first came this post at Dispatch Magazine
this is followed by a tirade by the editor where he makes this comment about me:
Incredibly, he believes that the 911 system has been nationalized and moved to India! He fondly recalls dialing “0” for help, but doesn’t acknowledge the improved service that Enhanced 911 provides, including the display of your telephone number and address.
It was about this column here.
Nowhere in the column do I use the word “nationalize” nor do I ever say that 911 is in India.
This was followed by a slew of hate letters based on the Dispatch Magazine lies. One fellow, a guy just calling himself “Bob” “willowsdad@bellsouth.com”(see below) sent a broadcast memo to the entire PC Magazine staff demanding I be fired.
To the letter writers I have composed the following open letter with an apology for a flippant remark that offended many of them.
Open Letter to the 911 representatives who emailed me regarding an item in Inside Track
I’m flabbergasted by the response to a short item in my PC Magazine Inside Track Column whereby I said 911 services are a red herring used to derail VOIP services. I did this in a flippant way that got a lot of 911 folks bent out of shape. This wasn’t an article about 911 it was a couple of paragraphs about VOIP. I called the lack of 911 service on VOIP networks a red herring in an attempt by phonecos to kill VOIP. In the process I made a number of remarks that were misread by the Dispatch Magazine [911dispatch.com] website (a website that couldn’t even get the magazine I was writing for correct saying I was writing at PC World!).
Let’s go over these details.
Claim one: Dvorak says 911 operators are in India!
Facts: I never said any such thing and nobody can document this. What I said that some “O” operators are in India. There seems to be a problem with people actually reading what I was saying.
Claim two: I said that 911 operators were overpaid.
Fact. This is a blatant lie. I said that because “O” operators were being paid too much and services could be or were moved to India. This was sarcasm. Anyone who has read me more than once in their lives knows this is sarcasm. Unfortunately the people from 911Dispatch and their hate-filled letter writing clan have no background on me to know that I despise all movement of services to India. I have written about this extensively and blog about it to excess. It’s to the point that I’m boorish about it.
Claim 3: I said 911 “fouls up all the time”
Fact: I did say this and it was flippant and I apologize for saying it. It was meant to be flippant in the sense that someone would say the running back for the New York Giants fumbles all the time. Yes, nothing happens all the time. And 911 service, in fact, seldom fouls up and when they do they get a lot of flak from the media. I do not know the stats but I suspect getting fouled up by 911 is in the statistical category of getting hit by lightning or having a piano fall on your head. I have no argument with anyone calling me on this comment and, I do apologize for making it. Personally, I do not see how such an offhanded remark would require people such as Bob willowsdad@bellsouth.net to send a broadcast memo to everyone at PC Magazine demanding my immediate disimissal!
Claim 4: I said 911 isn’t necessary and the public would be as well served by the old fashioned operator like the old days.
Fact: I did say this in a roundabout way, but it was said to back up my argument about VOIP. The idea here is that we did once upon a time have good operators. This was in the 1950’s and before. They could, when you dialed one lone number – zero, put you in touch with the police or fire department. But operators as well and information services deteriorated over time from my experience and 911 became a necessity. I still prefer better services of the past for both information and operator assistance. Most of the letter writers harken back 10 years and say operators are hopeless, asking why would I think this? It’s not a point of argument it’s a point of nostalgia. Yes, as of now 911 is an absolute necessity. But this was not a column about 911!!!
To my way of thinking, the police dialed directly could do what the 911 people do. That’s what I said. Some people wrote in telling me that even this isn’t true. I’m sure it’s debatable in some communities. To me the 911 system has been a middleman in the process of emergency services. But the 911 personnel do not agree and they have valid arguments. I’m sorry if I offended anyone. You can be certain that one lone writer making an offhanded comment isn’t going to get 1.5 million 911 people fired. If you think that, then you have other issues.
Unfortunately the letters I received mostly came from pissed off 911 people who did not read the column, and know nothing of my work. What I’m seeing are not public servants trying to make their case. I see pissed off bureaucrats defending their turf for reasons that baffle me. Where is the threat I pose? Let me ask you this. What if I said that all the 911 operators are in India! It’s not true. Nobody thinks its true. Nobody seems to care one way or the other about India and offshoring. I can assure you of that from my experience with the topic. Not that I said anyone is in India, I’m just wondering why there was so much concern about it. I would enjoy hearing back on this from those who were angered by this supposed remark. Here are some excerpts from these folks.
