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Hey! Pay Attention! This Is Important!

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This is not the toilet. But it is cool.Okay, what started as a skirmish has turned into a full-on battle.  A bunch of the old timers from the FireEMSBlogs network are pulling together to help fellow blogger Chris Kaiser win the bathroom of his dreams.  Now before anyone thinks this is just a frivolous ganging up of fire and EMS bloggers on some guy (who is buying votes from North Korea), there is a real reason to get involved.

Chris says on his blog:

It sounds kinda silly… but I am involved in an online contest where I can win a $7500 bathroom remodel for my bathroom that is well… a barely functional health hazard… It's the only one we've got at our house and it is rapidly becoming nearly impossible to use for my step-son who has special needs and our family of four. We need an accessible, functional, and safe bathroom that all members of our family can use without assistance. It's a bad situation that could be vastly improved with your help.

But to me, this is EXACTLY what I keep telling you all.  We in emergency services, for all our brotherhood talk, need to band together when we see something or someone who needs help within our ranks and THAT is the true power of social media.  While entertainment is nice and it always helps to get some ideas for training, the reality is that we have power of our network.  We have a force in numbers that we can direct to be there for each other.  And if we fail to exercise this power, are we really a brotherhood?

This is a classic reason to bond together, tell all your other fire and EMS buds, and let's get together to help these guys win.  And when he wins, especially in his situation, we all win.  Do the right thing.  Let's show others the real power of this fraternity and lets get Chris the potty of his dreams!  Go get 'em! 

Posted by on March 16, 2013 • Filed under: Firefighter Nation • Tagged: , , , , ,

We Shall Never Forget

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In the eleven years that have passed since that day, what have we achieved?  Three hundred and forty three firefighters died at the World Trade Center, along with the countless many who die slower, but no less honorable deaths, having placed their own lives secondary to the possibility of saving others.  And there are others as well, no less tragic; those innocent victims who were murdered by zealots, evil, evil people who truly believed that striking non-combatants was "fair game". And even further, those warriors we sent forth to defend our nation, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, neighbors who gave the ultimate sacrifice to engage forces overseas in battles we may never completely understand, although many of us, myself included, supported running down the people who caused this tragedy.

We have been at war for 11 years with an enemy we can't place a real label on.  Yes, these individuals were Islamist radicals, but all believers in Islam are not the enemy.  These murderers hailed from Saudi Arabia, hid in Afghanistan, and were supported by people in a number of other Middle Eastern countries, but to say that the people of these nations are our enemies would be entirely wrong.  And what's more, we have been attacked from within by our very own: the Beltway Sniper attacks; in Brookfield, WI; in Nickel Mines, PA; at Virginia Tech; in Omaha, NE; at Northern Illinois University; in Binghamton, NY; at Fort Hood; in Tucson, AZ; and of course, the most recent attacks in Aurora, CO and in Oak Creek, WI.  That list involves domestic terrorists, people who have lived among us and we knew and thought they were just like us in one way or another.

If there is something I have learned in the eleven years since that terrible day, it is that on any day, in virtually any place, the possibility exists that this might be our last moment, but instead of living in fear, I choose to live. I have learned that extremism exists on many sides of the spectrum and it is equally insane and defies the values espoused by most human beings.

We lost so much innocence on that day.  I had taken the day off from shift and was standing in front of the television, holding my then-baby daughter, wondering what kind of idiot could be such a bad pilot as to hit the highest building in the sky, as if it wouldn't be pretty obvious.  When the second plane hit, I knew this would be much different.  I had no idea how different, though.

I knew then that even with the extraordinary sacrifices of our brothers, the love-fest would be over with not long after it had begun.  I have seen the cycle enough times to know it for what it was.  But here we are, eleven years later, and it has become much worse than anything I have seen before – more than just apathy toward our efforts but in recent years: contempt, hate, jealousy, anger, frustration.  Gone is the realization from the public that we daily take their emergencies and make them tolerable, that we save them from ruin, and that, of all things, we place our own well-being in direct jeopardy to save them from injury or death.

While the public may have the ability to sleep at night knowing people like Ray Downey, Mychal Judge, Gerard Barbera, Terry Hatton and Andy Fredericks laid their bodies down for people they never even met before, I refuse to forget these people.  I carry their memory with me daily, every time I put that helmet on my head and see that number, and every time September comes around.  I remember them and I will always thank them for their service and their calling.

If we really want to honor these people, we will seek to understand.  I have no argument with hunting down everyone involved in conspiring to kill all these innocent people, I have no qualms about dealing them justice for the actions they took and in doing so, destroyed so many lives.  But it is absolutely wrong of us to act the same way they did, in judging those they never knew or met, and saying they deserved to die because they happened to believe differently.  

Zealotry in any form is dangerous.  When people fervently believe in something to the extreme where they would willingly kill innocents to demonstrate their point, these people have to be stopped.  And anyone who incites this kind of zealotry is no better than the one pulling the trigger.  There are more than a few well-known individuals who can add themselves to that list, as well as many nameless, faceless people who insist in marching in lockstep with the haters.  What's worse is that there are those who are really unbalanced and who are sitting on the edge, waiting for "permission", and when they do get it, they will be at the forefront, destroying again.

Honor our brothers.  Work toward positive change, work to serve mankind, and strive to love one another.  And never, ever, forget.

