Narrative:

All 7 sectors in the area had to be open and staffed due to traffic volume. The only problem is that this facility continues to staff us below guidelines nearly every day. So the one person out on break (had been out just over 10 minutes) was paged back to the control room to split off a red sector that was combined. Even after the split; the sector was still red and could have used a radar assist; however there were no other controllers available to help. While this is going on; another busy controller requested a radar assist to which the supervisor had to reply; 'there is no one else.'I personally was working a busy sector and could have used an assist at the time. So with every controller in the control room and no one on break; we needed 3 extra controllers to help with the workload but were unable to get them. This is now the 1st time this has happened. It seems however it goes mostly unnoticed because we happen to get through it without a major incident so management continues to keep us understaffed every shift. In order to get people out on break two sectors were combined without an assist position when they should have stayed split due to the 29 proposed departures pending. As I worked the combined sector it quickly became nearly unmanageable. A controller arrived at his shift start time and was able to split off one of my sectors again. However; at the time he plugged in I was too busy to give a complete and thorough briefing and pretty much just had him take the frequencies and get to work. Totally unsafe situation caused again by the lack of staffing.please staff us to guidelines. Also although unrelated to this specific incident; the swing shift guidelines should be 11 or higher in my area not 10 especially during the summer months when we have weather deviations. On multiple occasions I have had to go over 2 hours on swing shifts again due to the lack of staffing this summer. With seven sectors and weather 10 people isn't enough to staff a swing shift with weather. They haven't been staffing us to 10 anyway; we seem to always start the shift with 9 controllers.this place is ridiculous right now and the morale is terrible.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ATC Center Controller reported the work area was understaffed for the level of traffic.

Narrative: All 7 sectors in the Area had to be open and staffed due to traffic volume. The only problem is that this facility continues to staff us below guidelines nearly every day. So the one person out on break (had been out just over 10 minutes) was paged back to the control room to split off a RED sector that was combined. Even after the split; the Sector was still Red and could have used a Radar Assist; however there were no other controllers available to help. While this is going on; another busy controller requested a Radar Assist to which the Supervisor had to reply; 'There is no one else.'I personally was working a busy sector and could have used an Assist at the time. So with every controller in the control room and no one on break; we needed 3 extra controllers to help with the workload but were unable to get them. This is now the 1st time this has happened. It seems however it goes mostly unnoticed because we happen to get through it without a major incident so management continues to keep us understaffed every shift. In order to get people out on break two sectors were combined without an Assist position when they should have stayed split due to the 29 proposed departures pending. As I worked the combined sector it quickly became nearly unmanageable. A controller arrived at his shift start time and was able to split off one of my sectors again. However; at the time he plugged in I was too busy to give a complete and thorough briefing and pretty much just had him take the frequencies and get to work. Totally unsafe situation caused again by the lack of staffing.Please staff us to guidelines. Also although unrelated to this specific incident; the swing shift guidelines should be 11 or higher in my area not 10 especially during the summer months when we have weather deviations. On multiple occasions I have had to go over 2 hours on swing shifts again due to the lack of staffing this summer. With seven sectors and weather 10 people isn't enough to staff a swing shift with weather. They haven't been staffing us to 10 anyway; we seem to always start the shift with 9 controllers.This place is ridiculous right now and the morale is terrible.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.