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My hell as a 911 operator

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Re: My hell as a 911 operator

#151

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

moocowduckquack wrote: post #148
LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, sure just have more forms for folks taking 911 calls -- I call it the Government efficiency!

Is funny to watch people decry state enterprise as being always doomed and wasteful, on the internet.

I don't. I think 911 should be run by the Government. I just see the difference between 911 calls I had in the US and their equivalent in Eastern Europe (Poland). To exaggarate: in the US you're like: "Help! Fast! Somebody's dying here! That's the address right here:..." Dispatcher:" What is your name, last name, shoe size, and how do you like the weather? Wait! Too fast! Typying it down!".

Poland:"what is the address? what's happening" Bam, dispatch!

Re: My hell as a 911 operator

#152

Post by acchow »

jowiar wrote: post #117

I am tired of HN (and the rest of the country) taking shots at government employees. They're talented. They work hard. They take pride in their work. They do a damn good job. If you look at any good technology product that's come out of government, it's almost always been a creation of federal employees: CFPB. Data.gov. Healthcare.gov. Some neat things coming out of the OPM. Accumulo. There are Github repositories: h…

> The system of "who can check all the boxes for the lowest price"

Basically, the problem is that their system crashes. Uptime should have been specified in the contract.

Re: My hell as a 911 operator

#153

Post by jowiar »

quanticle wrote: post #146
jowiar wrote: post #117

I am tired of HN (and the rest of the country) taking shots at government employees. They're talented. They work hard. They take pride in their work. They do a damn good job. If you look at any good technology product that's come out of government, it's almost always been a creation of federal employees: CFPB. Data.gov. Healthcare.gov. Some neat things coming out of the OPM. Accumulo. There are Github repositories: h…

How is this a shot at government employees? If anything, this is a tale of how government employees are bearing up under pressure that would have caused any of us to quit in under a week. The government employees didn't design the craptacular computer system that's causing these problems. That was designed by Intergraph, a private company.

I wasn't replying to the article. I saw a handful of posts in the discussion blaming lazy, incompetent, or malicious government employees, and didn't want to post the same thing multiple times within the thread.

Re: My hell as a 911 operator

#154

Post by dkarl »

josh2600 wrote: post #87

Ok, I have something to add here for the following reasons: * I build big call centers for a living * I'm a really big Telecom Nerd You might be wondering why something as important as 911 is not automated or accessible via any other mechanism; why is it that the most critical service in the country runs on a system that hasn't materially changed since 1984? For one, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is ex…

The supposed advantage of a hodgepodge is that somewhere the right approach has been tried and is working well, and pressure will mount on cities with inferior systems to either match or adopt the better systems. Where, if anywhere, is 911 being done well, and how slowly or quickly will the successful approaches spread? Do you think this dynamic will lead to places like New York having faster and more reliable 911 systems, or should they concentrate on their own efforts?

Re: My hell as a 911 operator

#155

Post by bmelton »

jowiar wrote: post #149
bmelton wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm not attempting to come off contrarian, I should say that trading potshots at government workers for potshots at government contractors seems short-sighted and highly hypocritical. Having worked in both, I can say that both have their strengths and weaknesses. Where you would fault contractors though, I would generally fault the contracts themselves, or the faults of the contract overseers. Government contra…

Based on my experience, agreed entirely. I've worked with stellar people at multiple large and small government contractors. The structure of the contract just doesn't lead to a mentality of "let's make something great", but rather "lets get these boxes checked".

Let's get these boxes checked... while attending two meetings a day with different groups of stakeholders with entirely different visions for the product, that want to use it completely differently.

Let's get these boxes checked... while every stakeholder wants to see our project fail because they'd rather waste a few million dollars and get a proof of concept so that they can then hand the contract off to the vendor they wished had won the bid in the first place. (Note, this happens to ALL vendors, because every group has a different favorite.)

Let's get these boxes checked... while having to justify every single change to the environment to the Enterprise Architecture Board ("Why do you need to use Python? Can't you build it in Java?") as well as to the Change Control Board ("Why do you need to open port 80 to this server? Can't we simply proxy that through our dated and oversaturated proxies? Why won't your load balancing work without sticky session support?")

Let's get these boxes checked... even though the government has given us three conflicting visions of the project and now refuses to pay us because we're behind schedule because we cannot meet all the new feature requirements that have arisen.

Etc., etc. It's a hellish game.

Re: My hell as a 911 operator

#156

Post by greenyoda »

jowiar wrote: post #149
bmelton wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm not attempting to come off contrarian, I should say that trading potshots at government workers for potshots at government contractors seems short-sighted and highly hypocritical. Having worked in both, I can say that both have their strengths and weaknesses. Where you would fault contractors though, I would generally fault the contracts themselves, or the faults of the contract overseers. Government contra…

Based on my experience, agreed entirely. I've worked with stellar people at multiple large and small government contractors. The structure of the contract just doesn't lead to a mentality of "let's make something great", but rather "lets get these boxes checked".

The structure of the contract just doesn't lead to a mentality of "let's make something great"...

This mentality is probably true for most systems that are built for the internal use of an organization rather than as a product that has to compete on the open market. For example, software built by IT departments for use inside large corporations is notoriously badly designed and hard to use.

Re: My hell as a 911 operator

#158

Post by rdouble »

imonkey wrote: post #157

I see Windows blue taskbar on the photo. HOW ITS POSSIBLE TO RUN SUCH IMPORTANT SYSTEM ON THE F G WINDOWS??????? Answer me please!

I hate to break this to you, but airplane systems, medical systems, banking systems, fuel pump systems and a lot of other systems all run on Windows.

Re: My hell as a 911 operator

#160

Post by thezach »

briandear wrote: post #127
thezach wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing twitter to a 911 call center is like comparing a monochrome display to a 4k display 911 call centers have to interface with many different computer systems (for example the National Criminal Information center, department of motor vehicles, FBI CJIS, in house databases, court records systems, mapping, computer aided dispatch, weather information, etc. Many of these systems (the NCIC, and CJIS have very stri…

911 doesn't need to interface with the NCIS. That isn't helpful for a 911 dispatch. The police systems need that access but this whole discussion isn't about the police system, it's about triaging calls to the appropriate responding agency. FBI data is irrelevant. The FBI is never dispatched via 911, FBI dispatch would happen only after the local agencies deemed it necessary (at least in this context.) 911 operators…

Its NCIC... not NCIS... Gibbs would be slapping you on the back of the head right now.

And yes 911 operators do have access to NCIC and FBI CJIS. They often are running people involved in incidents when cars are en route. Knowing who they are dealing with often dictates the number of cars that respond, the officers tactics when responding, etc. Both of those databases have nationwide info that states share on warrants, convictions, drivers licenses, etc

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