Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Procedure
I was working two low positions combined. Traffic and workload became so busy the sectors needed to be split. Multiple military aircraft were requesting clearance into a Military Operation Area (MOA); VFR aircraft looking for flight following; IFR aircraft looking for clearance off the ground; lifeguard aircraft looking for IFR clearance; coordination needing to be done with other facilities; and other duty requirements needing to be done. The Supervisor never came over to the sector to see if the time was appropriate to be split; or to see if a D-Side was needed. The Supervisor just split the sector. I told the Controller splitting the sector from me that traffic and workload was too busy to be split and to tell the Supervisor that I could not split the sectors at this time. The Supervisor went ahead and split the sectors; creating an even larger workload for me all at once. I started the recorded position briefing with the statement 'it is too busy to open this sector.' after several minutes of attempting to complete the split; I was able to finish the briefing and split off the sectors.After the sectors were split; I asked the Supervisor to come over to me; so I could speak to him as I was still on position. I told the Supervisor that he waited too late to split the sectors and that it was the worst possible time to split them; when he did. The Supervisor then told me that he would have me relieved and to meet him in the supervisors office to talk about my sub par performance; as I did not answer land-lines during the busy period/splitting of the sectors. I recommend that the Supervisor comes over to the actual sectors before splitting them and gets a first hand look of the situation before automatically splitting the sectors based on what the Traffic Situation Display (TSD) System is telling. The TSD could indicate that a sector (especially a low altitude sector) is busy; when in fact it is very slow; and vice versa; the TSD could show low numbers when in fact the sector(s) could be overloaded with aircraft/workload. The Supervisor could also have put a D-Side on position to help me split the sector; which would have allowed for the land lines to have been answered; eliminating me receiving a performance discussion because I did not answer the land-lines in a 'timely' manner.
Enroute Controller described a very busy session on combined positions when a Supervisor directed the positions be split without observing the sector and/or exploring other alternatives; i.e. first providing a D-Side.