Note the number of comments claiming I said 911 was in India – second-hand untrue information. Annoying since nobody bothered to check and the website, 911dispatch, is the culprit getting everyone to go off half-cocked. This a reflection of something seriously wrong.
Mary Miller: What in the world is wrong with you? Your statements made in 11-30-04 PC Magazine (which I must admit I have not seen but have heard) are completely out of line and false…Where I work, we don’t have any operators in India answering our 911 calls. How extremely sad you could make statements such as 911 is not a public service or was implemented to save money and to say we foul up all the time?
Pat Charelville: [visit a 911 center] I challenge you to do that and still think that 9-1-1 operator and police/fire dispatchers are overpayed!
Bill Haines: You are an fricking idiot!
Bill Fava: You are an asshole.
Cheryl Rogers: As an employee in a 911 center in Georgia, USA, I take exception to your notion that all 911 calls are answered in India.
Stephen Cusenz: I’m not aware of any 911 calls from the US being answered any place other than in the US. If you can provide me and your readers with information to the contrary, I welcome it. India? Really?
John Chiaramonte: Oh, and when you mentioned being overpaid, you certainly can’t be talking about the pay for 911 dispatchers.
Deric Brown: To the best of my knowledge there are no 911 centers in India that answer calls for the USA. The idea in itself is baseless as there would be no way to dispatch the equipment and no way to talk to the responding personnel
Dan Danz: I assure you that my colleagues and I have not moved to India, and we field some 200,000 calls for assistance yearly, for just the area of Maricopa County in Arizona.
Greg Abbot: But after you have printed this horrible example of a raving lunatics column, I will certainly pass you over at the news stand. Please stick to computers and leave the
telephone industry and especially 9-1-1 ALONE. Oh, and by the way GET RID OF MR. DVORAK!
I could go on. And I should mention that a few (very few) reasonable notes came in where the writer was civil. Danz and Brown, above were actually two of them. Other ompliments go to Ed Mulak of Michigan, Dwight Purdle of Kansas and a few others.
Again, though this was not a column about 911 – it was about VOIP. I promise to never mention 911 ever again in a column..
There are people in the world whose sole mission it would seem is to be offended. It would not have mattered in what tone you had said something, they would have found some way to be injured or indignant about it. Saying that “The Pope is Catholic” would have upset someone.
People also believe that anything they read on the Internet is gospel. You’ve seen them and heard from them. I know that, as a columnist, your skin must have thickened to these sorts of comments and the people who have read something somewhere that implicated you in saying something about someone or somewhere, the specifics of which are unimportant. It is enough that someone “thought” that you said or wrote it and that in and of itself is enough to condemn you.
Good luck with this.
i’ve been reading pc mag for years now, first thing i always flip to? ofcourse the dvorak column. you tell it strait, your’ predictions are usually correct, and you don’t include useless information. thanks
The dimwit that penned the error filled article at 911dispatch.com did not even have the courage or ability to sign his/her name let alone an email address. With this type of intelligence running 911, I think I might take my chances.
‘blowin’ hard in Seattle
Feel Free to Flame me at SirRolandJ_AT_Hotmail.com
I have to second Neil’s sentiment. 99% of the reason I subscribe to PC Mag is John’s columns. I read his articles first and then scan through the rest of it. It’s a blissful dose of sarcasm in a sea of happy shiny.
I promise to never mention 911 ever again in a column
I’m disappointed. I’d hope that you would take the challenge that I and others issued: spend some time in a 9-1-1 center, learn what we do, find out about the issues of butt calls and other 9-1-1 hangup calls. You could also tie it to computing, because we’re finally starting to get some decent computer assistance – not only for computer aided dispatch but also for automated mapping of caller locations, vehicle locations, etc. The marraige of CAD and GIS systems has a lot of promise for helping 9-1-1 operators – and their counterpart emergency services radio dispatchers.
