At a little after 0600 most of the year, the sun is coming up in the East over Broad Creek at the exact same time as I cross the bridge.  The result is a collection of some of the most spectacular sunrises I have ever seen.  Almost every morning, the view is a little different in the sky, but with the lighting of the tidal marsh on that angle, as well as a marina and some other landmarks, it is a glorious sight.

One morning as I crossed the bridge, a car was stopped on the bike lane, the driver taking a picture.  While this is pretty common, I remember the sunrise wasn't the most spectactular I had seen in a while and I thought, "Wow.  He thinks that's a great sunrise and it's probably one of the least amazing of the year."

But in thinking about that idea, it occurred to me that while I got to see this great sunrise almost every morning, I knew that this wasn't a "keeper".  For this poor guy it was one of the highlights of his trip, but because he might have been from somewhere that doesn't have these kinds of views, or for any number of reasons, he didn't know what he was missing.

Your own organization can be much the same way.  You could be "the best". Your department could be a shining example of excellence in your area.  But really, how do you know if you are doing anything significant, or innovative, or even RIGHT if you don't benchmark against other comparable organizations?  

But similarly, what if you are choosing the wrong benchmarks?  There are more than a few methods to measure your organization that can give you the snapshot you need for continual improvement.  And there are those who provide no meaningful yardstick to measure against, especially since some of them have been used to prop up organizations who can meet their "standards" yet fail to achieve even the slightest dent in what is considered a modern emergency service organization.

When someone inquires about accreditation and wonders what an organization can possibly gain from such recognition, in many cases, it is not necessarily the acknowledgement of having met those standards, but the effort the people of the organization make in getting there.  Members of an accredited organization that participate in the process find that they understand the strengths as well as the weaknesses of their organization much better than those who do not.  The knowledge aquired about the organization isn't the most important benefit, though.  More important is the process of examining the facets of running the department and understanding how each part is integral to the workings of the whole.

The challenge of seeking the perfect sunrise requires research to know when and where to find it.  A little experimentation is necessary to see that sunrise from different vantage points and to understand the desired qualities.  Some luck helps in that sometimes the solutions fall right into our laps and we just happen to be in the right place at the right time.  But ultimately, we can't just look at one sunrise and say, "That's the best one", unless of course, it's the only one you ever see.

Stretch a little.  Go out and see what you can see.  Ask questions and open your mind.  Learn and understand the nature of quality and how it presents itself in the efforts you make.  And when you have seen more, you can see that your way might not be the only way, and likewise, someone else might see what you see and they might be enlightened as well. 

SC-TF1 Demobilizing From Chalmette, LA after Hurricane Katrina, 2005.

I was pretty self-conscious about that decision, even though nobody knew who answered each question and nobody would have known it was me that graded us so. I actually thought about it long afterward, in an attempt to understand in my absolute certainty with 10 seconds on the clock, that we deserved the highest mark on a standard grade. It was, frankly, a little presumptuous of me.

The quick answer is that we don’t deserve an “A”. We are definitely customer oriented and we are definitely aggressive firefighters who use best practices and manage our risk appropriately. We are definitely on the leading edge of EMS delivery and while we are not THE organization by which all should be measured, many would be doing pretty well to do so.

But while we are definitely making huge strides and we have many accomplishments, we aren’t where we feel we should be. That is universally agreed upon in our organization. There is just too much to do, and while we are hitting the high priority items, there are so many things we want to do, and have begun doing, but there are only 24 hours in a day and finite resources otherwise at our disposal.

It is for the same reason, perhaps, that I should instead embrace the criticism of some in the knowledge that the minute we stop reassessing our service we become complacent. Don’t believe for a second that I don’t take the criticism personally, because although I shouldn’t, I do. Just as you know all the idiosyncrasies of your own children, you’d never stand for anyone else criticizing them. And, after 29 years of being part of the core individuals who pushed, pulled and shaped what is now known as our department, I have very little patience for the particular individuals who have come along since with a lot of criticism and no substantive contributions. My personal take on it, in fact, is that we have a list of people who would be happy to take their jobs.

Our line of reasoning, however, should be to embrace the constructive criticism that can be drawn from some of the comments. We should always perform self-critique, but self-critique is not self-immolation. We should always be pulling lessons from where we are and where we want to be, and the reason why we aren’t where we want to be. But this isn’t an effort to tell us what a bad job we are doing, but ways in which we need to improve.

