Holding a box of Milk Duds in the dim light of the Ames Police Department’s call dispatch center, Karla Hobbs, a veteran dispatcher speaks candidly about her job.

“Unbelievable,” she says. “It’s like being in fight or flight mode for 12 hours.”

Hobbs says keeping a sense of humor is critical.

“Actually, everything here revolves around food,” she says, as other dispatchers burst out laughing.

Born in Ames and now the mother of two children, Hobbs continues to work as a dispatcher 12 years after responding to a classified advertisement for the job.

“My first day on the job, I came home crying,” Hobbs says.

“[I] called my boss and said, ‘I’m going to quit.'”

While most dispatchers leave in three to five years because of burnout, the high-stress but exciting job keeps Hobbs in her seat.

Before a dispatcher can take a call or strap on a headset, they are required to go through an extensive training program. All dispatchers are required to go through a 40 hour dispatcher school week, 12 weeks of house training and basic Iowa system training school.

Responsible for answering 911 calls and dispatching Ames firefighters, paramedics and police, as well as assisting with booking, dispatchers describe themselves as jugglers.

“Sometimes it can be dead-ass boring,” Hobbs says. “It goes from nothing at all to all hell has broken loose.”

Hobbs described an instance where a mother called 911 screaming into the phone after finding her teenage daughter had fallen victim to suicide.

Maggie Reitano, another Ames dispatcher, described the typical day.

“Sometimes it’ll be quiet until 1 p.m. hits and it just gets crazy,” Reitano says.

As soon as she turns in her chair, the phone rings.

“911 emergency,” she says, answering the call.

Four calls light up the screen. At the drop of a hat, calls pour into the dispatch center. Reitano sits in front of three large computer screens, each with radio traffic information and police records.

Printers hum as drivers licenses and social security numbers are checked and processed for warrants and missing persons through a computer database, the National Crime Information Center.

Calls Wednesday were not as frantic as some days Hobbs has worked, she says.

“It was like an assembly line, it got so busy,” she says, describing the 1994 Veishea riots.

“It was the busiest morning.”

By law, the Ames Police Department is limited to 12 temporary holding inmates because there are only 12 beds at the facility.

But certain circumstances arise when they must accommodate more people.

“When I first started working here, Veishea was so huge,” Reitano says.

“We had so many people.”

Each day situations can change from good to bad or bad to worse.

“Some days you go home and your neck and back just hurt,” Hobbs says.

“I don’t answer the phone at home.”