Posted by on September 11, 2012 • Filed under: change, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In Memory of Lt. Bruce Schultz, Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue

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Our department lost a dear friend yesterday after a long battle with cancer.  Lt. Bruce Schultz came down from Ohio back in the day when hanging out at the station for long enough would get you hired.  I remember that when he did this, we were faced with a longer than average lull in our hiring and he stuck in there until he got the call to the majors.

Bruce and I knew each other for just under thirty years, which for two people not from the same zip code, is a very long time.  Just like anyone who works together for a long time, we had our ups and downs, but honestly, he was a good man and would do anything for you if you needed it..  So, I know you are looking at that blue 1975 Datsun B210 and wondering, "What the hell does a 1975 Datsun B210 have to do with honoring a firefighter?"  Well, my hard drive crashed a while back and I don't have any old pictures on it, so unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Bruce for this memorial.  Instead, I posted a picture of a 1975 Datsun B210 in his honor. He, of anyone, would appreciate the sentiment.

I remember one night, when Hilton Head Island's night life wasn't what it is today (not that it's roaring around here at 0200 or anything), we went to Savannah to do a little drinking and to meet some young ladies.  This was right after he started dating his future wife, Dale, who also happens to be the sister of our "C" Shift Battalion Chief/Ops.  In those days, driving after you had a few cold ones was looked on as youthful indiscretion.  When we left the bar (Remington's, for all you Savannahians) I decided to go back to the Island by way of Interstate 516.

Anyone who knows Savannah knows that 516 goes in the opposite direction from Hilton Head Island. So a few minutes into this, we realize we have gone the wrong way, and I decide that my 1975 Datsun B210 (see above, only I couldn't find a picture of my car in red) is a four-wheel drive machine (it wasn't) and I tried to cross the median at relatively high speed (for a red non-four-wheel drive 1975 Datsun B210).  Bruce was not impressed.  

Bruce really wanted to go home at that point, except home was Station 6 and it's not like we were going to be welcome there in our condition either.  He was also dating Dale at that point, and really didn't want to do anything that was going to set her off either, like showing up at her apartment smelling like Budweiser.  The Georgia State Trooper that pulled up to see what we were doing wasn't impressed either.  But in those days, like I said, we weren't as enlightened about the dangers of impaired driving.  The trooper took one look at Bruce and I, decked out in our finest disco clothes, covered in grass and mud, and growled, "I've got to go to a wreck.  If I come back and find you still here, both of you are going to jail!"

Luckily, two U.S. Army Rangers, probably heading back to the base for the night and likely in the same condition as us, had also ditched THEIR car just down from us and got the same speech. As the trooper sped off, we made a quick agreement: we would help them push their car out of the ditch if they would help us do the same.  So that bond borne of a desire to return unscathed to our own respective beds was sufficient to keep us all out of jail and we limped back into port at Hilton Head none the less for the wear.  

Needless to say, not long after that, Bruce got married.  My roommates and I (also firefighters) used to joke that we would wake up in the morning, look out in the yard, and ask "who drove?"  We were a little wild in our younger days and I like to think perhaps Bruce took a look at the mess we were and figured he had a good woman and a good situation, and didn't want to mess that up.  He and Dale were together ever since and I, of course, was specifically prohibited from retelling that story, because Dale was and is a sweet, church-going woman and probably would have not looked kindly upon our little adventure. 

Bruce got cancer a while back and after a fight, thought he had it beat.  He returned to work for a while and was working at regaining his strength. Just like the demon killer-type in a nasty horror movie, Bruce saw it lying in the road, turned his back on it to get on with his life, and it came back with a vengeance.  

Not too long ago, Bruce was trying to be his usual self, I gave him a hug and asked how it was going.  He said he was going to keep working at it and wanted to try to get back to working condition.  Mind you, Bruce was moving very slowly at this point, obviously in pain, and minus quite a few pounds.  But he didn't let it get him down.

Like I said, I relieve his brother-in-law on the C to A shift change.  When I saw Cliff yesterday morning, he broke the news to me that the doctors at Duke gave Bruce two weeks to live and they were sending him home to be attended to by Hospice.  Bruce and Dale were determined to stick it out, or at least that was the face they showed us all.  Both of them felt like they didn't need any fussing over them. His children were going to come see him, as well as his year-old grandchild.  Cliff said he made sure he told his boys to go over and see him soon as well.  I asked Cliff if he thought it would be okay if I came by to see him today after shift and he said, "I'd just show up. I'm sure they'd like that." I said to Cliff, "You know, my grandfather got diagnosed with cancer in 1965 and they told him he had a few months.  He died in 1981."  But, I said, I'd make sure I went to see him. 

I did not get the chance to say goodbye.  Within four hours of that conversation, Bruce passed away.

I like to tell the funny stories after someone has gone, because I remember the good times and I think of how different we all are in our "adult" years.  I think the concept of a wake to celebrate the life of a departed loved one has a lot of merit.  Some people see that as almost sacrilegious, but I see it as something that we should be joyful for, because our friend or our family member, in this case, our Brother, is in a place where there is no pain.  And how can you not be happy about that?

I ask that you all keep Bruce's family in your thoughts and prayers.  They are good, good people and they will surely miss him, and even when we know that our loved one is no longer suffering, the times will still be hard to bear.  But with time there is healing and hopefully they can move to that place quickly and remember him for the person he was.

Thanks to Chief Barry Turner and our brothers at Bluffton Township Fire Department, the brothers at Burton Fire Department, and the others who have offered to cover the Island during the funeral, so we can be together and celebrate Bruce.  It's a shame that something like this has to happen sometimes to see who is there for you, but our departments have always had a good relationship and we would do the same for them as well, and that is truly brotherhood.