The minute we begin to believe we are Number One in the county, the state, the region, or the nation, and we begin to believe we are “The Best”, we (all of us) tend to believe we can’t learn from others or from ourselves. It also demeans the rest of those who do an excellent job providing service with the resources they have in the community they must serve. Of all things, though, it’s pretty presumptuous again to suggest that we are the best at anything other than delivering the emergency services on Hilton Head Island, because really, that’s all that matters.

My own personal vision for our organization is to be one of those departments that others hold up to say, “This is the gold standard. This is how we want to be”. We continue to make leaps in that direction. We are, though, our own worst critics. We need to always be looking out for better ways to improve. Daily, we must try harder.

The effort must be placed on continual improvement. “Zero defects” is a pretty lofty goal, but in our business, zero defects may be the difference between life and death, between going home in the morning or going home in the hosebed of the rig under a pair of crossed aerials.

Never get complacent. Never believe you are the best, at least not for longer than it takes to get to the desired result, then to take a breath, look around, and say, “Where to from here?” The moment we stop, we die. We should always resolve to do better each time we are presented with a new challenge and to dig out whatever lessons we can observe from our current situation. There is no time to dwell on it, though. Digest it, make the adjustment, and move on.

I happened to be listening to a podcast of TEDTalks, in particular, the disabled activist Caroline Casey speaking about looking past limitations. It is really a motivating talk when you listen to it and I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you, but the point she humorously makes is that often, the limits on what we can do are ones we have put there ourselves. If we don’t know we have limitations, there’s really no saying that we can’t do something. This of course assumes that whatever it is that you are trying to achieve is possible within the laws of physics; for example, I don’t know if I can or cannot lift a Yugo because I have never tried, but something tells me that it’s not likely. I know I can’t overhead press a Suzuki GS750E, so logically I know certain limits.

But in achieving our dreams, the amazing thing about the human mind is that if we don’t know how to do something, and we are innovative enough and curious enough, we can take what resources we have and solve problems. After all, mankind has been doing this since the invention of the wheel, and our creativity continues to evolve daily with each new thing we know (and each thing we don’t).

As leaders, we have to not just eliminate barriers for our subordinates’ success, but to avoid putting ideas of failure in their head as well. I can think of a number of occasions in my life where I was discouraged from doing something because the individual themselves saw it as “impossible” or “unrealistic”. I know of times where my own vision was belittled by people whom I should have been getting encouragement from instead.

There is a difference between coaching or mentoring to consider timing and resource allocation, or simply looking at alternatives, and complete undermining of your dreams. In my own case, sometimes I wonder what those people say now that I have made some of those dreams possible?

Failure is something to be expected when we are stretching forward. We reach until we slip and fall. But success comes when you learn to recover from failure. If you have to be propped back up every time you get knocked down, it doesn’t build resilience, it builds dependence. A key secret to success is to appreciate the failures for what they are: a lesson. Develop ideas based on those experiences and get back on the road again.

We need to understand that dreams are what positive change is made of. If we aren’t focusing on the hurdles, we won’t be worried about clearing them. And if we happen to hit one of those hurdles, we keep our eyes on the goal and figure out what it takes to get there. Look to the finish line and reap the reward of success.

Hilton Head Island Truck 6 working in Palmetto Dunes.

Since I was the lifer truckie captain and one of only three in the department who had even sat behind the wheel of a TDA before (I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason I got the job), I got to shop, spec, purchase, equip, and train the company in our new concept. We brought in an expert who was likewise, a lifer truckie, and learned to drive the TDA the old fashioned way (drive it around the parking lot for a while).

My observation was such that, as an educator, there was probably a more effective method of developing drivers for this specialized piece of machinery. When we were doing research on writing a course on driving tillers, I found a shocking lack of information (at that time) on them and ultimately, a few colleagues and I developed the coursework from which we certify our personnel to drive. This, to satisfy the naysayers, also involved INTENSIVE driving of the vehicle: beachfront parking lots during summer, night driving, driving in the rain, and lots and lots of situational stuff. Needless to say, when we were done, that first round of drivers was pretty proficient.

