Back to Training
Another couple of weeks has passed since writing and I yet again have no excuse for not writing!! Things haven't been busy, I haven't been doing anything exciting that has taken me away from a computer for weeks, I have simply been a bit lazy!! But thanks to a lovely comment from one of my Facebook "friends" (you know who you are!) I thought it was time to pull my finger out and do some posting!!
For the last couple of sets of shifts (4 earlies and then 4 nights) I've had to dust off my Work Based Trainer hat and have a trainee on dispatch. It's been great actually as it's been a fair while since I've done it. I was allowed to have a break after I made a childish fuss of having 4 trainees (albeit none of them for the full training period), one after the other on the 9's. This meant that I couldn't consolidate my allocator training and so I asked to be allowed to have a reprieve until that was done.
It's always a bonus having a very competent trainee - after about 2 shifts there isn't a lot for the trainer to do except supervise. Dispatching is fairly self explanatory and once you've gone over the technical bits of how to actually do it, it doesn't take a genius to just get on with it. The bit that takes the time is learning how to take crew queries. This may sound like a very simple thing to do - listen to what they want, find out the answer and let them know. Oh if only life were that simple. Quite often you have to spend about 5 minutes deciphering what the crew actually want. Crews (as lovely as you all are) tend to get a bit technical sometimes and if you aren't familiar with some of the language, it can all sound a bit baffling. People who have been doing the job a while start learning different abbreviations and medical jargon but no one ever actually teaches it all to you.
Once you have worked out what the crew need, you then have to find the desk they work under. If every sector is split then you have a one in 11 or 12 chances of getting it right. And the phone always confuses you as it comes up with a sector in the caller id box - and this is very rarely correct as the ECA phones were programmed in about 1804 and all the sectors have changed around!! Camden have been run under 3 desks in the 2 years I've been here as just one example.
You then have to go and speak to the allocator who undoubtedly needs to know more information so you scuttle back to the phone and speak to the crew again and then hurry back to the allocator. When you finally find out an answer, you usually then have to fill in paperwork to accompany it - a green if they have broken down, a yellow if they need to drop of equipment or pick up stores, orange if they are going out on standby. You have to write it on the electronic log and make sure the allocator knows the final outcome.
Once you've done this for 3 or 4 shifts, it all becomes second nature but to begin with it feels like you're never going to sit down for more than 3 seconds. And then one day you realise that you know the answer to the question and although you still check with the allocator, you can drop into autopilot. And then not long after that, you can answer things without having to check with the allocator and you can just fill in the paperwork and drop it off at the loggist for them. And so it carries on until one day you get asked if you can train someone new and you wonder how you ever got to that point. Time just flies and suddenly without any real warning, the trainee becomes the trainer.
It's like the circle of life!! Or the downward spiral - however you like to look at it!!
For the last couple of sets of shifts (4 earlies and then 4 nights) I've had to dust off my Work Based Trainer hat and have a trainee on dispatch. It's been great actually as it's been a fair while since I've done it. I was allowed to have a break after I made a childish fuss of having 4 trainees (albeit none of them for the full training period), one after the other on the 9's. This meant that I couldn't consolidate my allocator training and so I asked to be allowed to have a reprieve until that was done.
It's always a bonus having a very competent trainee - after about 2 shifts there isn't a lot for the trainer to do except supervise. Dispatching is fairly self explanatory and once you've gone over the technical bits of how to actually do it, it doesn't take a genius to just get on with it. The bit that takes the time is learning how to take crew queries. This may sound like a very simple thing to do - listen to what they want, find out the answer and let them know. Oh if only life were that simple. Quite often you have to spend about 5 minutes deciphering what the crew actually want. Crews (as lovely as you all are) tend to get a bit technical sometimes and if you aren't familiar with some of the language, it can all sound a bit baffling. People who have been doing the job a while start learning different abbreviations and medical jargon but no one ever actually teaches it all to you.
Once you have worked out what the crew need, you then have to find the desk they work under. If every sector is split then you have a one in 11 or 12 chances of getting it right. And the phone always confuses you as it comes up with a sector in the caller id box - and this is very rarely correct as the ECA phones were programmed in about 1804 and all the sectors have changed around!! Camden have been run under 3 desks in the 2 years I've been here as just one example.
You then have to go and speak to the allocator who undoubtedly needs to know more information so you scuttle back to the phone and speak to the crew again and then hurry back to the allocator. When you finally find out an answer, you usually then have to fill in paperwork to accompany it - a green if they have broken down, a yellow if they need to drop of equipment or pick up stores, orange if they are going out on standby. You have to write it on the electronic log and make sure the allocator knows the final outcome.
Once you've done this for 3 or 4 shifts, it all becomes second nature but to begin with it feels like you're never going to sit down for more than 3 seconds. And then one day you realise that you know the answer to the question and although you still check with the allocator, you can drop into autopilot. And then not long after that, you can answer things without having to check with the allocator and you can just fill in the paperwork and drop it off at the loggist for them. And so it carries on until one day you get asked if you can train someone new and you wonder how you ever got to that point. Time just flies and suddenly without any real warning, the trainee becomes the trainer.
It's like the circle of life!! Or the downward spiral - however you like to look at it!!
posted by Beaker at
9:09 PM
2 Comments:
My first trainee has been training someone on the nines recently. Feels dead weird as I still think of her as a newbie!
By
teqkiller, at 12:02 PM
great to see a new post from you, ive just finished my AMPDS training. Although im training as a call handler ive been watching dispatch stuff too, u explain it better than the woman showin me. :-)
By
Kyle, at 3:57 PM
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