Well, that didn't work.

Daley wins another election in a landslide.

Better luck next time. By the way, when do contract negotiations start, again? Months after the current contract expires? Also from the same Scum-Times article:

Contracts with city unions expire June 30 and a showdown looms. Last time around, the police contract was handed down by an arbitrator, and it took 28 months to nail down an agreement with the building trades that ended up denying retirees back paychecks.

28 months. Don't the contracts last for 36? We seem to recall our previous contract expiring in 2004, and the new one getting ratified in October of 2006 - and not until after sworn personnel got theirs. We don't predict the next negotiations proceeding any more quickly. Now that the mayor has won a 6th term, his belief of invincibility has surely worsened. And you know what that means for his employees, especially since most of our unions decided not to endorse him for another term. We expect to feel more wrath.

Payback's a bitch.

The suburbs join in.

From a faithful reader:

Hey there CPDDispatch!

I was trolling around on second city cop today and discovered a link to
a new police blog. It is set up by a copper in the suburbs, and is called "BURBSCOPSCHICAGO".

burbcopschicago.blogspot.com

Thanks. And best of luck to the new blog, it's been added to our links section.

Today is Election Day.

Get out and VOTE. If you don't vote for CHANGE in the city government (Read: Elected officials with direct and consistently negative influence on our jobs), you have no right to complain about said elected officials, if you know what we mean, or whom we're referring to.

Mandatory overtime (again) and the long haul.

We hear that 2nd Watch dispatchers have been held over for at least three straight days now, and the new period doesn't start until Thursday. Surprisingly, mandatory overtime for 3rd Watch personnel has been held to a minimum, at least for now. Who knows what the new period will bring?

We do. It'll bring more regular mandatory overtime for all watches except for 1st Watch, including 4th and 5th Watches. There hasn't been any more medical use than usual, and there's plenty of inclement weather that people won't get "sick" to enjoy. It's still winter, even. We're just that short on people to staff the floor.

It's going to be a long summer/year, people.

What's that about?

Anyone notice a bunch of 3rd Watch people huddled in the atrium after the tour tonight?

Anyone from 3rd Watch want to share what was being discussed, and whether or not it affects other watches?

More changes on the way?

The end of an era? According Sneed's column in yesterday's Sun-Times:

Gov. Blagojevich is this/close to hiring Andrew Velasquez, the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications chief, in an effort to beef up the state's homeland security.

• • Addendum: But it won't happen until after the mayoral election Tuesday.

The winds of change are blowing. We wonder if we should "be afraid, be very afraid" of who'll take his place, and how clueless that person might be about what it takes to do our jobs. We're sure that it will be someone else who's never worked Communications a day in his life.

A reader at Let's Talk Chi Town 911 has a different take, though, and ponders whether "Our Fearless Leader" who just got demoted and sent across the hall could be up for the spot next. OldSchoolCOS, the blogmaster there, asks:

Does anyone else really think there is a chance "she" left one spot to take the bigger spot? Is this the 'ol saying, the joke is on us?

We truly hope not. Even if for the sake of the city because of the sudden spike in resignations within 6 months of that appointment. People aren't sticking around for that.

You think we were miserable when she was Acting Deputy Director?????? We don't advocate job action (it's disallowed by our contract). But if she were to get that job, PCOs at the side door would be like a herd of cattle busting out of the gates.

Oh, yeah, P.S.

To the person who called us "Blogdude" a few posts down and asked "how fucking stupid" are we?

We were, and still are, happy about the "regime change." We reread our post to see if we could logically see from your point of view where there was a negative tone to it.

Well, we didn't. And still don't. The only negativity we saw was from you - whose bandwagon, we might add, noone really bothered to jump on, which leads us to believe that most people saw that post for what it was - positive hope for the future, not "discontent" or the inability to "be happy" with anything. Maybe MK rammed you "every chance she got," but noone was left untouched by her rule. Many people got screwed directly, and many got screwed indirectly (due to her impractical rules and coat-turning to management).

Perhaps she targeted and rammed you partly because of that attitude you displayed there? We can see where it might rub someone the wrong way, especially one in a position of authority.

And by the way? You apparently posted it on the wrong thread, we thought it kind of belonged under the post you took the quote from. However, we concede, since "The OEMC TENNIS OPEN has a winner." Did anyone applaud your "Game/Set/Match," "mother fucker?"

But it's okay. We've shed our collective single tear over losing a tennis match we didn't know we were in, and we've shrugged it off. We understand your frustration. You're a fellow PCO, and we still love you anyway. Thanks for reading, and keep reading. XOXO

Employee parking revisited revisited revisited

In case you don't read, or you wander blithely through life not paying attention to those things which stare you in the face, there are new signs placed at eye level yesterday on the building's west entry/exit doors. Starting on 01March07 (and actually sporadically until then), there will be parking enforcement in our lot. We've gone for years without it.

Are they going to go after people without permit stickers in their windows? Or are they going to go after people who park in the aisles (and anyplace else they can fit) because there literally are no available spaces in the parking lot?

Can't wait to see what 01March brings.


UPDATE: From an anonymous poster:

I have seen people exit that condo building across the street from the guard shack, walk right into the lot with no problem, and get in their cars and leave.

Has anyone else ever seen this? We haven't personally witnessed it, but wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

Isn't our money short?

From a reader:

Hey CPDDispatch!

Do you find it funny that the 1st of February has come and gone and we have not yet received one of our bi-yearly alloted "uniform allowances"?? Didn't we always used to get the check on the 1st of February and the 1st of August?? But then again, once upon a time in the old days (yes I've been at OEMC long enough to remeber the "old days" AND when it was simply OEC) we used to get a SEPERATE check for uniforms that was not TAXED!!! Remember that?!#$% Now that they simply add it on to our regular paycheck, I was expecting to see it on the 1st. But no........