Lately we have been finding that there is a desire for some to want to reduce the requirements for TDA chauffeurs and tiller operators and I expressed my opinion that this was not the way to go. Our organization does all kinds of stuff in our community in conjunction with our customer service outlook, as well as respond on emergencies. Time is very valuable, but I also know of a long and distinguished history of TDA mishaps that each time point to a missed element of discipline and training. There are basic laws of physics that really come into play with a tractor-drawn aerial that don’t in your basic straight frame aerial, and I have been less than tolerant of relief drivers who don’t understand that.

So you can imagine my interest when I found out about this video collaboration between the Raleigh and Seattle Fire Departments as can be seen here:Raleigh and Seattle Collaborative Training Video I have been watching to see what lessons we might get out of the Raleigh TDA rollover and it seems as if we will have a very valuable tool for educating not only TDA drivers, but all firefighters as well.

But while this could evolve into an entire lesson on driving tillered apparatus, the discussion I want to actually have is that there is a wealth of information out there that you all have the opportunity to obtain. We find too often that people are unwilling to accept the observations and experiences of others and instead “reinvent the wheel” regularly, wasting time and money in the process. But these two departments saw needs and worked together to produce a valuable teaching tool.

There is no shame in finding out what mistakes (or positively, what efforts) have been previously made in our business and asking questions about he good, the bad, and the ugly. This is called research. We ask questions to determine an answer to a problem and rely on science and experience to make decisions. The problem is, it requires effort and it requires being candid about the issues. But no progress gets made without learning about what went right and what went wrong.

Check out the video and tell me what you think. I have already viewed it a number of times and take away something new each time. We are fortunate (and thankful) that no one was killed in this event. And it goes without saying, I thank both departments for their sincere effort in making the job safer. But the lessons learned are no good to anyone if we keep them locked up in a closet. Share the knowledge, collaborate, and learn from one another.

Note: I meant to add this link as well and failed to do it: The Fire Engineering article that spurred my interest. I like to give credit where credit is due.

We tend to think that one set of characteristics is independent of the other, when in fact, there are those who have learned to develop all of these qualities. Rhett Fleitz, over on Fire Critic, posed the question, “Who will be our new leaders in the fire service?” Who are tomorrow’s Brunos and Yvarras? Our Downeys and Dunns? The Brennans and the Brannigans? What did these people possess that we, perhaps, do not?

Maybe things like charisma, or an innate knowledge of what ideas stick and how to sell them to others? Or perhaps it is simply a passion for their ideas? Is it that they cared for others so much that they were/are compelled to share all of their riches, which in their cases were their vision of something better than the status quo?

If you look at my list, you’ll note that some of those names are no longer with us and some still are. While legends may grow after someone passes away, none of the individuals identified in my short list became legendary only after their demise. In fact, when they left us, they were very much in the leading edge. Those on the list who are still among us, although retired, are still sharing their passion with us today. They could easily have gone to hang out at the pool and sip Mimosas, but they still can be heard and seen, sharing their vision, and probably will up to the day they too leave us (hopefully nowhere near soon).

When you think about who these new visionaries are, do you say to yourself that they should be instruments of conveying today’s knowledge or are they those who share the idea of what it could be if we all apply ourselves? Because of today’s ability to reach out over the internet, I’d suggest there may be more “candidates” for those “positions”, simply because we were limited, in the early days of my career, to those who were able to come to me, or I to them. Now you can find an expert on every click of the mouse.

What constitutes the next leader of the fire service? Which qualities break someone out from the pack? You tell me. As far as I am concerned, we have lots of leaders now, and we have none. We should all be reaching out to exceed even what we perceive is our potential, understanding that the only limitations we possess are the ones we have given ourselves or gave permission to others to place on us. Until we can look past what is and look toward what can be, we will remain right here in our own existence. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” If you want to be the next leader, it’s yours to reach out and grab.

We are all interconnected; how so remains to be examined. We are part of a bigger whole.

Capacity building can be defined as “activity which strengthens the knowledge, abilities, skills and behavior of individuals, while improving institutional structures and processes such that the organization can efficiently meet its mission and goals in a sustainable way.”

For organizations, capacity building may relate to almost any aspect of its work: improved governance, leadership, mission and strategy, administration, program development and implementation, identification of revenue streams, diversity, partnerships and collaboration, evaluation, advocacy and policy change, marketing, positioning, planning, etc.