Posted by on May 12, 2012 • Filed under: Firefighter Nation • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You Can Quote Me On That (Before 2010)

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I was driving down the road the other day and thinking, you know, I too could have a list of quotes, just like the real writers have. So in the interest of filling up a page of useless knowledge, I went back to FHZ from September of 2008 to December of 2009 and I also threw in a few notable statements I made way back on the old Firehouse Forums as a member of the IACOJ, before some of you were born, I think. 

Now, I do read a lot and listen to podcasts, etc. and I will check my quotes with a deep internet search to make sure I haven't stolen someone else's ideas, but I'm pretty sure I said this stuff at one time or another.  I also left off anything I paraphrased (I hope) and added some stuff that exists in unpublished posts (there are a few dozen of those).  Believe it or not, we here at FHZ have standards.  They are low, but we do have standards.  

So here you are, from the beginning of FHZ, some of the more memorable ones:

  • "When I give you an order, I want to see it done, or your dead body where you died trying to do it."
  • "Never eat more than your mask can hold."
  • "I am not your friend, I am your boss. If you want to be friends, that's okay, but that doesn't change the fact that I am your boss first."
  • "The company officer is the designated adult supervision in the station. Act like it."
  • "There won't be a group hug at the end of this. I don't do Kumbaya."
  • "When I call for a resource I'm gonna give you type and kind. If I call for a Lincoln-ful of Panamanians, I don't care where you got it, just give me the closest one."
  • "Let's put this in terms you can understand: Confined space rescue is nothing more than HAZMAT on a rope."
  • "Being a truckie requires resourcefulness. You are presented with a problem no one else knows how to fix and you fix it with what you brought to the party or what you can swipe. After that, it's all magic."
  • "Individuals have given themselves the freedom to make poor decisions, then be let off the hook because we 'shouldn't judge them', or because their mommy didn't hug them as a child, or whatever the victim story is this week." (Okay, I just used that one again the other day).
  • "The base cause of indignity is usually the result of inconsiderate behavior." (Oh, and that one is new. But I liked it).
  • "Conflict in life is inevitable. Conflict escalation and intractability is not." (Alright, that one is new as well.  Back to the old stuff).
  • "There's enough ugly going on around us right now without our own people bringing it down on us."
  • "Each of us should be serving as a positive example of how to do the job, volunteer or career, and without acting like a bunch of amateurs and whackers."
  • "The important part in our lives, really, isn't necessarily what we can fill up our minds with at every moment, but about creating space to let more in."
  • "There are a few things that you should raise the stakes for, like your faith, your family, and your country.  But when faced with an unwinnable scenario and a profound lack of resources, sometimes it is best to save what you can save and live to fight on another day."
  • "Where t = tempo, r = resources and f = frustration: increasing t multiplied by decreasing r = exponential increase in f."
  • "The taxpayers in your community ultimately decide what level of service they want.  If they are insistent that giving you no resources is okay, then they have to be educated to what extent that investment will reap disaster.  Risk is proportionate to return."
  • "There are other sides to every argument that get squashed by the rush of the ADD crowd to comment.  Don't fall into the trap of the unenlightened.  Think before you post."
  • "I can think of no rational society that thinks it is okay to screw the disadvantaged for the benefit of the privileged.  Taking advantage of the less fortunate is simply bullying."
  • "When we use the phrase 'customer service", if that's not appealing to you, try saying it like this: 'doing what is right for our neighbors and the people who visit and work in our community'.  That should be a little more pleasant."
  • "Successful coaches match schemes to personnel, not vice-versa."
  • "If you are going to successfully implement change in your organizational culture, there should be a reluctance to be where you were and a desire to get where you are going."
  • "I'm pretty sure that when my ticket , I'm not going to be quoted saying something profound, poetic, or heroic.  It is likely going to be something that can't be repeated around children or the faint-hearted."
  • "If we really want our industry to recognized as professional, it requires consistent conduct that is professional."
  • 'Legitimate power, in the sense of leading others, is limited to the amount of leverage the followers will permit."
  • "Tansformative leadership requires commitment, honesty to self, and an understanding of the world.  It's yours if you can embrace change, open yourself up to it, and set the example to others."
  • "Our business is too dangerous to leave the teaching to amateurs."
  • "Perhaps if you guys are going to fight fire like you are in the '70's, you should be paid like we were then too."
  • "If as a team, you can't agree on the destination, someone needs to get out of the car. Ultimately, getting to the destination requires assessment, negotiation, understanding, cooperation, and ends with commitment."
  • "More often than I care to, my 'command presence' comes out at inopportune times, like when I am talking to my wife (she doesn't like it), my kids (they're not crazy about it either), or my colleagues (they probably think I'm insufferable anyway)."
  • "If you fail to illustrate a clear picture of who is in charge, someone else will come in and fill that drawing in for you."
  • "Sometimes the best we can do is to pin it down to the neighborhood of origin, if that's what was burning when we got there."

Since at some point perhaps I'll add another page of these for the next years, if one of the sentences I uttered strikes a chord with you, point it out to me and I'll add it.  I'm all about customer service.  Until next time, thanks for reading.

