The 14 1/2 hour shift
On Saturday I worked the longest day ever at HQ. I didn't realise when I got up at 0520 that I wouldn't be return home till 2235. If I had perhaps I wouldn't have stayed up to watch Celebrity Big Brother or called in sick or something but as it was I was blissfully unaware on that long, cold drive into work. Neither was I aware that I wouldn't get a break for 8 1/2 hours. Again, if I had maybe I would have insisted on a break at 1530!! Luckily, the last break I had was for lunch so at least I wasn't wasting away by the end of the night!!
So why did I work the longest shift ever? You may have heard about it on the news or watched it happen live on Sky News. On Saturday there was a protest march headed for the Israeli Embassy and boy were there a lot of angry people in it. Now I have to confess that I know very little about what is happening in Gaza and the Israeli and Palestinian people and for that I apologise. My very very knowledgeable colleague gave me the lowdown of the history and reasons for the conflict during the following shift but I never really fully understood what it was about. All I know is that currently there is lots of fighting going on in the Gaza strip and I'm guessing the Israeli's are involved hence the protest outside the Embassy.
During the latter part of the morning, my OCM came round and reminded me that I was on the manning for ICR that day as Primary Telecoms. The ICR (Incident Control Room) manning is up everyday but it's always a bad sign when someone comes round and "reminds" you that you're on it. It generally means they have knowledge of something that might hit the proverbial fan.
So at 1600 I found myself being relieved from allocating, grabbing my map book and resource file and heading out into ICR a little oblivious as to why I was there. Now I've been in ICR before - I think I wrote about it (possibly on the old blog that has sadly disappeared forever into the Internet Cemetery taking all my posts with it) Last time I went in was for 2 buses that had crashed and I was Tertiary Telecoms which basically meant I was the dogsbody.
This time however, as Primary I was what we call First Wave. When an incident happens, first wave (Incident Controller, Radio Operator and Primary Telecoms) are sent out to set up the room and make the first arrangements. You log into the computers, set up the 2 radio systems - our Managers now use a system of radios call Airwave when running incidents and events, get the TVs onto the news channels, set up the big screens that show the log of the call, sort out the TFL cameras (The CCTV cameras run by Transport for London) so that we can see the incident in real time - all that sort of thing. The Radio Operators job is self explanatory. The main job of the Primary telecoms is to contact the nominated hospitals and advise them to go on Major Incident Standby or activate their Major Incident plan and find out how many patients they can each take in each category (Priority1, Priority2 and Priority3 - P1 being the most serious, P2 serious but not life threatening and P3 the walking wounded)
If the incident remains fairly small we leave it to the 3 people. If it gets slightly bigger then we bring in second wave which adds a Status Board Operator and Secondary telecoms. The status board is filled in with all the Officers on scene, the ambulance call signs, the times they get there, the nominated hospitals and how many patients we have sent to each etc. Secondary Telecoms deals with the outer county ambulance services and other services as and when required - police, LFB, PTS, St Johns, red Cross etc.
In this case, as we didn't have really have any patients, my role was a little defunct so I actually became a scribe for the RT op. She spoke to the officers on scene and I typed everything up onto the log. This meant she could concentrate on that without having to try and type at the speed of - something I'm a little better at! I can say that coz the RT op was actually my partner!!
And so I spent the rest of my afternoon dealing with the incident. At times, we really thought it was going to kick off big time. The crowd outside the embassy was at about 5000 and they broke through the barriers, using them as missiles towards the police. They were also throwing fireworks and burning flags which was all very worrying. We were asked at around 1800 if we would mind staying and getting it as overtime. Our manager, who both my partner and I like and very much respect, was staying and so we all ended up saying we would join him. He has gone out of his way on many occasions to help us and so it felt like we were, in some small way, repaying the favour. If I'm completely honest I was actually really enjoying it out there and it's always nice to see something like this through to the end.
Nothing really happened in the end and after only a handful of patients, the Police slowly closed in around the group dispersing those that weren't causing too much trouble and arresting those that were! At about 2115 the incident was stood down and we had a quick debrief on how things had gone - or as we call it a hot debrief.
There were 2 things that happened afterwards that really impressed me. The first was the Officer in ICR with us acting as Gold (the main man in charge). Towards the end of the incident we mentioned that we were hungry and without any hesitation he handed me a credit card and told me to order pizza for everyone. This was very much appreciated by everyone especially me who doesn't have a takeaway pizza shop near home!
The second happened the next morning when we were all called to a meeting with the AOM. We presumed this was going to be a proper debrief but when we got there it was simply to say Thank You. We were all given a letter of thanks that was also put in our files. It said "...the commitment from staff was admirable knowing it was likely to extend beyond their core shift hours. The team worked on providing the command team with the support and continuity necessary at a time of civil unrest. I would like to thank you for your display of professionalism and dedication ...". It was a small gesture but I know that we were all very impressed and thankful for it. It's not often you get recognised for the work you do, not that we do it for thanks, but too many managers I think sometimes take us for granted. For once I actually feel appreciated for the work I do.
