PERSPECTIVE

I just had some idiot yell at me for 10 minutes about how we weren't responding fast enough to his loud music complaint. And yes, I tried hanging up on him after very politely explaining the concept of 'priority calls', but he kept calling back! Yes, I understand its extremely frustrating to have your sleep disturbed! Yes, I understand that this is a very high priority for YOU sir (but it's not for US!) Nothing seemed to get through to him. He kept trying to convince me that the priority of his call just went up becuase now he was really upset. (as opposed to just annoyed?) Then comes the magic question... "what has to happen for this [insert loud music, barking dog, back-talking child, lost puppy, etc] to become a priority?". I love that, because then you're prepared for the NEXT time they call when they add some NEW development that they forgot to tell us about the last 10 times they called, like he has a knife, or there may have been a gun, etc. I wanted to reach through the line and throttle him. Meanwhile, legitimate emergency calls are on hold while we deal with calls like this! Harrassing us just makes us mad, it won't get you a cop any faster! Surprise, surprise. The next time he calls, it's suddenly a domestic violence call - male chasing a female with a beer bottle.
AFTER we dealt with the man with a gun and the roll-over traffic collision, he got a cop. And at the urging of one very annoyed dispatcher, the officers paid the 'annonymous' male caller a little visit to make extra sure the music level was acceptable. I love ANI/ALI.