This week during another interview with a newspaper I once again had the opportunity to share just what specific stressors dispatchers face on the job.

First, I am glad to see that lately there have been many positive articles that outline the work I did and that you all still do. It’s a far cry than in the past when all you used to hear was when a dispatcher messed up – you know on the 6pm news.

I was asked by the reporter, “What would I say was the number one stressor facing 911 Dispatchers”.

I responded without a hesitation – “Fear of failure” pointing to the fact that most Dispatchers are extremely fearful making mistakes at the console.

I shared this in my online booklet “Stress and the Dispatcher – Surviving the Console”. Now it’s important to understand that I’m not talking about a “general concern” and a desire to do a good job – that’s a good thing. No, what I’m talking about is what often becomes a paralyzing fear that leads to a belief that “I cannot make a mistake!”

This fear is easily recognizable. Take for instance this scenario. The Supervisor comes into dispatch one morning and notices the external door is unlocked. This is against the rules so they ask the two or three dispatchers on shift, “Who left the door unlocked”. Now you would think that responsible adults would take the responsibility and fess up, “Yes, it was I!”

But that is not what happens. Normally the finger pointing and blame-gaming will commence at that point.

“I wasn’t the last one in, it was Sally! Don’t BLAME me!”

This kind of “fear of failure” is based on a very real perception that anytime you mess up you’re going to be in real big trouble. This is what is generally taught from day-one. Which is why it’s called “Negative Reinforcement” – because it simply reinforces itself over and over again. Each time you mess up, you get hammered. So that after a while you build “defense systems” to deflect the blame somewhere else, anything is better than taking “the heat” alone. I mean why own up to the pain? Think about it.

Now what this produces is the Phantom Dispatcher Syndrome where we act almost exclusively from an attitude of perfection. Again, nothing wrong with trying to do a good job, but there is everything wrong with trying to be more than human – or if you will a Super Dispatcher. Not only is it not possible, it also makes you a bit annoying to others.

Fear is an emotion, we all know that, but what we might not know is that fear is a STRESS emotion in that above many other emotions it takes the most toll on the body. Fear is a “primal emotion” as it is directly related to the “fight or flight” response that humans (and animals) have had since the beginning. Again, fear isn’t a “wrong” emotion. For instance if I’m walking down the street and someone walks up to me and sticks a gun in my back and says, “Gimmie your dough!”, I’m going to be afraid. That’s natural. Subsequently, I’m either going to fight the assailant or fork over my wallet (fight or flight).

But that would be a natural emotion to have from a very real and present threat to my well-being.

However, if I was walking down a dark street and I was imagining “What if someone were to rob me”, while there wasn’t any real and present danger I would still respond as if it were real. That’s because my emotions react to my thinking. So whatever I think about affects how I feel.

Now, lets say that I’m sitting in dispatch, doing my job and I mess up something like a radio transmission or a Teletype entry or whatever. The first thought you might have is, “Oh boy, I’m going to get in BIG trouble for this!” That’s all it takes and the emotion fear takes over. Now you could just get a hold of yourself and set about to fixing the problem, and that would be it.

But many of us practice “Catastrophic thinking”. That’s where the molehill becomes a mountain. If you ever had a supervisor tell you, “See me at the end of your shift today.” You know what I mean. You sit there the whole day trying to figure out exactly what you could be in trouble for without knowing whether or not you’re in trouble. The fact the supervisor may just want you to sign for a key or a paper, or even tell you that you’re doing a great job.

But that is the power of the mind and the emotions. So that if we are operating from a belief that “I can’t make a mistake or else!”, that belief will wield incredible power over us, manifesting in a fear of failure that it can paralyze us.

This is why I tell people that the first step in stress management is to “Manage your mind”, watch what you are thinking about and specifically whether or not your thinking is “subjective” based on imagination, or objective “real and present”. Grasp that and you significantly will reduce your stress.

Read Mr. McAtamney's interview in the Las Vegas Sun.

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