Find out why 9-1-1 centers need fault-tolerant, highly reliable computer systems. Would you believe that Windows can be made fault tolerant and highly reliable? You bet it can. Surprised? Check it out. http://www.stratus.com/products/ftserverwseries/index.htm
I think you owe it to us for being flippant. 🙂
Your critics are obviously illiterate idiots. I would not waste my time with a response. They sound like real “dyed in the wool” Bushies.
I could go on. And I should mention that a few (very few) reasonable notes came in where the writer was civil. Danz and Brown, above were actually two of them. Other compliments go to Ed Mulak of Michigan, Dwight Purdle of Kansas and a few others.
Nice to see there is ,i>some moderation and sanity, in the midst of all that bulls#t.
I sent this note to their editor:
“I read —
— your editorial about Dvorak’s mythical statements. Then, I read the column in PC Magazine.
You really should stop smoking the seeds. At least, on duty.
Ed Campbell”
Yeah, that was flippant, too. But, flippant is the best the dweeb deserves.
Geeesh, I know noone reads my blog, but I’m sure I’m not the only one to refer to you (repeatedly) as “the IT industry’s resident curmudgeon”. *I* knew you were just being curmudgeonly. And I’m with you 100% about folks who will get all up in arms about written material they have not even bothered to take the time to read for themselves. Too many people out there seem to be perfectly happy to let someone else do their thinking for them. Personally I think if I were going to let someone else do my thinking, I’d want you to do it, since you always seem to have enough thoughts swirling around in your head to make up for twenty or thirty folks who just DON’T think.
It’s funny that people who speaks english couldn’t get your point, but I, who natively speaks portuguese, could.
P.S.: I’m a brazillian reader of your column in the INFO magazine. Keep up with the good work.
What a load of rubbish! The world is full of stupid people, unfortunately.
Keep fighting the good fight, John!
I think that all Irishmen are drunken, wife-beating louts.
Hope that didn’t offend anyone . . .
John, as Monty Python correctly depicted decades ago, there are plenty of people who are just “sick and tired of being fed up with being sick and tired.” “Your statements made … (which I must admit I have not seen but have heard) are completely out of line and false.” The line between Monty Python and real life continues to blur all the time.
John, I’m sure you’re not new to these sort of attacks by a well-organized interest group. Fortunately for you, and for those of us who respect and enjoy your insights, being taken out of context is not as devastating as it would be for a politician who has few days or weeks to respond effectively. To think that anyone would ask that a writer be fired for expressing a view says more about how we do our politics these days than it anything else.
John, keep up the good work. The only time I will ever think you deserve to be fired will be if you became timid and devoid of insight as many columnists have become. 🙂
editor@DispatchMonthly.com
this is the e-mail address of the 911dispatch.com editor.
Mr. Dvorak,
just wanted also let you know that 9-1-1 dispatchers (Telecommunicators) are a very proud group. we get very little compliments or prasie from anyone. When someone takes something out of context or even misread or misunderstood, we as a group become very upset. We take great pride in our work. Anytime you would like to see one of the centers, I am sure anyone of the many thousands of us would give you the grand tour. I know I would take the time to give the grand tour so that there could be a better understanding of things….
I myself wrote one of the e-mails upset about the article. I read the entire article and understood that it was a VoIP article and not a 911 article. The only part I was offended by was when he said 911 fouls up all the time. As 911 dispatchers we work hard to do our best and save countless lives. I am embarrassed that my colleagues could not keep their heads and they should have read the entire article.
Congradulation, John! Being misquoted is a sign of fame, if not celebrity.
And truly I think this is a great issue. No one really disputes the value of 911. It’s saved my butt more than once.
But: it shouldn’t get in the way of VOIP. Who are the guardians of my safety? If I decide to forgo 911 service, that’s my concern.
But: It’s trivially simple to create a 911 account. The advantage to VOIP 911 is that it would pay for itself. Not, I think the entire (public) 911 structure, but for sure the individual account costs.
And: What if VOIP were more important that 911? Or just more democratic, in the personal freedom sense.
Great debate. Great topic. Way to go, John C. Dvorak!