For individuals, capacity building may relate to leadership development, advocacy skills, instructional abilities, technical skills, organizing skills, and other areas of personal and professional development.

When I began to write this article, I was thinking about a different direction than the one I shifted to this morning. I happened to be listening to Bob Edwards this morning, as I do routinely when I am driving around. He was interviewing Tom Shadyac, best known as the director behind movies like Ace Ventura. I’ll let the I Am video tell the story, but in short, he had a mind-opening experience as a result of a bike accident and the subsequent recovery, and it inspired him to make a documentary which seeks answers to deeper issues.

The point in his interview that really got me was this: We have been taught over the course of our lives when faced with a problem to ask “What is wrong?” when we should really be asking “Why is this wrong?” Shadyac suggests a more metaphysical approach to our cultural issues which revolve around more cooperation and supportiveness and less competition and strife.

When I applied this to what I had begun to write, it occurred to me that maybe we (emergency services and in society as a whole) are going about this all wrong. Our continual inability to work together to foster positive change is likely deeper than even we originally suspected. If we continue to go after each others’ throats in the vollies vs. career, East vs. West, Fire vs. EMS, safe vs. unsafe battles which rage daily in our business, how can we ever expect to achieve any respect from others outside emergency services, much less endorsement on issues we can all agree on.

It seems to me that the KSAs we need to teach are farther removed than basic operational issues, the KSAs we need to emphasize are our greater connection throughout the entire emergency services industry, how we need to get past the things that divide us and unite about things we can agree on and change.

We talk about “brotherhood”, but what really is brotherhood anymore? You have brothers in career shops bashing brothers in vollie houses because of a number of reasons. Shouldn’t we simply agree that we both do a dangerous job, made more dangerous by the bean-counters limiting our abilities to obtain cutting edge technologies, the best training, and sufficient staffing?

I realize that I have indeed been asking “why” things are wrong for a long time, while many of my brothers were and are still focused on “what” is wrong. I just guess I needed someone to point that out to me.
The capacity building in ourselves, in our organizations, and within our industry is essential for our continued survival. Einstein said, “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.”

I’m suggesting that a good place to start is in a society where there are those who have a core value of service to others, a society in which the greater good is supposed to be placed above that of the individual, and where characteristics of selflessness and courage are valued attributes, not hindrances. If there is any established society in which those morals are daily sought and in which we insist they are founded upon, it would be the society made up of fire and EMS professionals.

We best memorialize our brethren by remembering the lessons they teach us.

Susan’s credentials as a leader were impressive.  She came on board not long after our department was in the throes of a major overhaul of our command staff as a result of retirements and going on to bigger venues. But while her impact on our organization was large, her time with us was short and to be quite candid, the changes she endeavored to make didn’t quite stick the way they should have.

I guess one of the reasons I never finished posting (because the post actually went on from here) was that it kept sounding like a eulogy and that’s not what I wanted to do. This issue isn’t about me or anyone else who is still around picking up the pieces, but about moving forward, transitioning, living through a traumatic event and learning how to move on.

I dragged this back out again from my “drafts” pile because for the better part of yesterday, I was trying to catch up on my workload and making pretty decent progress. I think I’m only backlogged to November now (that’s LAST November). Things came to a crawl, however, when I began to tackle the next priority on the list, which was (is, because I’m not done) a “Line of Duty Death” guideline (LODD, for my non-fire readers). While Susan’s death was not an LODD, it was very much about a loss to our fire department family. I have always been impressed by our ability to rally, and of course, the amazing memorial that was virtually shot from the hip.

We can always look back in amazement at what we instinctively got right and make notes about what we probably could have done better at. Her family asked us to coordinate the services and a few stalwart colleagues/friends jumped in there and did a pretty damn good job organizing and contacting and negotiating to create a memorial worthy of commemorating Susan’s impact on our lives. While there’s none of us that wouldn’t have wanted to fill Yankee Stadium for her, we did a good job of filling the venue we had, and the service was both tearful and funny, the way she probably would have wanted it.

But the moral of this story is that when we lose someone dear to us, we have a need to commemorate their life. The deceased are deceased and while it is my belief that we honor them by having a ceremony, and it is also my belief that they are taking in our feelings and understanding how much they meant to us from a better place, when it comes down to it, a lot of that may be more about us processing our own feelings and trying to get us to move on to the next phase of our lives.

