Don't Do It - Emergency Calltaker Triple Zero Victoria Employee Review

You can earn good money doing full time shift work with penalties and OT. You will meet *some* amazing people. The work itself can be enjoyable.

Shift work, constantly sleep deprived. You can feel quite isolated from family and friends because you will miss weekends/public holidays and lots of social events. Leave is extremely competitive and hard to get, some having to apply years in advance for certain months. You’re exposed to hearing/reading awful traumatic incidents and you can become desensitised and start to lack empathy for even those who you should feel it for. Middle management is toxic, unsupportive and won’t have your back if you need it most of the time. Working full time you spend so much time with colleagues, you become almost too close with them and relationships can start to unravel- especially with the stressful nature of the job and the high pressure environment. Gang up culture is big here, and people talk - word gets around quickly and rumours fly. Difficult to change hours or have any form of work life balance. Long days, 12 hour shifts. Some people in training roles who absolutely shouldn’t be there and exhibit a level of bias and unprofessionalism during training/assessments which they get away with easily. In my first 12 months I really enjoyed the job, however over time you become extremely burnt out and definitely need regular breaks to feel sane. Which again are hard to get because there’s little to no leave. Save yourself the trouble and sick to corporate, I wish I had.

Amazing colleagues, solid pay, endless mental health support and understanding.

The work itself. Sometimes you get calls that follow you home, if you get what I mean. Some stuff is really difficult to forget about hearing.