antithetical to what your normal responses would be. No matter who's screaming, shooting, dying, it's still your job to remain calm, clear and transfer as much information as possible to emergency workers. Try listening to a few 911 calls. There are tons on the interwebs (LiveLeak has a whole lot). Be prepared to lose sleep for a day or two.

300bps 13y ago
You've never answered the phone, have you? I was the CTO of a large publicly traded insurance company that had 3 call centers across the country and thousands of sales reps and customer service agents. I designed user interfaces and system architecture that enabled them to rapidly quote and service prospective customers and existing customers. I spent 1 day per week in one of our call centers every week with a headset on listening in on calls eight hours per day. I did that for 10 years. I know call centers and I most likely know them better than you do. I think considering someone being given two months training "throwing them in" to be hyperbole.
- eksith 13y ago
  None of that meets much of the training necessary to save lives. The insurance company has to keep current customers and make sure to gain new ones. That's it. Only monetary loss or gain. The callers at 911 centers (and I'm guessing you still haven't listened to any of these calls) have to handle different systems (with no ability to modify the UIs) contact different services, handle vital data and filter it out from non-vital ones when anything critical lost would mean deaths (as it had been). E.G. To become familiar with police, emergency medical and fire codes. Respond to caller situations appropriately, calmly and above all else, cogently. This is a far greater burden than any insurance operator will ever face in the line of work. It's most definitely not hyperbole.
  - 300bps 13y ago
    You've proven that no matter what I say, you will discount my experience and make guesses as to what I have or haven't done. Why would I continue writing to you? Have a nice day.
EvanAnderson 13y ago
I can't agree w/ this assessment more. I did some contract work on network gear in a rural Ohio county's 911 center a couple of years ago and spent a few days around the dispatch center. I have a ton of respect for the work that the dispatchers do. I listened to them stay calm, cool, and collected while taking calls from people who were completely freaked-out (angry, injured, scared, etc). The job is certainly a lot more than just answering the phone.
- eksith 13y ago
  Obviously there's a whole heap of details, systems and other areas to be thoroughly familiar with. My criticism was of OP suggesting that somehow 2 months not being good enough was a stretch and the story was hyperbole. Although I haven't dealt with 1/100th of the stress a 911 operator has to go through, I can say that sentiment is quite silly.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - EpicEng 13y ago
    You can say that based on experience? I don't know. I hear account A from someone who actually does the job, and retort B from some guy on HN who says little more than "answering phones can be stressful, but it's not hard." I'm inclined to believe the guy who has experience in the matter.
  - doorhammer 13y ago
    I'm pretty sure everyone responding to the 'hyperbole' comment in this particular thread is agreeing, but in a really confusing way
  - scott_s 13y ago
    EvanAnderson is agreeing with you. Perhaps you misread his comment?
LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
aren't you simply wasting a tone of precious time checking the details? Can't you find out the cause, send the folks the help, and only later gather all the details and pass them on to the crew on the way?
- eksith 13y ago
  Just a couple of things callers are surprising ambiguous about (this is just from the calls I've heard): - Where are you calling from? (Shockingly, this one is absurdly difficult to get from some people) - What's the emergency? (Often times, they don't even know) So you have to decipher, poke and prod until you get a response. You have to also understand that emergency resources are limited. A cop at one address is one less available at another, more critical, location. Same with ambulances and firefighters. What may turn out to be a mundane call could have diverted precious rescue resources form where it's really needed. So it's not that simple.

megablast 13y ago

I don't think it is just computer training, it is complete 911 training. Maybe includes emergency procedures and even simple psych profiling. This system is disgraceful, and endemic of cheap outsourced computer systems that places like EDS have been getting away with for a long time.