I have said before, and again in this post as well, that if we really care about leaving a legacy, we should consider the culture we develop as a result of our leadership of others.

What better memorial to another than to recognize that our beloved was such an important part of our life that the traditions they instilled in us, the commitment to excellence, and the dedication to service so ingrained in our culture, that we refused to let that value die long after that person was gone from this mortal coil. Unfortunately, when I think back on it, I think maybe we might have failed Susan.

With some substantial challenges on our horizon and after talking to others within our organization about a renewed commitment to improvement and service, I have to meditate a little on what that truly means and how to go about facilitating that change among the people I am responsible for mentoring. As a chief officer, one of the hardest things you have to do sometimes is admit to yourself that you have let your vision be narrowed by petty issues. As a chief officer, your vision can’t be obscured by the trees; you need to view the entire landscape.

My job must be to focus on positive strategic change. I have company officers who must translate that change into daily tactical objectives. If they can’t do that, they have to do some soul searching themselves, because the purpose of the officer on a team isn’t to be one of the gang, it is to lead the team. It is the job of the officer to work with other officers to form an effective cadre of other leaders and to be above pettiness themselves. When you make the choice that your badge will have bugles on it, it’s time to leave the past behind and focus on the future. And if you ca’t do that, then you need to admit that it might be better to return to the gang. No one ever said leadership was easy.

We have many people in our lives whom we love in their own special ways. All of the assembled brothers and processions of fire apparatus, all of the pipes and crossed ladders and other powerful traditions are nothing if we can’t be true to ourselves and appreciate that our calling is to serve others. Service to others is the hallmark of our tradition. People would not revere firefighters if not for their long-standing tradition of selflessness, of commitment despite adversity, and of bravery in the face of death and destruction. If we truly want to memorialize our loved ones and our brothers, we need to re-dedicate our careers toward self-improvement, education, and dedication, as well as to teach and mentor those who are behind us in the ranks.

Don’t make saying goodbye a hollow promise of honoring the deceased. The funeral is just the beginning of a new life without that person standing next to us. If they really mean something to us, we will consider the lessons they taught us and create action instead of words.

So I am left to wonder, does someone actually sit around and come up with some of those bizarre paragraphs?  Is that a job somewhere?  Is some mother distraught because her child, who she cared for and sent to a decent college is sitting around typing “jeans will advance concoction electric authoritatively patanol over the counter”? (I didn’t dare cut and paste it and thus have whatever link it is hanging out on my site).

I’m assuming that people actually click on some of that, which is why they send it out.  Otherwise, what is the point?  It reminds of of the point I was slowly getting to, and that’s whether or not a message of enlightened leadership is actually getting out to the leaders of our emergency services.  Why does it seem that we have so many in our midst that just don’t get it?

I was having a long discussion the other night with Ron Richards (withthecommand.com and Task Force 1 Training) and his wife, Linda, about the need for our industry, career and volunteer, to begin to agree on some real issues, or else we will continue on being the doormat we have been for decades.  I was pointing out that a lot of the problem rests on the shoulders of chiefs and other officers who have no vision beyond lunchtime, much less for the future.  Ron equated what we do to missionary work.  It’s like we are going out into the unknown, reaching out, and ultimately (hopefully) inspiring some others to also take up the cause.

As with those spam messages, I wonder if what we are saying sometimes falls on deaf ears.  Are we proclaiming the vision of something that can never be, because vested interest and egos will always keep firefighters fat, dumb and happy? Should we revel in the presence of the whackers and the unprofessionals, knowing they won’t likely be competing with us for our own jobs?

I take comfort in knowing there are others like us out there, and those who may not know they are yet, but will need to have the shade pulled up so they can see the light.  We will, of course, continue to do just that.  We need to show people that what we are telling them is true.  Our industry, the fire and rescue services, is on the brink of a sea change.  There are widely-accepted technologies and best practices that are being used daily out there that won’t see the inside of a fire station for at least another 10 years.  It’s a sad state of affairs, but with continually rising costs and continually shrinking budgets, we will have to continue to slog on.  And the only people we can blame this on is ourselves, because we failed to draw the right picture for others to understand where we were going and where we needed to be.

