Slightly Off the Mark: February 2026

I doubt many people take a job with the plan of staying on until retirement. I didn't; I was going to be a firefighter who wrote books on his off days. But about 34 years ago I went to work at the Noble County Jail, and a few years later moved to dispatch, and I've been there ever since. We're now in a different building, calling ourselves Noble County Communications, but at its heart the job remains the same.

Nobody does anything for 34 years, anymore. Is it any wonder that, despite how burned out I became toward the end, I'm still leaving with mixed feelings?

As time went on I saw a lot of other people come and go. I became unhappy there--partially because I wasn't writing books, partially because it can tear your heart out. But I'm going to miss the people. Not the ones on the other end of the phone line, necessarily, but the ones I worked with.

When you spend a third of your life with the same people, they become a family. Of course, sometimes families get dysfunctional! But we are a family, and I'll miss them. Maybe I'll come and just hang out in dispatch. Probably not; at least, not until I get myself off the stress, depression, and blood pressure medications.

I won't miss some of the technology, most of which didn't exist when I started. We had one computer, with a little green screen (remember DOS?) that we used to run license plates and driver's licenses. Paging a fire department or ambulances involved pushing actual buttons. Every new call to be dispatched was written out on a half-sized sheet of paper called a green sheet, which was--green. Traffic stops didn't get written down at all.

At the end I was sitting at a console with seven monitors, one main keyboard, and three mice. On an average night we have 8-9 browser tabs up (texting, recorder, EMS map, and so on), the phone board, the radio board with its 27 channels on five tabs, and, of course, the Computer Aided Dispatch program.

The CAD program was by (Redacted Company Name). I hate (RCN). We've never had an easy to use CAD, but (RCN) was deliberately made to be as non-intuitive as possible. I'm convinced of that. I was always running into trouble by trying to do things in a way that made sense. There are always five more steps than should be necessary. At first I thought this was all stuff (RCN) was working on fixing, but I came to realize their programmers are actually having fun. Maybe playing a drinking game: "Take a shot whenever anyone curses at the system!" Bunch of alcoholics.

Anyway, for every bad time it seems like there was a good, all because of dark humor and mutual support. We, the often overwhelmed dispatchers, should always remember that we do a lot of good. We save lives, and send help, and that ain't too shabby. Thank you for everyone who's put in the effort over the years.

We really need to seek out more mental health care, though.