Nothing Good Happens After Midnight

by Phillip Tomasso

Thirteen years of overnight 911 dispatching reveal the funny, heartbreaking, and bizarre calls behind the emergency line.

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THE STORY

About the book

Themes

Healing Hearts Business Ambitions

After two decades in the corporate world, author Phillip Tomasso found himself tossed into the realm of public safety. He went from handling legal employment issues to working for a busy 911 Center.

In this collection, Tomasso shares impactful stories from thirteen years of dispatching on the overnight shift.

The work is salted and peppered with funny, heartbreaking, quirky and bizarre renditions of actual 911 calls, interactions of dispatchers between calls, as well as life and the attempt to find and sustain balance outside of a 911 Center.

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Read an excerpt

The thing I worry about most while writing this all down is losing the attention of readers from the get-go. I continually ask myself: Who am I to think my life is worth writing about? Who out there even cares to read the ghastly, humorous, and, oftentimes, outrageous stories I am about to tell?

It’s conceited at best, and maybe narcissistic at the root, but makes me wonder if all memoirs and autobiographies fall between the two. I don’t really read them, so I wouldn’t actually know.

What I do know is I wasn’t a president, a millionaire, an actor, a singer, or a songwriter. I am not anyone with any political power or scientific insight. I never invented anything, didn’t win awards, I was not a heroic soldier, did not fight in any wars, and I sure as hell was not an athlete.

So who am I? Why write this book?

My insecurities are sincere and genuine, and yet here I am. I have been jotting down notes for this book for the better part of twelve years. And now I am committed to the writing of my story, and daily, find myself plugging away at the keyboard, categorizing life as a dispatcher into essay-like chapters. Formatting and reformatting ideas inside my brain have been like working tiles on a sliding puzzle. There is a big picture, and I’ll get there. Eventually.

Regardless, I sit at the computer for hour after hour getting my career at 911 into order. And yet the question begs, it nags at me, asking—why write this book?

The reason is simpler than I thought. For the answer, you’ll have to read along, and by the end, let’s see if we come to the same conclusion.

Additionally, I plan on writing this entire book as if you and I were just sitting around in a bar, swapping stories over beers. Except it’s all about me, and I can’t hear a word you are saying.

I guess what I am asking is if you’ll just stay with me on this. I am going to do my damnedest to deliver a fresh, raw, and honest look into my life and into the life of a 911 Dispatcher.

Not all dispatchers. Not even some dispatchers.

Just the revelations of one dispatcher.

This dispatcher.

Me.

Phillip Tomasso