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmmmm........??

We hear they might show up by 22February. But we aren't holding our breath.

GREAT BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks.

Hallelujah

Yesterday marked the end of an era. "Our Fearless Leader" has been moved across the hall, replaced by a former watch manager, and shall bother us minimally, if at all anymore. The title of that position is no longer "Acting Deputy Director," it is now simply Deputy Director of Police Dispatch Operations. No "Acting" capacity.

We predicted this change months ago, and are glad to see it finally became reality. Maybe now we won't get ramrodded by the office "around the corner."

We wish the best to our new Deputy Director, and we hope that he will make a lot of strides in righting the multitude of wrongs and chaotic decisions that stemmed from his predecessor. That takes a lot of work, but he surely can't have our interests at heart any less than the "Fearless Leader" of the last three years.

We also hope that this change will allow administration to see at least a couple of things from the point-of-view of the working stiffs. We've forgotten what it was like to not have someone in the corner office who smiled in our faces and canned us to upper administration.

But picture this.

After the announcement (from the Managing Deputy Director)of the promotion in a roll call yesterday, a certain PCO sitting in the middle of the 2nd Row raised her hand and asked "What is he smoking," referring to the Managing Deputy Director, who just happened to be standing right outside of the door and heard every word. He stepped in and said "Ask me," and gave a few choice words about how the new Deputy Director's career move shouldn't be overshadowed with relatively impertinent topics (we agree).

Oops.

Maybe people (and it's always the same ones) will stop making inane, topic-skirting, off-the-wall comments in roll call? At least for a couple of days?

Naw. Wouldn't be Operations.

Rest In Peace.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the family, and extended "blue" family, of the fallen officer. We hope that justice is carried out expediently.

Didn't we predict this?

We sure did. A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned that New York City's 911 and 311 call centers were being modified to receive cell phone pictures and videos, and we said:

We hope that Daley won't follow suit and try to bring "Sex, Lies, and Digital Video" to Chicago to appease citizens around election time.

Well...guess what.

An article in yesterday's Sun-Times discusses Alderman Edward Burke's desire to have the system modified to "allow callers to send cell-phone images and text messages to dispatchers from emergency scenes."

Text messages???? What are kids with cell phones going to send, "suk my dik bich"?

This is another example of big shots who know nothing about how things actually work, dictating what "should be done" with no grip on reality. Burke is also quoted as saying

"A private citizen could immediately transmit a photograph of a person fleeing the scene of an accident to the 911 center, which then could immediately transmit that photograph through the system to the Police Department. That kind of resource would be a great improvement...They could then transmit it to computers in the squad cars."

Oh, you mean the computers that only work half the time without this "new technology?" Did anyone stop to wonder exactly how we'd know exactly which accident at which location in this 200-plus-square-mile city these pictures are from? Or is that too realistic for people who have no clue about how Operations runs?

"Just think about live, real-time video of a crime in progress that could be transmitted to the 911 center. [Dispatchers could] immediately notify the police officers coming on the scene, 'Be careful. Behind the building on your left there's a gunman...The person who just fled is in a red Toyota.' That sort of thing."

Uh huh. The sort of thing you'd see in a movie. Hollywood fodder. In real life, under the best of circumstances, just how long would it take to record a, let's say, 15-second video of a "gunman behind the building on your left," type in a text message saying "There's a gunman behind the building on your left," send the video message, have it received and watched at the 911 Center by a calltaker, have it sent to the dispatcher, have the dispatcher watch it, and tell the officer in the field "There was a gunman behind the building on your left at least 3 minutes ago"?

And just maybe the citizen, who frequently calls 911 and says "I don't what he looks like, just send the police," will have the sense of awareness to include in this video/text message what the address is to the building that this gunman is hiding behind - or even what block in the city it's on.

Sounds like some cockamamie bullshit, doesn't it?

Kevin Smith, a spokesperson for OEMC whom we wouldn't recognize if he jumped out in front of us and yelled "BOO, I'm Kevin Smith," said there's a $10 million 911 center upgrade currently underway. For anyone reading this from the outside, PCOs know nothing of this upgrade. We're still looking at the same basic computer-aided dispatch screens that we were looking at when the building opened over 11 years ago. Our PSAPs still operate on Windows NT, which is from the early 1990s. Windows 2000 Professional still runs rampant in the building. And we, the "little people," have been told nothing about this upgrade that's "under way at the dispatcher level," according to the article.

We hope it's just some feel-good scheme thrown together haphazardly to get votes, and will go away when the practicality - or lack thereof - is realized.

We'll see.

Cleaning crew layoffs?

In comments sections over at Lets Talk Chi Town 911, there are talks of cleaning crew people being laid off. Rumor is that five have been laid off already, that at times there are only two cleaning people working.

Any truth to this? We surely hope not. Because if there is, then the cleanliness of this building full of adults, who obviously don't know how to clean up after themselves as adults should, is going to get as low as the morale.

Okay, maybe we were wrong.

It doesn't happen often. But the Bears lost.

By the way, will people who complain about other people's "grammer" (sic) start spelling the word grammar correctly?

Da Bears

We predict a Monday morning celebration of the Chicago Bears' Super Bowl XLI win vs. the Indianapolis Colts.

We also predict a lot of anger and resentment towards OEMC from those whose day off was cancelled on a Super Bowl Sunday although the winning team isn't even playing at home. Thank God (and our administration, who are the next best thing, obviously) we have extra staffing in case those fans riot in the dangerous, "frostbite in 30 minutes" sub-zero weather to "celebrate."