Posted by on June 29, 2011 • Filed under: administration-leadership, change, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, Fires, Funding & Staffing, leadership, Line of Duty, Major Incidents, motivation, officership, planning, politics, rebellion, Rescues, revolution, Special Operations, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Antidote To Road Rage

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Being a reader of FHZ requires you to maintain an open mind.  Even if you don't agree with both sides of the issues here, understanding the contrary view permits perspective and in some cases, deeper understanding of the root causes of things we consider trouble.  For an example, consider the recent road rage incident that seems to have piqued a considerable amount of interest.  While I in no way sanction what was done, nor think it was a mature or acceptable way to handle the situation, realize that in many cases, feelings of frustration manifest themselves in angry, retaliatory behavior.

Who among us has not experienced anger at the inconsiderate moron who fails to pull to the right when we are well behind them, permitting us a free lane on the way to some emergency?  Even in your personal automobile, how about the idiot who not only signals they are going to take a right turn, but then shoots across to two lanes of traffic to make a left?  Like he couldn't just make the wrong turn, make a u-turn, and make things right?

Individuals have given themselves the freedom to make poor decisions, then be let off the hook because we shouldn't "judge" them, or because their mommy didn't hug them as a child, or whatever victim story they happen to choose this week.  The reality is that while reacting negatively to those who act in error is not acceptable, neither is the act that sparked the reaction in the first place.  Perhaps if our nation's law enforcement would start hauling off people who run red lights; who make erratic and unanticipated turns without use of a signal; those who drive too slowly in the passing lane, who fly down the shoulder to cut to the head of a merging line, or those who fail to pull to the right when an emergency vehicle is asking for the right of way, perhaps you might see a considerable decrease in road rage.

The base cause of indignity is usually the result of inconsiderate behavior.  Someone flaunts the rules and disregards the normal values of society, and the enraged individual is angry at the injustice of the situation.  I would be willing to bet that if anyone could write a ticket (not that I am an advocate of that), you'd see a lot less road rage.

Why?  Because if there were a non-violent method of resolving the conflict, I would be willing to bet that people would take that option.  The problem is that there is no resolution.  The enraged individual feels as if there is no way the situation will be resolved, they feel the injustice of the situation, and they act out in frustration, sometimes regardless of the consequences.

Now let's take this a step further.  Think of a non-driving situation in which you were pushed to the edge…Was this reaction a result of powerlessness, of frustration evolved from conflict in which you were victimized and felt no method to resolve your issue?  Perhaps it was an automatron manning the phone at your credit card company, or the cashier at Wally World, or the cable guy who doesn't show up when he says he will.  You percieve a lack of power to change the situation and that lack of control becomes overwhelming.  Over time, you may even be willing to act on it, in such a possibility, even inappropriately.

So what is the solution for our version of road rage?  Education?  Humorous attempts to enlighten the inconsiderate sometimes work, as in this fine example from the Tuscaloosa Fire Department. Other attempts like this one from Eugene, Oregon and this one from an agency I can't read on their final slide aren't as memorable (IMHO) but still get the message across.

But the more in-depth solution would be for individuals to maintain less distrations in their vehicles (phones, texting, and radios come to mind), and more overall awareness (simply paying attention to the fact that you SHARE the road with others).  And likewise, the way for you to avoid conflict that cascades into an intractable situation would be to step back for a second and understand the other person's perspective, and recognize that your escalation of the incident, although it may very well be warranted, is pushing you and the other party toward a battle that someone is going to lose. 

Conflict in life is inevitable.  Conflict escalation and intractability is not.  Be one of the first on your block to be the voice of sanity and work to understand, not to react.

Posted by on June 26, 2011 • Filed under: administration-leadership, change, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, politics, professionalism, rebellion, safety, Training & Development, Vehicle Operation & Ambulances, Videos • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We Try Harder

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

I had the opportunity to be part of a test rehearsal for a web conference going on Friday. In one of the questions, we were asked, “If you had to give your department a grade, what would it be?” I was the only one who gave my department an “A”. Of course, when you see that you have made a choice like that, you immediately begin to second-guess yourself.

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.

Posted by on April 27, 2011 • Filed under: "accident prevention", administration-leadership, change, command, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, firefighting, Firefighting Operations, Fires, Funding & Staffing, government, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, rescue, revolution, technology, Technology & Communications, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tillered Aerials and Safety Collaboration

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Hilton Head Island Truck 6 working in Palmetto Dunes.

In the years before becoming a chief officer I spent the very large majority of my career as a truck company officer. The last ten years of my assignment to Truck 6 was spent on the tractor-drawn aerial we currently have. The crews assigned to Six-Truck will have a “new” ride soon; our reserve tiller is off being re-tractored and the trailer refurbished. Once the new one returns, the ALF piece that served us valiantly for all these years will then rotate to reserve status.

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.

Posted by on April 20, 2011 • Filed under: "accident prevention", administration-leadership, change, customer service, education, fire, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, leadership, motivation, News, officership, planning, professionalism, rollover, safety, seatbelts, Training & Development, training-fire-rescue-topics, Vehicle Operations & Apparatus, Videos • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Capacity Building Exercise To Change All Exercises

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

Our industry is in dire need to undergo extensive capacity building. Capacity building is the assistance provided to societies which have a need to develop a certain skill or competence. More recently, however, capacity building is being used to facilitate innovative approaches to social and environmental problems.

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.

Posted by on April 4, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, Fires, Funding & Staffing, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, Technology & Communications, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saying Goodbye To A Friend

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

I actually started writing this post six months ago. It’s probably not like you’d think. I had my initial moments of grief when a friend and colleague passed away late last year. But after that, like one of us has said, “It’s like I keep expecting her to walk through the door any minute.” It’s like she went away and we haven’t really come to the belief that she’s gone.

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.

