TAMPA, Fla. (WFTS) — Inside Tampa PD's dispatch center, there's a cacophony of voices, all at the other end of your 911 calls.
"It's call after call so it can get really busy," said Jennifer Chenevert, one of those voices.
Just last month, Tampa Police's dispatch processed 26,000 calls.
"If you really think about it, the people who answer that phone call would be the very first responders. So it's just like, getting someone that help immediately," she said,
There for the tough calls, the non-emergency calls, even the accidental ones, the job is so important.
"What really keeps me going is the different things every day. Even if we are getting slammed or the slow days, it's very fulfilling to hear callers or officers that let you know, hey, we really appreciate you. We appreciate the patience that you have and things like that," said Kendra Dorcin.
Kendra Dorcin is the Employee of the Month for the team.
"I'm very appreciative of it. I was on the radio working a call that included an officer involved shooting. Very happy that the officers were safe, everyone was okay. And I definitely appreciate their response to how much I helped them and things like that because you could definitely see how well they were responding to me," she explained. "That was one of those crazy officer safety situations that you have to make sure everybody's okay."
The job is tough. It can be a lot emotionally.
"When I walk through those doors, I have a box I put everything in. All the feelings I have outside, I put them in. And then I picked that box up, and I go back outside and put a new box of all the stuff that happens in here in that box," Chenevert said. "I take a lot of walks to clear my head. And it's just you have to compartmentalize a lot of the different things that you hear."
That's just one factor behind why the job requires such extensive training. It takes six months before you're even allowed to respond to a call.
"You're learning everything about this job," she said. "It's really good to have that baseline of everything that's gonna go on and then after that, because no call is the same. So you can't say 'Oh, this is how some sort of domestic is gonna go or some sort of accidents gonna go', so you just have to have a good base and then once you have a good base and you can build from there."
Right now, the team is looking for nine additional members to be the calming voice during the scariest of times.
Here's a breakdown of the salary:
- Salary during training: $22.70/hour
- State certification process is sponsored by and paid for by the Tampa Police Department.
- 17% salary increase after 6-month training period*
- Previous Experience? Start at up to $26.46/hour based on comparable experience & training
If interested, there's more information here.
