I have minions, and I want to kill them all!

[Seil]

Bill Lumburgh.

Yeaaaaaaah. If you could, ummmmm, get down there as quick as possible, that'd be great, mmmkay?

[VeddyP]

I work in an office where I can overhear the managers speak about various employees and one tactic is to document everything that makes him a difficult employee to work with. Times in videos when he's doing something inappropriate, voice recordings, pictures, other employee complaints, everything. Keep it in a locked file, in the event that he finally steps out over the line it's pretty much over. Of course this all depends on just how dedicated you are. We're kind of big on moral here though, and people who don't do their job and don't play well with others really don't last that long.

Also put another vote towards short overly-professional conversations and cruddy jobs.

[Overcast]

Blue has a point about there always being one insufferable prick/accident waiting to happen on most situations. This of course doesn't mean you are forced to deal with them. As you have said he has been counseled on his behavior many a time before, and in the position he is in the kind of attitude is hazardous.

So bring it up to your supervisor and see what exactly can be done about the situation since this can only grow more intense and thus more hazardous for anyone else involved. I would wholly try to get his job threatened if at all possible, it should bring him back down to Earth if he can be reminded that he is in fact not special and should be taking this seriously.

That is all I have though, and it is a gambit mostly dependent on convincing people above you that you have a point. I don't work in that field so I can't say how difficult that may be.

[Specterbane]

I would think things like going away from where he's been told to stay put are things that can be brought up to your supervisor and reporting those could be a valid way to get him taken off.

It sounds like he's essentially a man-child. He's older so he somehow thinks he's actually mature, but he's acting like 5 year old who wants attention. You already said that you've talked to him about the way he acts, so I imagine telling him that until he acts like a mature adult with respect for his job and his co-workers he's not going to get treated like one is out of the question. Do the people he works with hate him this much? Is he a douche to everyone, or just his bosses?

[batgirl]

Update on Kevin the retard: His partner, but not him, got fired for the truck crushing incident.

I ran both my Saturday crews really hard last week, I felt terrible. We had a huge amount of calls and the day crews took their sweet time doing them so there was a huge buildup come 11pm. Both of my crews did about 8 jobs a piece and while I did mention that we had a lot of calls that night, Kevin of course wanted me to tell him exactly how many calls the other crew had done to make sure I wasn't just running him like crazy. I politely mentioned to him that it was none of his business and for him to focus on his own work. I also then ever so politely told him that he can certainly ask the other crew how many they did when he came back in the morning, it would be a nice change from hearing him bitch all day.

My boss got a kick out of that one.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Yeesh. I don't know if he's been mentioned already and I missed it, but was his partner a douche as well, or was he just a casualty? If it's the latter and you can back it up, it's just more evidence you can use to keep the little twerp in line. Sorry to hear that someone else had to pay for his mistake though.

Anyways, I'm hoping things don't get much worse with him. You sound like you're under a lot of stress even when things are running as smoothly as possible, and people like Kevin don't make things any better.

[Nique]

Taking orders from someone can rub some people thw wrong way. Whether the orders are totally within the reasonable parameters of the dispatchers job or not, the person taking the orders may have some aversion to authority in general OR having someone they don't respect in the position of "telling them what to do". That doesn't make this guy any less of a douchebag, but it might explain his behavior.

I think dispatchers in any field of work probably have somewhat strained working relationships here and there. They are, as you say, 'Boss but Not Boss'. This guy is probably just maladjusted enough to not be able to comprehend how someone he doesn't answer to can give him directions.

[Ecks]

I can only reiterate what other people have said here, batgirl. You're gonna run into an insufferable prick no matter where you are, and if the one you work with goes bye-bye or straightens out, another will move in to take his place.

My dad used to be in a line of work where he'd wind up with all kinds of assholes, given the fact that he travels a lot, and works with people he doesn't know on a regular basis. He gave me a piece of advice once that I carry with me still: Kill 'Em With Kindness.

Don't be smug. Don't sound irritated when you're conversing with him. Put on the nicest tone of voice you can muster. If you're talking face to face, give as sincere a smile as possible. It might get him to chill the hell out (if he's sane enough, how the hell can you stay mad or irritated at someone who seems to be in a cheery mood all the time?) or piss him off the more (God, I'm being a huge prick to this person, how the hell are they in a good mood?).

Of course, the very best option might just be to keep tabs on the stuff he's doing, let it stack up, and then go to your supervisors when he fucks up majorly with all of the evidence you've collected. There's just no place for that shit in emergency services, and his attitude, behavior, and actions are not only childish, immature, and irresponsible, but they are also dangerous, not just to himself but to other drivers and potential patients. Either way, this can't go on.

[batgirl]

Another update and my new plan as discussed with my supervisor: Anything that he does that is questionable is written up. I will now write incident reports for anything he does or says that is rude etc.

I wrote him up last night. We've been getting an unusually high amount of call volume on Saturday nights lately and I've had to run him and the other EMT crew a bunch. I try to keep them each in a specific area so that they can relax once their area is clear, only moving them if necessary. I had both of them on the south shore of the island and got a call in on the north shore. Kevin was directly south of the call, so I figured I'd shoot him up north, let him do the call, and then let him relax since the north shore was clear. I told him that, and with the most amazing amount of bile in his voice he says, "YEAH WHATEVER JUST SEND THE DAMN CALL." I kindly informed him that I haven't spoken to him disrespectfully all night and that I don't appreciate his attitude and that I am trying to get him to be able to relax. I then wrote him up and didn't hear from him on the radio again for the whole night.

I didn't think that writing an incident report could be therapeutic but damn it was.

[Nique]

Haha ok oh man this guy is clearly in the wrong field. If he's got such a hair-trigger temper with his co-workers like this how do you think he's treating patients?