Posted by on March 28, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, Fires, Funding & Staffing, In the Line of Duty, leadership, Line of Duty, LODD, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, revolution, safety, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Smells Like Innovation

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Lifted from the San Ramon Valley FD website.

While Happy Medic may have beaten me to broadcasting it over Facebook, I am thoroughly overwhelmed by this video on the new app developed by Chief Richard Price of San Ramon Valley Fire in California. I have asked students and others for a number of years, “What changes can you see for emergency services that would revolutionize our industry?” This, to me, is evidence of that kind of innovation.

The advantage of technology is that it can change the playing field dramatically if properly applied. It just requires someone to keep their mind open to possibilities. While I don’t know Chief Price, he certainly seems like someone I’d like to get to know. A while back, I somehow went to his department’s webpage, which I found to be one of the most visually appealing and enjoyable webpages I have ever viewed. I zipped off an e-mail to him about that and almost immediately got a reply back, where he gave credit to the unique individuals he has working with him. This department seems like one that has already begun to make a mark as a leader and certainly has set an impressive bar to reach.

Congratulations, Chief, on your latest amazing contribution to the greater good. Keep up the good work!

Posted by on March 23, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, Firefighter Nation, leadership, motivation, News, professionalism, revolution • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Missionary Work

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Apparently, Firehouse Zen has become the choice blog for commenters with naked pictures of Miley Cyrus and those who have a career selling makeup brushes.  There are quite a few other interesting comments that seem to get trapped in the spam filter (Thank God for spam filters, by the way) and yet I waste my time looking through those comments to see if somehow, someone got snagged inadvertently. It has happened several times before and I’d hate to lose a valuable insight because of whatever criteria spam filters use to trap those comments anyway.

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.

Posted by on March 16, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, leadership, motivation, planning, politics, professionalism, rescue, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In With The New

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It really recharges the batteries to see the new recruits coming in from the academy.

I had the opportunity to attend the graduation of our newest recruits the other day.  Unfortunately, given my schedule, I don’t get a chance to do this like I would like to, but the staffing permitted it so I took advantage of that.  Having been doing this job for a total of 31 years, I think it recharges the ol’ batteries to go back to those things you found important in the beginning, and remind yourself why you got into this in the first place.  Nothing can really take the place of being a newly minted firefighter, not having any idea what your career will be like ahead of you.  While I knew from the beginning that I wanted to become a chief officer someday, I had absolutely no idea how amazing and fulfilling the trip between here and there would be.

The job is what you make of it.  If you just want to punch the clock and fill a spot, there’s those who do that and coast right on through to retirement under the radar and unscathed.  But if you want to be successful and make a positive mark on your community as well as with your family and friends, the fire service provides many opportunities to do that.  The catch is that you, as an individual, must actively seek those opportunities and run with them.

I have had very few of my opportunities handed to me and a fair share of them I had to show that I was willing to fight for them.  But in the long view of it, those battles and all the studying and planning, they all make this journey worthwhile.  If it was just handed to me, I don’t think I would value what I have been through so much (although it certainly would have been more pleasant at times).  I say to my charges on a regular basis, “Don’t raise your voice unless you are willing to raise your fists.”  The takeaway on that is that if you aren’t willing to do something about your condition, then don’t complain about the situation.  There are plenty of times I have fought and lost, and plenty of times I have fought and won.  But regardless of the outcome, I’m pretty sure my co-workers would agree with me, I have always been willing to take action to back up what I was saying.

There is a difference between living and surviving.  Anyone who can fog a mirror can survive.  Living requires action and effort.  Choose to make a mark.  Set a positive example and stay safe doing it.

Posted by on March 2, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, Firefighter Nation, professionalism • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Haters Need Not Apply

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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.

Posted by on February 24, 2011 • Filed under: change, command, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, fire, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighter Safety & Health, firefighting, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, News, officership, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, safety, technology, Technology & Communications, training-fire-rescue-topics • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You Want A Job As A Firefighter/EMT? – UPDATE

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Hilton Head Island Fire and Rescue

EDITORS NOTE: THE PERIOD IN WHICH THIS APPLICATION WAS OPEN IS NOW EXPIRED.  I ASK THAT IF YOU ARE STILL INTERESTED IN A JOB WITH HILTON HEAD ISLAND FIRE AND RESCUE, THAT YOU CONTINUE TO MONITOR FOR THESE OPPORTUNITIES IN APPROXIMATELY 12 TO 18 MONTHS.  AS A RESULT, THE LINKS TO THAT APPLICATION ARE NOW DISABLED.

The Town of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, has opened up the floodgates for anyone interested in applying for the position of firefighter.  I have worked for this agency since it was created from the merger of three other emergency providers in 1993, but I also worked for all three of those other agencies at one point or another since 1982.  I have stuck with this team for so long and continue to do so for at least one main reason: Because Hilton Head Island Fire and Rescue’s leadership and personnel are committed to a vision of excellence and service and prove it regularly.

We have seven stations serving a world-class beach resort community with all-hazards emergency response.  Since 2008 we have completely replaced our entire fleet of 10 engines and in two months we will have completely replaced our fleet of 10 ambulances.  Our tillered aerial is also scheduled for upgrades within this budget year and the other TDA in the next five.

Everyone on the line is required to be cross-trained and certified.  By the first year, all newly hired firefighter/EMTs must carry at least an IFSAC or ProBoard Firefighter II credential and a National Registry EMT Basic credential.   Within your first year, a stack of other required credentials will quickly accumulate from the classes we send you to if you are hired and don’t have that training.  But that’s just the beginning of a long career in which education is encouraged.

