EoC's World of Dispatching

[Suu]

Oh wow, he has a conscience. Mark it on the calendar before he changes his mind!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You know who has surprised me with the border children issue?  Glenn Beck.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-republicans-are-bordering-on-heartless/2014/07/13/cc152306-092e-11e4-8a6a-19355c7e870a_story.html

Glenn Beck says he has come under fierce attack from some of his fellow conservatives for a grave transgression.

His crime? He announced plans to bring food, water, teddy bears and soccer balls to at least some of the tens of thousands of Central American children who have crossed the border into the United States.

"Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire," Beck said. "Anyone, left or right, seeking political gain at the expense of these desperate, vulnerable, poor and suffering people are reprehensible."

Beck, not averse to a certain grandiosity, let us know that "I've never taken a position more deadly to my career than this." But assume he's right — and he may well be. It's one more sign of how the crisis at our border has brought out the very worst in our political system and a degree of plain nastiness that we should not be proud of as a nation.

When Republican talking points are to the right of Glenn Beck, you know something has gotten fucked up.

Wut

Wait

I'm so confused... I think reality might have sprung a leak.

[Eater of Clowns]

We have a vacancy.

Sometime around the dissolution of his third marriage, one of my coworkers who'd so long teetered on the edge of keeping it together leaned a little too far in the wrong direction. He went on vacation in August and he never really came back. Five weeks of vacation, three weeks of floating holidays, a week of personal days, 17 years of accumulated sick time, the Family Medical Leave Act, and some doctor's notes that I can only assume were written by the Surgeon General got him a total of two and a half hours worth of work between August and April. To be clear, I have no doubt he was in a truly bad way during this time, but that is separate from the fact that he's a self serving, manipulative wretch who is the clearest candidate for Narcissistic Personality Disorder that I have ever met.

He came back in April and seemed back to normal. He was funny as usual, when not being a generally repugnant bigot, and was able to do the work as always. Right before his leave he started getting big into ham radio, obsessed by it really. He studied like mad for his certification and he collected every little thing he could from flea markets and online bid sites. During his meltdown, which none of us realized was still ongoing, that community may well have been his only social outlet besides his mother and his cat.

A few months back local agencies, ourselves included, were getting hoax active shooter calls. When our department talked about our response to these hoaxes, he brought up hoax mayday calls being sent over his radio bands. He said what a waste of resources they were, for the coast guard to respond, and how the transmissions can be triangulated within a few yards of their point of origin. He would say how awful he found the perpetrator. Thing is, he brought those mayday calls up a few more times outside of this context.

He got pulled into the director's office last week, was in there for less than a minute, and left without a word after. He didn't log out or take his lunchbox, he just took off in his car. I got pulled into the office. I was told if he attempted entry to my office not to let him in and to direct him to investigations, where his property was awaiting him. Along with a notice of termination and a no trespass order.

Right now the story appears to be that he got involved with a ham radio gang. Yes, a goddamn ham radio gang. And whether as part of his initiation or as a vendetta, he used our background access to research some rivals and broadcast their personal information over the air. Oh, and on some nights he got bombed and called in hoax maydays from home.

That makes I think about six coworkers that have turned over since I've started, fully half of which have gone under circumstances inglorious or outright insane. And I look around the room and I wonder who is next.

[Junkenstein]

...Ham radio gang.

WTF

[Eater of Clowns]

...Ham radio gang.

WTF

I spent most of my day on Tuesday exclaiming "I don't fucking believe it!" periodically.

I'm still not sure I do.   

[Doktor Howl]

Ham radio gangs?

This is like something I'd write when I'm all fucked up on pills.   

[Eater of Clowns]

Ham radio gangs?

This is like something I'd write when I'm all fucked up on pills.   

This man was very, very fucked up on pills. Except he lived it. Just what the fuck. 

[Richter]

And I look around the room and I wonder who is next.

Wrong question, perhaps.  I wonder HOW will the next one go?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

HAM

RADIO

GANGS.

[Junkenstein]

And I look around the room and I wonder who is next.

Wrong question, perhaps.  I wonder HOW will the next one go?

Wrong question entirely.

The real questions are all about this ham radio gang and how far EOC has infiltrated it.

[Faust]

That sounds amazing, I wonder what his gang name was? I'm going to go with Marconi.

[Eater of Clowns]

And I look around the room and I wonder who is next.

Wrong question, perhaps.  I wonder HOW will the next one go?

It's been a pattern of every other crazy so far.

1. Gastric bypass gave her a confidence boost so she started trying to cheat on her husband. She got taken in by an online dating scam, moved to Colorado to shack up with a nonexistent dude, leaving her husband and three kids behind.

2. Took another job closer to home.

3.  Gastric bypass meds don't work well with alcohol, or alcoholism. Came into work one day parking by the inmate intake gate, couldn't find his way up the stairs. Tried to prevent his leaving while intoxicated but the guy struggled free and left, dragging feces across the floor as she shat himself.

4.  Took a job with better hours for her family.

5.  HAM RADIO GANGS.

So we'll probably have one or two more leave for greener pastures, and another two or three years from now have a somehow grander, more disturbing meltdown. My money is on 3rd gastric bypass guy or maybe lap band lady, just because fucking with your gastrointestinal tract seems to have a pretty profound effect on your psyche.

[Cain]

So what's the initiation ceremony for a ham radio gang?  Do they have colours?

[Eater of Clowns]

So what's the initiation ceremony for a ham radio gang?  Do they have colours?

You get squelched by each member in turn, and if you survive you're in, for life.


In related news, this is the most fun I have ever had at work.

The ham ganger left a first shift vacancy, which needs to be filled within the department. It goes by seniority, and while I'm halfway up that list I have no interest in losing my midday shift with weekends off. The lowest seniority member is so obnoxious my bosses spent the last day convincing another person to take it so they wouldn't have to work with the other woman.

The obnoxious one took it anyway. That leaves her second shift open. That spot is coveted by one other dispatcher, but another first shifter is thinking about taking it to avoid the obnoxious one. Plus, if he leaves his spot open a third shifter could potentially take that, leaving third shift open and prompting the first-turned-second shifter to take it, opening that second shift spot again. I've been threatening to take a partial weekend first with an interest in night school, just to add to the panic.

It's absolute chaos, and either way I am working with the exact same people only at different times of the day. I am the only one for whom it remains unchanged, so all I can do is sit back and lulz and lulz.

[Doktor Howl]

I can't see Ham gangs making drive-by shootings.  They're always at home in their "radio room".

Citizen's Band hooligans, though...I remember the days of terror back in the 70s, when the Coleco corporation irresponsibly put the power of the "CB40" into the hands of millions of impressionable kids and stupid people.  You learned to duck every time a Gran Fury turned down your block.  Their war cry was "HOW MUCH AM I PUSHING?" or "WHAT'S YOUR 20?" which were in fact the only things ever said over a CB radio that was not installed in a semi.

They started in the 70s, but they never really died out until the advent of affordable flip phones.