URL email: “-“
I like to think that my email to you was one of the “reasonable” ones you mentioned here. However, I would also like to point out that you are off base by implying that the letter-writers are foolish for misunderstanding your article. As a journalist, the burden is upon *you* to get your point across, not on the reader to decipher what you mean. If this many people misunderstood that portion of your article, then perhaps the fault is not in their reading ability.
Second, Dispatch Magazine should be ashamed for the mistakes in its article, the fact that there was no byline, and the fact that the paragraphs about 911 were taken out of context. For the record, I went to PC Magazine’s website and read the article in its entirety before writing you.
Third, 911 call center workers are not “bureaucrats defending their turf.” They are first-contact emergency workers who do their jobs despite long hours on holidays and weekends, sometimes without breaks, often with low pay, and almost always without recognition. The only reason anyone would stay in this job for any length of time is because they like the work. The only time they ever see anything on the news about 911 is when the news is bad, so when they have the opportunity to talk back to someone in the media who they believe is attacking them, they will take advantage of it. The fact that you got so many responses should tell you 911 telecommunicators take pride in their work, and therefore will take offense at perceived slights.
Fourth, you may be nostalgic for a time when people just dialed 0 instead of dialing 911. It’s your right, even if it does leave us baffled. Sometimes I’m nostalgic for my old Commodore 64, but I’m not going to give up my Dell. If you’re ever choking and can’t speak, however, you will be glad that, unlike the telephone company operator, we at 911 can tell where you’re calling from. That is, if you haven’t given up your landline in favor of VoIP. If you pass out while choking, dispatchers at my 911 center, like many centers now, would be able to give someone with you heimlich and CPR instructions. I doubt Sarah, the operator from Mayberry, would have been able to help you much.
it’s a start and has you beat by 18
Well, John – or one of your real or extrapolated loyal fans – can you tell me why the phone co. is so worried about not having enough phone numbers? No, I understand. I used to phreak. What I’m saying is why does the internet community still use phone numbers? Couldn’t John C. Dvorak be reached at http://www.dvorak.tel? Or anything similar. What’s with these folks? Is this the same problem with analog people not talking to digital people?
After the new URL #’s, can anybody tell me how many different possible telephone numbers one could have? (No, you really can’t, because the rules aren’t set yet, but just approximate, please.)
Here’s one (cheap -real cheap ) simple riff on that: URL email: “-“
What I’m calling URL email (something I got from Dave Winer: try http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/crimson1/profiles/$564, if you like. This is the first step to URL telephone numbers. And they’re (sort of) spam proof.
“-“
I regret setting off part of this “slew” of e-mail to Mr. Dvorak by mistaking his use of the word “operator” for those people working the nation’s 911 centers, instead of referring to those people who work for the nation’s telephone companies. In fact, he’s most likely correct that the telephone companies moved so quickly to implement 911 back in 1968 to reduce the costs of handling emergency calls by those who dialed “zero.”
Interestingly, the e-mail responses I received didn’t notice the distinction either in the term, or were hate mail in itself that didn’t point me to a correction. After returning from a trip, I discovered the blow-back and recognized my misreading of the column.
Hopefully we’re now all on the same page and came away with some better understanding. I have.
WE THE 911 ORGANIZATION TAKE GREAT PRIDE IN WHAT WE DO, WE ARE THE 1ST CONTACT WHEN DIALING 911. BUT GUESS WHAT THE LAST TO BE RECOGNIZED, WE WORK LONG HOURS, WEEKENDS, HOLIDAY, & FEW BRAKES. THERE’S AN ORGANIZATION HERE CALLED THE “BACK STOPPERS”. THEY HONOR POLICE & FIRE BUT WE ARE NO ACKNOWLEDGE, BUT YET THEY CALL US POLICE DISPATCHERS. NOT ONLY ARE WE NOT NOTICE BY THE PUBLIC WE DON’T HAVE EXISTENCE WITH OUR PARTNER IN CRIME. WE HAVE A FEW OFFICERS WHO APPRECIATE YOU AND GIVE YOU A PAT ON THE BACK FOR YOU PERFORMANCE.
ST LOUIS
I stand corrected. Thank you for directing me to accurate information.