You know...
I'm a small time fiction author ... and if I put this in a book,someone would find a way to care even less about my non-existant credibility.
The West Yorkshire fuzz have released recordings of nuisance calls requesting a cat be arrested for eating a man's bacon and a complaint about a noisy washing machine, as well as a request to identify the actor in Magnum PI*. As reported by the Yorkshire Post, a man rang the police to complain about his girlfriend's cat eating …
Maybe not. I like this explanation from here: http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-18852,00.html
"Why are there no pork or other pigmeat cat food varieties? "
"I've always understood the reason to be that the pigmeat industry has a long-established method of disposing of its waste products. They call the result "sausages" - or, if you're lucky, "economy sausages". "
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"Can't decide whether this is satire, trolling or dumbness.."
Maybe a bit of all three? I did google before posting and found opinion to be divided* on the subject. Some results suggested cats can eat pork while others claimed it would cause them problems such as irritable bowel syndrome. My favourite theory was that pork tastes too much like human flesh and the manufacturers don't want cats to get a taste for it...
* A bit like global warming. So I stuck to my original preconceptions...
Urban legend. Cats can and do digest pork. You'll also see it listed on pet foods as 'ham' or similar.
It's not recommended that you feed a cat bacon, but that's because the sodium level is too high - nothing to do with the meat itself. Well cooked pork is as safe for a cat as beef or tuna. (In fact probably safer than tuna depending on the mercury content.)
True.
But regrettably that would probably breach the Services guidlines on non urgent call handling.*
And modern call recording systems catch every word of both sides of the conversation.
*Official body. You know they'll have one. Wheather anyone can recall it's exact contents is another matter.
Perhaps, but if you have worked in a profession where customer service is needed you will know that "polite" is a weapon like silence too. With my 35 years in IT I can assure you that shouting will just increase the time lost with "idiots". With five years as a taxi driver I can assure you it's the same, and silence can be a really lethal weapon too, no good for a 999 emergency though. Polite is in fact quite a weapon.
"I'm embarrassed that he's a member of the same species."
Well, they didn't actually try to establish the caller's species - just gave him the benefit of the doubt on that point and they took his word on having a girl friend too.
I'll buy the part about the cat eating his bacon, but my guess is they were both alone in the house and he was outwitted by the cat.
"as well as a request to identify the actor in Magnum PI*."
"* Tom Selleck. (Duh.)"
"Nah, the other guy with a mustache, the English guy!"
You mean the guy that played Higgins, John Hillerman?
"Yah! Higgins, that's the one! Stuck up Bastard!"
I've actually had this conversation.
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Make this mandatory after such a call and the problem will eventually indeed sort itself out because these genes disappear from the pool.
Sometimes I wish it was possible to take away some people's ability to breed. I seriously feel for the operators, I hope some of them are at least funny.
Harsh? Yes, haven't had my coffee yet.
@AC
Sometimes I wish it was possible to take away some people's ability to breed. I seriously feel for the operators, I hope some of them are at least funny.
In this particular instance, with him wanting his girlfriend arrested along with the cat, she probably would no longer allow him to attempt to breeding with her.
Unfortunately they are the sort of idiots that then show up in the papers making a sad face while holding a scrap of paper, and huge headlines saying council charged me for making a mistake (although it should say "for being an idiot") they have to much power or something, and then our money gets wasted on trying to enforce it.
I have had calls at 3am (while working on a council repair line) about such fun things as my light bulb is broken get someone here to replace it (couldn't change it themselves health and safety), and there's ants in my kitchen my babies in danger. Both these people were mid twenty 'ish, if I phoned my parents and said the council didn't send someone round to change the light bulb my parents would be ashamed, both these people then had there parents immediately ring and complain as well.
Have to say listening to those calls I feel slightly worried for the seven year old whose been left in the charge of an idiot.
If this is a big problem, would it not make sense to have a layer-2 switchboard to shunt these calls to? I have tentatively called it TMS (Triaged Message Service is what you'd call it in public; but the acronym would, of course, stand for The Muppet Show).
