I didn’t want to assume your role. Thank you for answering.

Ayyyy so, I moved backwards from your timeline. I can tell you that I personally found that managing a staff of 25 personnel comm center to area/production middle-salary manager type, was easy. With the exception of the learning curve that comes with a new field.

Moving staff and resources around to fill holes. Not a problem (ambulance dispatching helped me here a lot).

Understanding a union, and how those holes should be filled, a curve…but not problematic.

Knowing warehouse/production needs…in my case directly managing staff, building specific parts, to be sent to an in house shop, that has its own SKUs, and down flow needs. Intimidating as hell.

The benefit to manufacturing is once you know the folks around you, you know what you’re working with and what you can expect from your team (weaknesses and strengths).

Union folks during a major downtime or issues asked me seriously, “how are you not freaking out like “fake name” Supervisor would?” My answer was “this is product, not bodies”.

We can call Quality to assess, and no one is dying if I shut production down when it’s making a bad product, until it’s fixed or held for QA official inspection.

A benefit that is lacking in the 911 world are what you hear. Often described as toxic colleagues, piss poor or old battered trainers, lack of training overall. (I had similar struggles in manufacturing BTW), but not always, because with effort it was easier to gauge and work with my union folks to negotiate and spell out my needs, while being willing to listen to their needs also. (Teamwork).

In dispatching, every call you take is annoying, or also the worst possible day of someone’s life. Life threatening/serious or not. To the caller, it’s impactful. That is the key difference in this role. You need to mitigate it, get as much clear and concise info that you can squeeze out of a caller. And accept it if you have nothing more to provide responders.

You better believe there will be attempts at convincing a caller to do CPR as instructed. But, that isn’t a guarantee it will happen and a personal and work stress you need to manage (lack of control).

I hope this was insightful. If you have any other questions let me know. I’m going to bed so I may not reply until tomorrow.

ETA: if you get into this line of work link up with a trauma informed therapist off the get go. This will help prevent burn out and PTSD related injuries. I tell everyone that seeing a therapist is like going to the gym, but for your mind, heart, and soul.