Be a missionary of change.  Illuminate the paths of others, so they can see where they are going.  Help those along who need a hand.  But of all things, strive to do the best job possible for your citizens.  They deserve it, and frankly, they are why you exist.  Treat them like it.

Sometimes we have to make decisions in a fog. But not always. Take the time to see the whole picture.

The brotherhood of fire and rescue is but a microcosm of the greater part of society.  In turn, a visit to any un-moderated site will reveal that the general public isn’t any better about being civil, so we probably shouldn’t put a whole lot of worry into the declining civility among people who profess to be part of a brotherhood.  It’s just become a norm of our victim society that it’s okay to be self-righteous and it’s okay to go after anyone who doesn’t think like us.

You would think a group of people who profess brotherhood as a redeeming value would be a little slower to throw one of their brothers under the bus when something goes wrong, but as I mentioned in the Tuscon post, that is obviously not the case.  In the event that an individual within our ranks does something completely against the grain of our collective morals, like set fires or engage in child pornography, I am entirely understanding about the emotion involved in that rage.  It is proportionate to the offense.  But since I’m sure you all have heard of cases where the other side of the story ends up being a compelling explanation, we need to take care and exercise caution about expressing our condemnation, because, as we command officers tend to say, the truth actually lies somewhere between Points A and B.

I’m not a hypocrite by any means; I am right there with you.  I just happen to also take a little bit of time to rein in my passions a little.  If you were standing next to me at the moment I got the news of a “firefighter declining to respond to an incident”, I’m sure you’d have seen another side of me.  However, the luxury of the internet is not only real-time event coverage, but the ability to pause before re-communicating your opinion, especially since unless you were there, it is your opinion and based on conjecture, not on tangible evidence.  You might not be able to take back what you just blurted out of your mouth, but you can certainly check yourself before clicking the radio button.  Very few of the stories I hear are actual prima facie cases.  Since these stories unfold so quickly, we often find that there is more to the story that doesn’t get revealed due to the emotions choking the lines of communication.

It brings up the topic of this page, however, since some of the e-mail (I typed in “e-mal” in my draft – was that a slip?) doesn’t seem to agree with me and of course, there are those who can hide behind their pseudonyms in the comments.  While I am sure the act of someone failing to go to an emergency challenged our beliefs in what was good and right about our profession, on lesser occasions, the anger and vitriol for say, someone not wearing their gloves in a picture, is a little over the top.  And I say “a little” in my most sarcastic tone of voice.  Some of the comments from the peanut gallery are also those who, given their profiles, probably haven’t seen too many incidents more challenging than a dumpster fire, and even then, they weren’t even in charge of that.

Individuals these days, in this moment of instantness (you like that?), are quick to react instead of reflect.  They simply don’t have the patience for the whole story.  They want their news, their blogs, their everything instantly and then they act on that information accordingly.  In a time-compressed environment, there is only a moment to digest what we have heard and then to regurgitate it so that we can be the first to make a comment.  The first to comment must be the best informed, right?  The self-appointed subject matter expert?  The one on the inside, right?

For me, I see it in the type of readership I get here at FHZ.  The comments are usually thoughtful and agreeable.  I post every comment, pro or con, so long as it isn’t spam.  And although I may not agree with you, I consider your perspective on the issues as valuable and enlightening.  But I get the impression that the few individuals who have seen fit to be trolls (with one notable exception) haven’t read farther than the first paragraph anyway.  Anything over 140 characters for a lot of these individuals is a lot of wasted time reading.

We don’t do controversy here on this blog.  We are interested in a bigger picture.  If it is an event that is truly worth discussing and there are alternate points of view, we engage in another time-wasting effort: dialogue.  We ask questions.  We pose thoughts.  We engage in critical examination.  We remain open-minded. It’s a little too much for some people, I am aware, but it keeps the riff-raff out.

The readers of this blog generally have proven to be those who I could sit down and have a beer with and talk about something other than the fire service, or have a conversation about the fire service in say, the context of a retail business, or a day care, or the University of Life.  They can see things for more than what is printed on the face.  They possess deeply considered ideas or are able to see that there are advantages to listening to the opposition.  The readers of this blog are those who I consider to be the hope for emergency services to evolve out of the tar pit of whackerdom and rise to the level of professionalism.