HCIdivision17 13y ago

I thought it was very easy to believe. A central conceit of the piece is that the system's maddeningly insane and needlessly difficult to interact with. If the system actually worked as advertised, you would certainly be right, and no doubt that was a goal of the refactor. But training people to deal with crashes and exceptions is very hard, especially if it is under pressure. Often, this sort of training only takes places as catastrophes happen. Imagine you're an operator, and you have to use a system that's made of failures and bugs, you're exhausted from working doubles, and you can't debug anything: when it fails you have to rely on someone else. (I have never worked in 911 operator facilities, only industrial operations.)

frossie 13y ago

Have you called 911? The operator essentially does triage over the phone, and advises what intervention the caller should engage in. They are not just there as dial-an-ambulance.

javajosh 13y ago

That would be true if you were a sociopath. But those with empathy need to learn to deal with stressful calls, and I imagine that would take some time and effort.

arkades 13y ago

I've done Lean work for hospital new patient intake centers. When it comes to triaging patients in extremely homogenous centers, the real training period is a few months long (formally it's one month, but that's really just to learn your way around the computer systems). In disease centers where the patients are calling with heterogenous complaints, the formal training period is also a month, but everyone agrees the real training period is just about two years plus weekly meetings with docs to learn about how to triage that week's oddball/edge cases. I suspect 911 calls are no less complex than scheduling people for a doctor's appointment.

moocowduckquack 13y ago

Don't be ridiculous. From that kind of perspective writing software is just typing. Say, did you hire the programming team that wrote the software they are using?

crististm 13y ago
some managers seem to believe exactly this

doorhammer 13y ago

I'm mostly glad to see a lot of reasonable responses to this. This attitude is one of the reasons why so many people have such terrible experiences calling in to companies. I'm talking about companies that have nothing to do with real life emergencies and life threatening consequences. Management tends to think "they just answer phones, so we can hire anyone, put them through a week of training and bam, they should be good to go, right?" I work in a pretty standard e-commerce environment. I was in training for awhile, and now some data analysis and software development. It's like just about anything else. Predict how long you think it will take to competently train someone and triple it. It's not easy to get people ready to handle the majority of the calls you get in a call center, and it's really really hard to get them to handle the absurd number of one-offs you might have. Again, that's without even considering the number of call types and the weight of the calls I'd imagine 911 operators get, all while having to stay polite and calm. Two months for a 911 operator in a major city like NY sounds kind of nutty to me, especially if the training is in the format I'm expecting it would be, and not something totally out of the box.

300bps 13y ago
This attitude is one of the reasons why so many people have such terrible experiences calling in to companies...Management tends to think "they just answer phones, so we can hire anyone, put them through a week of training and bam, they should be good to go, right?" You've missed the mark pretty terribly on this. The reason why so many people have such terrible experiences calling in to companies is because of substantial training. People in call centers today are trained to give you poor customer service. I can't tell you how many scripts I've seen that are written like: 1. If customer asks for X, tell them we can't do that 2. If customer insists, explain we can't do X because of A, B and C. 3. If customer still insists for X, tell them we can't do X but we are willing to do Y 4. If customer still insists for X, tell them we will call them back and then don't call them back. 5. If customer calls back for X, give them X And these types of scripts are written for things where a company is legally obligated to give their customer X. Sure, there are training issues but by far you are receiving poor customer service because the company doesn't really want you calling in the first place and they're training you not to call.

jrockway 13y ago

It's a tabloid, what do you expect?

doorhammer 13y ago
I can say that this is HN and I expected more than a completely uneducated dismissal of the complexities that someone else's profession might contain.

wisty 13y ago

Here's the problem: "911" "You have to send the cops over!" "What happened?" "It's my parents ..." If they don't triage properly, they'll be sending the police to deal with angry kids whose parents won't give them their pocket money. Or they'll not send the police to a violent confrontation. Also, you have to consider the kind of people who make a lot of 911 calls. It might be a drug user getting threatened by a dealer. It could be a drunk guy, who's had an accident. It could be something really embarrassing ("I fell on it"). Doing triage can be quite difficult, when the caller doesn't really say what has happened, but they need to find out enough to justify sending help.