Hilton Head Island Fire and Rescue supports earning a college degree if you don’t yet have one, and more than a few personnel have gone on to graduate with degrees through the Town’s tuition reimbursement program. In addition to the number of personnel who regularly attend the National Fire Academy, our organization also boasts its share of Executive Fire Officer graduates.  HHIFR is well represented by a number of personnel who write, teach and consult on the national and international issues in emergency services.  We have representatives on NFPA and IAFC committees, national and state training committees, and serving as instructors of the South Carolina Fire Academy.  In fact, all line officers are required to maintain an instructor credential with the South Carolina Fire Academy in addition to a number of other certifications.

If you truly believe that our mission is to prevent disaster first, we are the department you want to be affiliated with.  Our building and fire codes are some of the strongest in the region and they are enforced by our excellent Fire Marshal’s Bureau as well as the Town’s Building and Codes Enforcement teams.  A great number of occupancies on the Island are protected by fire sprinklers and equipped with monitored alarm systems.  We have a very proactive outreach to youth through participation in school education programs.  Our personnel teach regular CPR and first aid courses to the public, and we had one of the first community-wide AED programs in the nation.  Disaster planning and management is conducted by the Town’s own Emergency Management staff, located in our Headquarters and working hand-in-hand with the rest of the team.  If all else fails and disaster does strike on the Island, citizens and visitors call our own enhanced 9-1-1 communications center, operated by public safety communicators who are also part of the HHIFR family.

Our CFAI-accredited department runs advanced life support ambulances along with our engine companies and we not only respond, but we transport as well.  Hilton Head Island Fire and Rescue co-hosts (with our brothers at Bluffton Township Fire District)  one of five recognized US&R Regional Response Teams in the South Carolina US&R Program as well as the regional HAZMAT Emergency Response Team, with responsibilities as part of the state-wide counter-terrorism response plan.  We have a brand-new training facility with a tower and propane props, our own fleet maintenance facility, and are in the process of rebuilding our fifth station out of seven, with the remaining two scheduled for demolition and re-construction in the next three to five years.

Hilton Head Island is a unique place to live and work.  While the United States Census lists Hilton Head Island with a population of 48,000, the average daily population exceeds 100,000 when you add in visitors, workers, day-trippers, and at peak can be up to 275,000.  The residents of the Island are very particular about their level of expectations. There are many CEOs, managers, military leaders, and retired executives who call Hilton Head Island home, as well as native Islanders, young families, and immigrants.  We have to serve all of them with a very high standard of care, no matter what their emergency is.  It is what we expect from our personnel, 24/7.

I have passed on more than a few opportunities when after reflection, I realize how good it is here and how much I enjoy it here.  We have amazing personnel working with us and we have a very supportive community to work in.  If you would like an opportunity to work with this team, please check out the links I have embedded in this post to learn more about us and our community, and take the time to apply.  As a parting note: While sharing this information via my blog does not qualify me for a referral bonus (I have to actually KNOW you), I’d rather that if given the opportunity, you mention that you found this process through the Firehouse Zen site.  My request is simply to illustrate the power of networking through this type of media.

Good luck! And click here if you haven’t already for the application site!

Posted by on February 14, 2011 • Filed under: Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, General, News • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

But Wait! There’s More!

1 comment

There is more to what we do than just "fighting fires".

In a fit of laziness, and believing fell well that I was smarter than any ol’ blogging software, I tried to use a previous blog to shortcut the addition of categories and tags.  Of course, this resulted in my changing forever the URL of that post and with my already poor memory, forgetting the previous one so I could revert to it once again.  And no, I already tried just going back to a previous version.

Thus our Zen lesson of the day: When it may seem like you are saving time, often, it costs more time to fix when you screw it up.  This, however, comes back around to the reason for the post to begin with.

As I said in “Hogs To The Trough“, we have been our own worst enemy.  We have failed, on any number of levels, to “sell” our message to the people who need to hear it most.  Getting the message out requires effort that some of our brothers and sisters simply don’t see as a priority.  We are, as I have heard so many times before, the “only show in town”.  I’m pretty sure the refrain to that is, “You have no choice but to call us when your house is on fire”.  This has been the argument of the Anti-Customer Service crowd for a very long time.  In fact, since before some of you little nippers were born.

If we were doing such a great job, this would be a no-brainer.  Cut emergency service spending, people die.  Well, if that were absolutely true, I’d bet we’d be hearing a lot more screaming from the public.  While I believe strongly that cutting emergency service spending does result in a greater flirtation with disaster and mortality, the realization from the public is, we cut emergency service spending and guess what?  No one died yet.

These are the same people who, when faced with the addition of a traffic light at the busiest intersection in town, cry and complain in the newspaper and at meetings about the inconvenience, only to cry and complain about the lack of public safety consideration when a family of four dies at said intersection.  Then, of course, that horse has already fled the barn, but by God, there’d better be a traffic light at that intersection before the weekend or heads will roll.

There are no switches for turning on the message or turning it off.  If you aren’t preaching the Gospel daily, the audience doesn’t hear the message when everyone is shouting and it’s too loud to hear.  Our presence in our communities has to be a daily event, so that when you are silenced, it is deathly quiet, and people realize, “Hey, something is wrong here.”  If you are saving homes and businesses from fire through your prevention message and excellent response and mitigation, you need to trumpet that to the rafters, and regularly.  If your community sees a benefit in early recognition of cardiac arrest, advantageous placement of AEDs, and the presence of a well-trained, well-equipped tiered medical response, you need to share that.