So why did I work the longest shift ever? You may have heard about it on the news or watched it happen live on Sky News. On Saturday there was a protest march headed for the Israeli Embassy and boy were there a lot of angry people in it. Now I have to confess that I know very little about what is happening in Gaza and the Israeli and Palestinian people and for that I apologise. My very very knowledgeable colleague gave me the lowdown of the history and reasons for the conflict during the following shift but I never really fully understood what it was about. All I know is that currently there is lots of fighting going on in the Gaza strip and I'm guessing the Israeli's are involved hence the protest outside the Embassy.
During the latter part of the morning, my OCM came round and reminded me that I was on the manning for ICR that day as Primary Telecoms. The ICR (Incident Control Room) manning is up everyday but it's always a bad sign when someone comes round and "reminds" you that you're on it. It generally means they have knowledge of something that might hit the proverbial fan.
So at 1600 I found myself being relieved from allocating, grabbing my map book and resource file and heading out into ICR a little oblivious as to why I was there. Now I've been in ICR before - I think I wrote about it (possibly on the old blog that has sadly disappeared forever into the Internet Cemetery taking all my posts with it) Last time I went in was for 2 buses that had crashed and I was Tertiary Telecoms which basically meant I was the dogsbody.
This time however, as Primary I was what we call First Wave. When an incident happens, first wave (Incident Controller, Radio Operator and Primary Telecoms) are sent out to set up the room and make the first arrangements. You log into the computers, set up the 2 radio systems - our Managers now use a system of radios call Airwave when running incidents and events, get the TVs onto the news channels, set up the big screens that show the log of the call, sort out the TFL cameras (The CCTV cameras run by Transport for London) so that we can see the incident in real time - all that sort of thing. The Radio Operators job is self explanatory. The main job of the Primary telecoms is to contact the nominated hospitals and advise them to go on Major Incident Standby or activate their Major Incident plan and find out how many patients they can each take in each category (Priority1, Priority2 and Priority3 - P1 being the most serious, P2 serious but not life threatening and P3 the walking wounded)
If the incident remains fairly small we leave it to the 3 people. If it gets slightly bigger then we bring in second wave which adds a Status Board Operator and Secondary telecoms. The status board is filled in with all the Officers on scene, the ambulance call signs, the times they get there, the nominated hospitals and how many patients we have sent to each etc. Secondary Telecoms deals with the outer county ambulance services and other services as and when required - police, LFB, PTS, St Johns, red Cross etc.
In this case, as we didn't have really have any patients, my role was a little defunct so I actually became a scribe for the RT op. She spoke to the officers on scene and I typed everything up onto the log. This meant she could concentrate on that without having to try and type at the speed of - something I'm a little better at! I can say that coz the RT op was actually my partner!!
And so I spent the rest of my afternoon dealing with the incident. At times, we really thought it was going to kick off big time. The crowd outside the embassy was at about 5000 and they broke through the barriers, using them as missiles towards the police. They were also throwing fireworks and burning flags which was all very worrying. We were asked at around 1800 if we would mind staying and getting it as overtime. Our manager, who both my partner and I like and very much respect, was staying and so we all ended up saying we would join him. He has gone out of his way on many occasions to help us and so it felt like we were, in some small way, repaying the favour. If I'm completely honest I was actually really enjoying it out there and it's always nice to see something like this through to the end.
Nothing really happened in the end and after only a handful of patients, the Police slowly closed in around the group dispersing those that weren't causing too much trouble and arresting those that were! At about 2115 the incident was stood down and we had a quick debrief on how things had gone - or as we call it a hot debrief.
There were 2 things that happened afterwards that really impressed me. The first was the Officer in ICR with us acting as Gold (the main man in charge). Towards the end of the incident we mentioned that we were hungry and without any hesitation he handed me a credit card and told me to order pizza for everyone. This was very much appreciated by everyone especially me who doesn't have a takeaway pizza shop near home!
The second happened the next morning when we were all called to a meeting with the AOM. We presumed this was going to be a proper debrief but when we got there it was simply to say Thank You. We were all given a letter of thanks that was also put in our files. It said "...the commitment from staff was admirable knowing it was likely to extend beyond their core shift hours. The team worked on providing the command team with the support and continuity necessary at a time of civil unrest. I would like to thank you for your display of professionalism and dedication ...". It was a small gesture but I know that we were all very impressed and thankful for it. It's not often you get recognised for the work you do, not that we do it for thanks, but too many managers I think sometimes take us for granted. For once I actually feel appreciated for the work I do.
posted by Beaker at
1:56 AM
1 Comments:
"Thank you" costs so little, yet goes such a long way.
On the day we broke up for Christmas, I went round the shop floor at the company where I work (Quality Manager & Safety Officer) and wished everyone Merry Christmas.
Some people were gobsmacked. It seems I'm the first senior manager to bother doing that.
By
MarkUK, at 10:39 PM
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