ATTN MORTALS: Post ITT for a quest to make you more Holy™.

[Phox]

I'm doing crap at my quest. Haven't even looked at another forum in days.

S'okay, Faust, I won't be able to do mine til at least May. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm doing crap at my quest. Haven't even looked at another forum in days.

S'okay, Faust, I won't be able to do mine til at least May. 

BECAUSE ARTHUR HAD, LIKE, 3 DAYS TO FETCH THE GRAIL!



Relax.  There's no time limit unless specified.

[Iason Ouabache]

Am I too late for a quest?

It's never too late.

You're near/around Indianapolis, right?

Yes, west side of Indianapolis and occasionally in Terre Haute.

PLEASE TO HAVE QUEST NOW, O HOLY ONE!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Am I too late for a quest?

It's never too late.

You're near/around Indianapolis, right?

Yes, west side of Indianapolis and occasionally in Terre Haute.

PLEASE TO HAVE QUEST NOW, O HOLY ONE!

You will arrange to have a meetup with at least one other board member, past or present, whom you have not met before.

Who, how, and where is entirely up to you.  This will occur within the next 90 days.

You will post pics.

[Iason Ouabache]

Am I too late for a quest?

It's never too late.

You're near/around Indianapolis, right?

Yes, west side of Indianapolis and occasionally in Terre Haute.

PLEASE TO HAVE QUEST NOW, O HOLY ONE!

You will arrange to have a meetup with at least one other board member, past or present, whom you have not met before.

Who, how, and where is entirely up to you.  This will occur within the next 90 days.

You will post pics.

Damn, that's a tough one. Hopefully NWC will be flying back into the states within the next 3 months or Phox is willing to meet me halfway at  a seedy redneck bar in southern IL.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Am I too late for a quest?

It's never too late.

You're near/around Indianapolis, right?

Yes, west side of Indianapolis and occasionally in Terre Haute.

PLEASE TO HAVE QUEST NOW, O HOLY ONE!

You will arrange to have a meetup with at least one other board member, past or present, whom you have not met before.

Who, how, and where is entirely up to you.  This will occur within the next 90 days.

You will post pics.

Damn, that's a tough one. Hopefully NWC will be flying back into the states within the next 3 months or Phox is willing to meet me halfway at  a seedy redneck bar in southern IL.

There's one or two Indiana Spags on board.  That might be more productive.

[Phox]

Am I too late for a quest?

It's never too late.

You're near/around Indianapolis, right?

Yes, west side of Indianapolis and occasionally in Terre Haute.

PLEASE TO HAVE QUEST NOW, O HOLY ONE!

You will arrange to have a meetup with at least one other board member, past or present, whom you have not met before.

Who, how, and where is entirely up to you.  This will occur within the next 90 days.

You will post pics.

Damn, that's a tough one. Hopefully NWC will be flying back into the states within the next 3 months or Phox is willing to meet me halfway at  a seedy redneck bar in southern IL.

That gives us plenty of options. 

[Eater of Clowns]

Been three weeks.  I'll have the write up of acting like Vimes shortly.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Am I too late for a quest?

It's never too late.

You're near/around Indianapolis, right?

Yes, west side of Indianapolis and occasionally in Terre Haute.

PLEASE TO HAVE QUEST NOW, O HOLY ONE!

You will arrange to have a meetup with at least one other board member, past or present, whom you have not met before.

Who, how, and where is entirely up to you.  This will occur within the next 90 days.

You will post pics.

Damn, that's a tough one. Hopefully NWC will be flying back into the states within the next 3 months or Phox is willing to meet me halfway at  a seedy redneck bar in southern IL.

That gives us plenty of options.  

HEY NOW remember I'm in St. Louis right across the river from Illinois so if y'all are gonna do something in IL..... Even if it is with my arch nemesis..   

[Phox]

Whoops.

You want an EASY one, or a DIFFICULT one?

Oooh that's a hard choice. Can I haz both?

No.  One or the other.

DECIDE, MORTAL.  THE GODS ARE IMPATIENT AND FICKLE!

Okay.... give me an EASY one, then.

You will seek out Khara in St Louis, and go have a beer with her.

Pics to be posted, evening to be documented.

This is my quest, Khara. I have to find YOU in St. Louis. 

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Whoops.

You want an EASY one, or a DIFFICULT one?

Oooh that's a hard choice. Can I haz both?

No.  One or the other.