As I see it, the biggest wastes of time are:
1. Identifying that it's a waste of time
2. Backing gracefully out of the conversation
...not a lot you can do about the identifying part; but the backing out gracefully part is what eats the time and can be safely passed off elsewhere.
You'd probably only need one of these centres to cover the whole country. You'd have to record which force the call came from; and you'd also need a way of bouncing it back at high priority in case it turns out the triaging was wrong (some people are circumspect and a lot of people get downright weird in an emergency).
The emergency switchboard could bounce callers there mid-syllable and the caller would have to start from the beginning; but that's just part of the education process. Explaining why that isn't a matter for the police; the consequences of tying up emergency lines and the possible penalties that can accrue wouldn't require that much training; and can all be addressed in the "gracefully exiting the conversation" thing; and they would be able to spend a little more time on it than the emergency line; thus educating callers better and -just maybe- lessening the problem overall.
You'd have to send back reports to the originating service/force/station - they'll all want a copy of the blooper reel.
Shouldn't be too expensive (staffing levels would depend upon the scale of the problem and I don't have those numbers), and would reclaim precious seconds on the emergency line.
No, the triage is being done anyway on the emergency line. The emergency operator -upon realising they're talking to a muppet- just hits the "Fuck off" button to shunt the call instead of then having to waste time explaining and gracefully losing said muppet.
In the transcript in the story, for example, the "Fuck off button" would be used instead of replying:
Police: Right, okay, what would you like the police do with regards to that, sir?
...thus reclaiming the time used for that and the subsequent conversation for genuine emergency use.
@Credas - Graceful because you want to maintain a professional image. Also if you say what you really feel, you're going to end up wasting even more time with accusations and outraged splutterings. Also you never know who's on the other end of the line and what their motivations are. Also, the person on the other end may have genuine problems that it might be possible to address if your sole concern isn't getting your emergency line back.
@Message From A Self-Destructing Turnip. From the policeman's comment:
"Donahoe added that "The serious point is that a lot of the time we're talking about a matter of seconds between us being able to get to a genuine emergency effectively and not being able to, and therefore having people's lives put at risk.""
...it would suggest that emergency lines have limited bandwidth; whether that be number of qualified operators; number of physical lines in or whatever. The obvious solution is to get callers who shouldn't be on the line, off; and free up the resources for people who need it.
Secondly, these calls (and it seems to be a universal and growing problem...just read about the exact same problem in Sweden) have to be dealt with somehow.
Clearly modern users -probably because communications are so easy and used habitually today- could use some education about appropriate subjects for an emergency line. I don't think hiring more operators would help because they wouldn't be interested in education; they are just interested in getting the caller the fuck out of the way. Having a more laid-back switchboard who are able to take a little time for said education may go some way to solving the problem at source.
Thirdly there are marginal cases...things that the police could help with but aren't a full-fat emergency. The operators would know that it's not life-or-death; but may be able to help sort out problems. The intelligence and PR benefits could be substantial.
----
There's 2 ways you could run it:
1. Purely as a relatively cheap, scripted, pressure valve.
2. As a sort of social media replacement for knowing your local policeman. Drunken idiots like Bacon Boy get a verbal spanking and some education; relatively minor but still police-worthy problems can maybe get sorted; emergent problems can possibly be headed off at the pass before they become a major problem. Maybe you could maintain links with other organisations - CAB, RSPCA and that sort of thing and redirect people to the right place.
Nearly sorry about that. You can sometimes get rid of an earworm by hitting youtube and listening to the song that's afflicting you...the theory being that if you listen to all of the song, including the ending, your brain gets closure and stops doing it to you. Works sometimes for me.
to encourage an Internet naming and shaming fest, along with all the cyberbullying that goes with it. Since The Internet At Large can manage it for something so random as wearing the wrong type of outfit to an event, or misplaced accusation and resultant cyberpitchfork wielding prosecution of a crime.