If you know of someone who operates on a different playing field than the norm, send them here and ask them to say their piece so we know they are here.  But most importantly, we are looking for readers (and commenters) who have ideas to share and innovative ways of looking at things.  Just because the issue appears to be obvious, it isn’t often the case.  We want to talk with REAL leaders, those of you who consider enlightened leadership to be a desired trait, not a hurdle to our position.  We need engagement, not brick walls. Haters and groupthinkers need not apply.

A while back, Captain Schmoe over at Report on Conditions spelled it out best (but for some reason I can’t find the specific post), illustrating that our collective hubris has signed our own death warrant. When Fred Taxpayer sees one of the brothers trucking down the road in his Gasguzzler 6000 pickup, towing a boat with three engines on it, laughing because he only works one day out of three, it doesn’t sit well. Especially when that same individual is scraping to make ends meet, can’t figure out where he’s going to get the money to feed the kids, and might not even have a retirement anymore. Do you really find their resentment unfounded?

Recent firefighter layoffs in Camden and Gary, while extraordinarily tragic, illustrate a fundamental issue: people generally aren’t lashing out at the politicians, they are blaming the Union. And while that may very well be unfounded, it is happening, and that is a tangible reality. Why should we care? Because we did it to ourselves.

It’s not a matter that we do or don’t deserve decent salaries and good benefits, it is a matter of our failure to educate the public, to work with them and include them as part of the solution. After all, it was their own elected officials that agreed to these contracts in the first place. They can argue that they did so at the point of a gun, but the reality there is actually that these benefits were often hard-fought for and given grudgingly, so whatever these individuals were able to obtain, it wasn’t exactly handed to them on a silver platter.

Furthermore, like those of us in departments that don’t enjoy the fruits of collective bargaining, we are all lumped in together with the stories like the one illustrated above as a prime example of why we don’t deserve this compensation. I, for one, live in a nice home.  But its a home my wife and I ate a lot of waffles and PBJs to save for.  We have three children to put through college, but so do a lot of people. I drive an eleven year old truck with 130,000 miles on it.  In no way should this be construed as complaining.  I don’t make a fortune, but I think it is a fair salary for what the community gets from me, and although I wish I made more, I also understand the realities of the situation. And I have friends that are firefighters who have the truck and boat and etc., but they have in one case invested wisely, in another case happened to parlay their talents into a lucrative side job. Yet another one though, has squandered his money and overextended himself. So it is, just as it is everywhere else, the same.

When we engage in bragging about how good we have it, we’d better consider the consequences. There is a backlash that still rages on against our existence, and it doesn’t stop at the career folks either. If the public percieves that your service doesn’t have value, they will cut it back to where they feel it deserves to be funded, plain and simple. The other parts of public service enjoy a certain paranoia about the public, where those emotions about losing those services are much more tangible. Lose the trash pickup? No cops? Sewer backing up?  They will choose and what they will choose is to fund that which they are the most concerned about losing.  Since you don’t have fires next door every day, nor does everyone in the neighborhood end up in the back of the ambo regularly, do you believe that when we’re lining up to get our share, that there’s a reluctance to cut our budgets? Not often.  The public may complain a little when they see on the news that the Mayor shut down the fire station on the corner, but that sentiment is usually over by the time American Idol comes on.

We can’t continue to take for granted that the public knows why we are there or what we do, or what would happen if we lost manpower, equipment, or other tools. This is the time to insure that the buyer is aware of what they are being sold, and is happy with the return they continue to make on their investment. Yes, that’s called marketing and while that might be a dirty word to some of you, it too is a reality. You can choose to ignore the need or you can get up and do what is needed.  We can’t wait until stations are being closed and people are being laid off to insure the message is shared. Anything after that is sour grapes. We can’t scream “people will die” if we didn’t do anything to reinforce it in the minds of the population ahead of that moment.

To the general population, our indifference to their situation while flaunting our current compensation packages is a lot like Marie Antoinette telling starving Parisians, “Let them eat cake”. And you know how that story ended. The backlash against government spending isn’t going away and if we don’t evolve, don’t be surprised to hear this story repeated over and over again until we do. Would you rather change under your own terms or change at the end of a pike? It’s your call.