DECIDE, MORTAL.  THE GODS ARE IMPATIENT AND FICKLE!

Okay.... give me an EASY one, then.

You will seek out Khara in St Louis, and go have a beer with her.

Pics to be posted, evening to be documented.

This is my quest, Khara. I have to find YOU in St. Louis. 

It's so very simple to find me.  Go to south city, what they like to call the garden district, go two blocks north and ask the first person you see where the crazy white lady lives....   

[Phox]

Whoops.

You want an EASY one, or a DIFFICULT one?

Oooh that's a hard choice. Can I haz both?

No.  One or the other.

DECIDE, MORTAL.  THE GODS ARE IMPATIENT AND FICKLE!

Okay.... give me an EASY one, then.

You will seek out Khara in St Louis, and go have a beer with her.

Pics to be posted, evening to be documented.

This is my quest, Khara. I have to find YOU in St. Louis. 

It's so very simple to find me.  Go to south city, what they like to call the garden district, go two blocks north and ask the first person you see where the crazy white lady lives....   

Has to wait until May. Will get in touch with you and make arrangements then. 

[Eater of Clowns]

So, since there is actually no way I could be more cynical about my job, and since there's no grand mystery to solve, I went wth highlighting Vimes' strong ability to describe the mindset and proper method of police work.  Here's part one, of three, one for each week on the quest:

A good copper does the job that's in front of them.  A dispatcher that does the job in front of him is ignoring the jobs to the left, right, behind, and probably another one or two also in front of him.  There's two parts of the job.  The waiting part, that's where the punch clock turns into a shackle.  Then there's the working part.  That's when your field of vision needs take on certain aspects of the house fly.  You aren't a dispatcher unless you're absolutely miserable doing either.

Nobody's perfected this more than Mick.  You meet him and he's personable enough, the kind of guy that was always a bit of a hot shot in his youth that's put on a bit of paunch after a marriage and a couple of kids.  Then the radio goes off.

"Uuugh," he pronounces.  He dispatches, and he's done, then, "sickening already."

The pronounced groan is how we identify him.  The conversation generally goes "Who did you work with last night," and the response is, "uuuugh."

Now a dispatcher is a funny kind of character.  They don't like people very much.  They like being the ones with all the information.  They need things to be organized.  And they need to not care a whole lot about it.
You get someone who cares too much, and they're going to be broken by Daniels.

Daniels is the K9 officer, and there has never been a more appropriate match between a job description and the person who does it.

"Daniels to Dispatch."

"Uuugh.  Go ahead K9."

"I'm out on Route 34, westbound.  Small vehicle disabled in the left turn lane.  I'll be standing by.  Just for the log, show me out on Route 34, westbound with that vehicle.  It's in a bad spot waiting for a tow.  Show me out with it.  For the log, Mick."

For Daniels the log is magic.  It is salvation, a witness to life's every event.  And with Daniels, there are a lot of events.  Broken down cars, drivers without licenses, lost motorists, confused elderly, unregistered cars, warrants, everything.  And all of it for the log.

"Sickening already," Mick says.

You have to let him do it.  The only thing worse than groaning and taking every call we get is, for him, having someone else do it.

"Daniels to Dispatch."

"Uuugh.  Go ahead Daniels."

"Yeah I'm out with that vehicle.  Driver says she's broken down, already called for a tow.  Do me a favor, Mick, get on the line with the police department and see if they can send a tow.  Sometimes they're faster.  And show me standing by in the log, Mick."

"Received."

Today is Sunday.  Sunday is always a punch-clock-is-your-enemy kind of day.  With the exception of K9 Daniels.

"Daniels to Dispatch."

"Dispatch."

"You can show me clear of that location, for the log.  The towing company showed up.  So I'll be off the scene en route back to the station."

"Received."

Infinitely.  Because some coppers actually do the job that's in front of them.  It's just that for some, the job seems a lot more alive.  You spend a few weeks with Daniels and you notice a pattern of things just happening around him.  For anyone else, it would be a day as normal.  But for Daniels, a day as normal included no less than two tow trucks, a drug search, a bilingual interpreter, three reams of paper, more reports than most entire agencies can accomplish in a year, and a quick chat up in the dispatch room with a guy who just can't seem to sit still.

Mick hates it, but that's because Mick hates work.  It's not that he doesn't like to work, it's just that work qualifies as something.  Work being something, and things which Mick hates being everything, the natural conclusion is one stubbornly pessimistic dispatcher.