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Clearly the law needs changing, how can a cat get away with such a heinous crime?
I hope everyone here mocking this realises that this sets a dangerous legal precedent and soon your bacon will be stolen with the culprits claimings "it wont me guv'nor it was the cat wot did it"
It won't stop there, dogs so I have heard, have a penchant for sausages, soon all your pork products will be stolen by the animals or nefarious criminals using the animals.
> I have known 2 cats who steal cheese if given half a chance.
Our senior male (no - not me!) has stolen:
One baby sock
An empty cigarette packet (neither of us smoke)
One brand new, unused 3" paintbrush (good one too!).
Moral of the story? Cats will steal *anything*. Why do you think topfloor men are called "cat burglars"?
"we're talking about a matter of seconds between us being able to get to a genuine emergency effectively and not being able to,"
A police spokesperson added;
'Hurrah! The villain was mere seconds away from escaping but due to the diligent* use of the 999 emergency line we nabbed him.**'
*This almost always happens.
**This almost never happens.
Not as big a bell-end as the family(s) whose house you'd go round of an evening to find their door boarded up where the police had smashed it in first thing? For dope. And not for the kids, or why would they have still been there.
Bell-ends (as in 'gutless').
I just read that several times in an attempt to make sense of it and have deduced two things:
1) You're the same AC as the one who started the thread.
2) It's not just a tabloid press rant, excessive use of weed really does turn your brain into squirrel food.
of the time my ex called the local police number (pre-dating 101) to report a noise nuisance, they said to call the council (who had told us to call the police). The police refused to attend. At which point she told them "there WILL be a crime because my boyfriend (me) is about ready to go round there and strangle the little shit!". They turned up and made the idiot next door turn down his stereo.*
*yes we'd tried all the usual, ringing the doorbell, which was ignored, etc etc.
It reminds me of the probably apocryphal tale of the man who phoned the police to report a burglar rummaging around in his garden shed only to be told that there was no-one available and it would probably be morning before someone could come round. So, he phones up a few minutes later and says "It's okay; no hurry in coming round: I've just shot him".
A short time later as three armed response units, a dog van and the helicopter hustle a very surprised burglar off to the cells, one of the plod asks "I thought you said you'd shot him?" "I thought you said there was no-one available?".
Black helicopter, because nowadays he'd probably be whisked off to Gitmo under the Making The Establishment Look Silly (Prevention of Paedo-terrorism) Regulations 2003.
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This is an entirely different police force in an entirely different country - or are you going to accuse the English of shooting unarmed black Americans on a weekly basis too?
Calm down. Now re-read my post and you'll see that the only thing I accused anyone of was a certain lack of tact.
The actions of US police forces have no bearing at all on what people living in the UK might expect from a British police force. The actions of a force in Yorkshire, Scotland, or any other part of the UK manifestly do. And despite the efforts of the SNP, Scotland is still part of the UK, not "an entirely different country".
"The serious point is that a lot of the time we're talking about a matter of seconds between us being able to get to a genuine emergency effectively and not being able to, and therefore having people's lives put at risk."
Oh yes, the emergency crossword that needs doing while eating the emergency doughnut
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Be grateful that W. Yorks have professionals answering their emergency calls. Compare that with the scumbag 911 operator in the States who hung up on a caller trying to save a dying man - because he didn't like her attitude.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/new-mexico-911-operator-tells-caller-to-deal-with-it-yourself-after-shooting-1.3171526
If the call were dropped too soon as a time-waster, you know what's going to happen?
One day someone is going to be making a genuine call to 999 when in the same room as someone with a gun or a knife. If you are put in a position of threat can you predict what you would do or say? You cannot, it is your primitive reactions that will take over and you may not have any control over your actions.
The recipient of the call should be able to ascertain from certain clues that you are in a dangerous situation which needs immediate attention, even though you are not capable of explicitly asking for help. Part of the reason for keeping the call open is to make absolutely sure that it is not an emergency.
So when the press find out that what sounded like a hoax call turned out to be murder, who will they criticise?