There are no shortcuts to this.  Communicating the message of the value of your organization must be done constantly.  This isn’t a one-individual task either; it has to be at the very heart of your organizational culture, that service to the community isn’t just a good idea, it is the core of our existence.  When we fail to provide an excellent service, the taxpayers will remember it come budget time.  If we piss off the masses, they will be the first to stand silent when we are losing personnel, apparatus, equipment, training, and every other enhancement, because frankly, your existence is invisible to them.  Given the choice between funding you and not funding you, if the effect is only a subjective loss (just because you SAY people will die, doesn’t mean they will), they are more willing to take the chance of not funding your needs.

My wife owns a flooring retail and installation company, KPM Flooring, here on Hilton Head Island.  She is the sole proprietor. She has a vision of what the organization represents to her customers.  She doesn’t wait for you to read her mind to find out what that vision is.  She doesn’t wait for you to come in looking for tile or a beautiful area rug to show you what things could be like in your home.  She creates (herself, I might add) advertisement that portrays her company as being “sophisticated”, “classy”, “exclusive’, “original”, and “innovative”.  Those words are in quotes because these are comments we have gotten from people who have viewed her website or her print advertisement.  And you know what?  They have found this to be true and have told their neighbors, families, friends, etc.  We probably advertise less than Brand X, but where we advertise and the message we send says: If I want a really classy look to my home or business, I need to go to KPM Flooring.

Getting your message out requires you to have an idea what you want your message to be, first.  Many emergency service organizations haven’t even decided upon that concept yet.  They are happy with the status quo.  The status quo doesn’t require a bunch of effort.  There’s a certain comfort to saying, “We’re okay with the idea the public thinks we are a tax burden, but they don’t have a choice.  You know, because PEOPLE WILL DIE.”

We don’t want to change.  If we did, we would do it willingly.  As Pumbaa said, “You have to put your behind in your past“.  Or something like that.  If we really do care about serving the public, we will get on board in getting them involved to find out what it is they need, and providing service for that need.  When we can do this, the community won’t PERCEIVE that they have a need for us, they will KNOW they have a need for us.  And when they do, you won’t have to worry about budget cuts again.

Posted by on February 11, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, firefighting, funding, Funding & Staffing, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, News, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Article: Modern Approaches To Fire Suppression

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Picture from FireRescue1.com

Not long ago I was asked by Jamie Thompson over at FireRescue1.com to write an article on fire suppression.  While I wrote it a few weeks before, it published yesterday.  But yesterday morning, before the newsletter with my article  came out, I was reading the FireRescue1 article on the Chinese water cannon and this inspired my morning “message to the troops” to be about innovation and change.  Of course, the point of my article was about innovation and change, so it was good timing.

I have been having some pretty in-depth discussions lately regarding change as related to technology.  There are people who feel like all of this technology is overwhelming and distressing and changes should be avoided.  There are those who think technology will solve all the ills of the world.  And then there are many who see technology as being a useful tool that when applied to the right situation, can produce wonderful results, and conversely, be misapplied and create major disaster.  Some think that there should be more emphasis on the basics, which would supplant the need for technological shifts.  And there are those like me who see potential in these changes and wonder how we could harness the power of both to provide safer and more effective service.

While the water cannon discussion illustrates an interesting discussion on technology, the comments reflected several differing opinions, and while I noted that there was a lot of discussion about what it wouldn’t do, I only saw one serious commenter reflecting on what it might be able to do.  Many think that innovation stops at invention.  In fact, innovation can really be considered having a new birth there.  Because once something is invented, there are usually a few individuals out there testing it, finding out its limits, and trying to envision what this new development might mean to them.  And they tweak and refine and experiment, and then, voila, we have a new way of doing things.

Innovation has plenty of effect on your daily life, but you have to take some time and appreciate that effect, because we tend to take it for granted.  How many things were invented that aren’t necessarily used for the original intent?  In the fire service, we take things all day long and make them do things they probably weren’t designed to do (which isn’t always good).  How much better would our organizations be if, instead of looking at the problems, we saw the challenges and rose to solve those issues instead?  If we took into consideration the changes we have made and came up with ways to even improve farther on those ideas?

While honing our technique is desirable to improve performance, as one commenter on my article suggested, and he goes on to suggest that CAFS and other fancy things can’t overcome poor technique, I agree in part and principle.  But I disagree on a different level, that is, from the aspect that if we have good technique AND technological improvement, we can have an exponentially beneficial effect on solving problems.  Good technique AND good tools create a force multiplier.

Solutions for problems are all around us; we just need to take the time to find them.  Knowing where we come from is important, because it helps us to understand where we want to be.  But abandoning good technique for promotion of good technology is NOT the answer.  The answer lies in both, and knowing that in order to improve our condition, we must take advantage of all of the opportunities that come our way, if not to stretch out from that point, to know that this is NOT the way to go.  We all must experiment and learn and understand.  But most of all, we have to be open to the ideas and see them with clear vision.

Posted by on February 2, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Firefighting Operations, General, leadership, motivation, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, safety, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Power of a Foot

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Recently one of my colleagues spent his last day on the job.  He is retiring to take on a nursing job as the clinical lead in an emergency room.  He got the impetus to do this as a result of his long career as a paramedic.  Ironically, years ago he came to be assigned to my command as a firefighter who had been through a few officers, had some not-so-stellar career moves, and was being given this chance to salvage things.  At a point somewhere along the line, he came into my office and asked for my blessing for him to attend paramedic school.

