Dealing With Dispatch

Ha ha! Great post.
... If I am always right then that simplifies the communication

Yeah, that seems to nail it. But are you making amusing speculations or do you know something about the training process?

Regardless, they often do operate this way. If we want to push back psychologically, that is not hard to do with a little knowledge of rational fallacies and a few rhetorical methods such as the "reductio ad absurdum" - that is, "let's take your statement/ argument to it's logical conclusion".

With a little practice, one can point out the irrationality of what is being said in an inescapable way. When I do this, I get often get that sweet interval of awkward silence.

By staying very brief, very clear and perfectly rational your antagonist is shamed and ridiculed without anything aggressive or negative being said. Who wants to look like a fool? I believe this approach at least reduces your antagonists efforts to "outsmart" you or just give nonsense replies. Eventually, respect can be built where our antagonist decides for himself that honest dialogue is more pleasant than having his nose repeatedly rubbed in the excrement coming out of his own mouth.

 

Have you tried documenting and using the chain of command?

 

Called it. No degree of clarity and good humor can discourage the critic from his righteous duty!

 

This was the senior dispatcher on my account. In the video I describe using documentation and chain of command to hand the issue off to someone who cares while making the perpetrator squirm a bit. Nothing dramatic but generally an effective method over time.

I look at a story like playing a piece of music - the point is not to get to the end of it as quickly as possible. As someone suggested, I could easily give a concise and chronological account in three minutes rather than twelve. How dull. It's like preferring to read accounting spread sheets over literature. Are some people really like that or do they only pretend to be?

 

A year ago, dispatch would try to micro-manage me on every move.
Not so much now. I want to think I am just more trusted now but I know part of this improvement is from making such interactions uncomfortable - even humiliating for my dispatcher.

So here is another boring/entertaining, rambling/insightful video on a specific event illustrating my attitude about having some firm boundaries with (and detachment from) the dispatch culture.