Power Watches shall return

Posted today in the CO book was notice that the Power watches will be re-implemented. New watch bids will take place within what we assume to be the next month.

There's a lot of joy going around the floor, mainly because of the four consecutive 3-day weekends that come with being on Power. We haven't heard where any recalls, though, the fact that we earn 8 hours of medical time at the beginning of every month, but if you hit medical on a Power watch you have to use TEN hours. But we won't concern ourselves with that now.

We'll concern ourselves with the facts that this is sure to cut down on mandatory overtime, and the Deputy Director is actually listening to our opinions and trying to right some of the morale-draining, operations-ruining wrongs of his predecessor.

Also amazing?

According to the comments section, CG is also gone.

Any truth to this one, or is it just another false rumor?

Amazing.

Apparently, today is Our Former Fearless Leader's last day at OEC. She's rumored to be leaving for the Water Department.

Anyone else up for some time in the OC on 2nd Watch now?

Oh, and take a good look at your next water bill, lest you end up paying upwards of $1,000.

Good idea.

Hey blogmaster...instead of a thread bashing the hard working, dumped-upon supervisors, let's talk about our co-workers who expect to come to work and get paid for doing next to nothing (and several while on overtime!!!) They do nothing more than steal a paycheck, in my opinion.

We agree wholeheartedly. And even though we can just imagine how nasty this thread could get (we'll be monitoring it closely), here's another open post.

A post to vent your gripes about lazy ass, sleep-on-the-job-because-they-work-too-much-overtime, work-double-shifts-and-do-a-fraction-of-the-work, spend-more-time-walking-than-sitting-at-the-console coworkers.

This could yield one of the highest comment counts in the ten months this blog has in existence.

Wait

Ten months? Really? Time flies.

Imagine that

As of this writing, we're enjoying cool air conditioning, but we understand that 3rd Watch roll call got a little warm. Seems that a couple of supervisors' "people skills" (or lack thereof) were brought to the attention of the watch manager, and he plans to address said supervisors.

On that note, here's an open post to vent your gripes about problems or issues you've had with supervisors. No first and/or last names this time, please.

Positive experiences are welcome also, although they don't tend to be as amusing or entertaining.

Good going

Congratulations are in order. Per the Illinois Labor Board, Supervising PCOs are now unionized and represented by the Teamsters as of today.

Any chance that we can switch to a union that'll actually benefit us more than IBEW "works" to?

Oops

According to News of the Weird, a British man is considering filing suit against a hospital where he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two years ago. He was told that he'd die within a year, so he quit his job, gave away possesions, and exhausted his savings "living it up." Turns out all he had was pancreatitis. So now he's still alive and broke.

Here's an idea.

Since they're installing new consoles (although heaven only knows when they're going to start), we think they should be personalized. They probably won't switch over the bulk of what's currently on the consoles (This blog's ad magnets that noone ever notices, SOPs, various zone-specific notes, etc...).

We hope the new consoles are nice (although we maintain that anything's an improvement), but in an effort to make ourselves all feel more at home with decorations, we propose the installation of one of these on every brand new console.


Hell, we'll even pay the total cost out of pocket for them as a "public service." They should be installed at double-size on the calltaker side, since we're expected to be "customer service representatives" now.

Contract Negotions, Part I

We credit a source for this, we weren't actually there.

The union wants what CPD is asking for, which includes a 24% pay increase over 4 years, less healthcare costs out of pocket, and an annual stipend in lieu of the lifting of residency requirement. We personall prefer the lifting of the residency requirement so we can be released from the tax-thirsty grasp of this godforsaken shithole, but we digress.

Also up for discussion are duty availability pay for all PCOs (we like); guidelines for when mandatory OT can be invoked by management, which would not include the staff shortages that are inherent in a public safety outfit that's poorly staffed to begin with; and specific rules which govern voluntary overtime. That's to so more clarification about does straight seniority 1st/2nd RDO or "my watch" get called first.

As for those surveys, rotating-seniority mandatory OT which rotates among everyone will stay. It was a close vote, but it won. Annual seniority will be fixed in the future, and the subject of pay increases was the sweeping main concern among PCOs, although OJT, wage compression (Read: It takes me a shorter time to reach top pay), and detail positions were also major concerns among pcos.

Disappointing turnout, though. Out of roughly 400 PCOs and ACOs, only 175 surveys were turned in. If you didn't turn one in (we did), and you don't speak up formally before the contract is ratified (you have at least 2 years), then feel free to STFU when something you dread stays in place or becomes policy. In fact, please STFU if such will be the case.

Open discussion, that is all for now.

Sanitizer dispensers.

They're next to all of the swipe/pinkeye-festering machines. Yay.

We were prepared before?

Okay, so we're a couple of days late. We have lives, you know.

The Sun-Times reports that Cortez Trotter has resigned his position as "Chief Emergency Officer."

Ability to handle a disaster is in question with three top spots vacant

We must have missed something, then, because most of the people in Operations questioned the city's ability to "handle a disaster." One should have heard all the buzz around the floor about the Olympics bid, and how ill-prepared we'd be for organized chaos. The city has a few football fields to cover before it's close to being prepared for any disaster of sorts.

Remember Loopalooza? Or Loopzilla, or whatever it was called? Yeah, we barely remember it too, because not much mention of it was made at the job beforehand. And a walk through downtown during the night showed a lack of police coverage, which in turn means of a lack of communications coverage, failure on the part of the city [again] to prepare for a non-disaster.

Trotter's departure isn't going to change anything in terms of how prepared we are or aren't.

It's always been the latter.

Misophobes, rejoice.

There have been 3 cases of pink eye at Corporation Counsel since the installation of the palm readers.