I like Daniels because he's a nice guy, and that's all there is to it.  Nice guy who has a way of getting under people's skin, but a nice guy.  I've worked with a copper who does nothing.  He goes through the motions, having us do all the paperwork, moving about for the sake of looking busy, and then when it comes time for him to take action he simply doesn't.

That one was why I don't hate the log.  It's about liability, and a dangerously inactive copper is more than ready to make excuses as to why he's dangerously inactive when that sort of thing gets noticed.  And dispatch is where the blame tends to go.

So you sit, and you wait.  Sitting in the office you can't make things happen.  But when they do, you do them all.  You make the little world of policing go around, to make sure a copper that's moving about isn't doing so in one place.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Fuck yes.

[Eater of Clowns]

The phones go off in the evenings.  We are not receptionists.  We are dispatchers.  A receptionist is someone who is there to help you.  A dispatcher is someone who you are interrupting from doing actual work.  So when the receptionist turns the phone off in the evening and you get a voice that sounds like it would happily toss you a heavy stone while you drowned, you are talking to the dispatcher.

"Dispatch."  That is all.  It is the department, perhaps the name of the speaker.  No 'how can I help you' or 'how can I direct your call,' just 'dispatch.'  In fact, we don't really want to help you.  It just happens that helping you is the fastest way of getting off the line.

"Hi, I'm not sure if I have the right department.  I'm looking for the caseworker for NS unit."

"Administrative staff has stepped out for the day, you'll have to call back tomorrow during business hours."
Click.

We don't take messages.  We don't take them from one staff member to another, we don't take them from civilians to inmates.  We connect you to the right phone extension or to the right person, and the faster we can do this the happier we'll both be.

"Dispatch."

"My boyfriend got locked up and I want to put money in his canteen."

"I'm going to send you to the inmate information line."  Transfer, click.

That's because we know how communication works.  You get the gist but the details get all mangled up.  And when you're giving a story with details, it's the details that get questioned.  Can't answer a question about something we weren't directly privy to, so we send you to the person who was.  We are the middle man, and we are more than happy to cut ourselves out.

"Dispatch."

"I'd like to speak with Officer Smith."

"I'm going to send you to the control desk."  Transfer, click.

The phones rings and one of seven people are on the line.  The first can't string a thought together, but can manage a sentence.  The second has something clearly in mind, but can't actually speak it.  The third doesn't understand that you can't solve all of their problems.  The fourth manages to talk without a fraction of a pause, somehow not breathing.  The fifth can only speak in shrieks.  The sixth is your boss.  The seventh is an actual nice person.  One through six overlap.  In two years I have spoken with seven a total of three times, and they probably only qualify because it was a very short conversation.

Then there's the calls coming from a line that you can tell from the ID are going to be misdials.
"Sheriff's Office."

"Hello, is this Dr. Springer's office?"

"No, this is the Sheriff's Office."

"What number is this?"

"It's the number for the Sheriff's Office."

They never believe you.  Like you were mistaken.  No, sir, you're right, this is Papa Gino's Pizzeria, answering for a county sheriff's office three times was my mistake.  Let me offer you some bread sticks.
But every so often the phone can be difficult instead of a nuisance.  It is for these reasons that Pete has learned to avoid it.

Pete's the newest hire, the only one with less time than me, and holds the title of the reddest human being I've ever met.  The office is thankfully devoid of sharp objects, because I'm fairly certain he is composed entirely of blood, which upon disturbing would then spray like a power wash through our equipment.  Pete's a simple guy.  The processes of the office that have an established solution are the ones he's quite good at.  They don't require very much judgment or, well, thinking.

The phone is where that gets complicated.  People are on the other line of that thing, and they are notoriously untidy.

Pete's more of an ambulance call kind of guy.  The ambulance calls on the radio, they tell you the hospital they want to talk to, and you patch their signal through to that location.  Clean, simple, totally unlike humans on phones.

So rather often, they get me.  And, worse, they get me when I'm busy.  And, even worse, they might even get me when it's so busy that I haven't had a moment to eat my supper.  Hungry people are funny things.  Call me at one hour and you're just an inconvenience.  Call me at another and you are an obstacle preventing me from undertaking a biological imperative which falls under the category of a requirement to live.  That needs to be addressed suitably.

"Dispatch."

"Hi, I wanted to know if someone is there."

"Yes.  Several people.  Thanks for checking."  Click.