Years ago in my department, I got the nickname of “The Hammer”.  My natural leadership style isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy.  When Kevin wanted to get my signature on his application, I was working diligently in my office with the door slightly ajar.  The people who have worked with me for years know I want my door to be open, but it’s really just to give the impression that it’s open.  It’s not.

Of course, here comes ol’ Kevin, with a skip in his step and a Training Program Request for me to sign.  I glare over the top of my glasses at him and I don’t say anything.  The look is generally sufficient, or so I’m told.  Kevin slides the paper over for me to sign.  He’s persistent, I’ll give him that.

Leaders take chances on people, even when they aren’t ordinarily inclined to do so.  While at the time I didn’t really consider him to be that great of an EMT, much less paramedic material, we laugh about it now.  As it turns out, he had a real aptitude for medicine and has an unbelievable bedside manner.  After medic school came nursing school and now this endeavor.  I am very proud of his achievement and so I sent him a note to tell him that I’ll miss him, but I’m always okay with someone moving on to the bigger and better.  I got a really meaningful note back from him thanking me for putting a foot up his ass back in those days.  Things have definitely changed, as he is now a well-respected veteran of the department and a fixture in the community.  We have had a lot of laughs and some not-so-funny moments over the years, but while others were willing to overlook the issues, I was not.

When applying for the Executive Fire Officer program years ago, one of the questions asked, of what contribution to the fire service was I the most proud of?  Without even a moment’s thought, I know it is to see the successful people for whom I have served as a leader, mentor, guide, teacher, and coach over the years.  Of particular pride are those who are now doing the same thing for others, especially when I hear one of their students/employees say, “Oh, you’re the Mick Mayers they were talking about.”  Hopefully that’s good, but I at least know something is sticking someplace.

If we don’t stretch our own expectations of others, they won’t grow.  I don’t for a minute believe my daughters could be captains of industry right at this moment, but given the rest of their lives, I can see them being whatever they want to be.  Likewise, the people we are charged with bringing up through the organization, they might not be chief material today, but given the right motivation, feedback, and direction, someday they could end up being your boss (I have one of those situations now) or someone else’s boss.  And if you truly worked your magic with that individual, that’s okay.

Leaders must constantly consider the potential of others and understand that while they may be very raw right now, this moment is the one where you get to build and form and create.  This is the moment in which you truly leave a legacy.  Buildings will crumble and fall, apparatus will become obsolete, everything physical you build could one day be dust.  But the lasting edifice, the one that stands throughout time, is when you create a learning environment for your people and you help them to grow.  When they’re getting pinned with those bugles and grinning at you wildly, you know that you have left your mark on the world.

Posted by on January 27, 2011 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, leadership, motivation, officership, politics, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Residential Fire Sprinkler Comparison

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Post-fire picture of a room with a single residential sprinkler head activation. Nice save.

We conducted a comparison burn today at Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue to demonstrate the effectiveness of residential sprinklers in the control of incipient fire. Since I was off, I was able to video it as your ordinary citizen and the crowd, which was pretty nicely sized for the Island on a Saturday morning, was very impressed.

I posted it to my personal Facebook page, but felt like this was important enough of a video to share it with all of you Firehouse Zen readers. Feel free to pass it on. (UPDATE: These are now posted to YouTube also).

The teamwork involved in putting this presentation was very encouraging: all three shifts participated in one way or another, led by Chief Fire Marshal Joheida Fister.  It’s another reason the people I work with at HHIFR are individuals I consider to be the best in the business and make me proud to be associated with them.  The funds for creating the demonstration were provided through a grant. The building of the props were done by HHIFR personnel and local businesses (including my personal favorite, KPM Flooring) contributed elements of each room, lumber, the sprinkler system, and the installation.

The first burn is of an unsprinklered furninshed room of frame construction.  The inner walls are sheetrock.  In addition to an ordinary fire load in a bedroom, a small Christmas tree was at the front of each room (which surprisingly did not significantly contribute to the fire load in either case until well into the fire spread, as you will see).  The detector activated in the first room in 9 seconds, the room was untenable and very shortly after flashed over in under a minute.

The second burn is an identically sized and furnished room, the only exception being the presence of a residential sprinkler head.

As I have said on my FB page, if this doesn’t illustrate the live-saving capability of residential sprinklers, I don’t know what else to tell you. You can dry things off after they get wet. You can’t unburn your family or your home. But I am obviously preaching to the choir. Therefore, it is important that you all share these videos to many, especially the non-firefighters you know. This is important information and these two videos pretty graphically demonstrate the difference.

While there is a significant amount of undeserved controversy regarding residential sprinklers, especially the myths of inordinate cost, the whole “Hollywood all-the-sprinklers-going-off-at-once” myth, and a number of other things, the reality is that with smoke detectors and sprinkler installation, more lives will be saved and fire loss will decrease.  It’s a no-brainer.  But it IS a tremendous cultural shift and most homeowners, not being accustomed to this type of protection device, are on the fence.  They will continue to be on the fence so long as we are pushing systems and others argue against them.  This is the time when we need to be the driving force to push harder.

Share the video.  This is a game-changer and we need to be behind it, at least if we really do ascribe to the notion that our first responsibility is the protection of life and property.

Posted by on December 4, 2010 • Filed under: change, customer service, education, Fire Rescue Topics, fire service, Firefighter Nation, Firefighting Operations, Fires, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, News, professionalism, technology, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Credibility

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One of the biggest problems the fire service has is its credibility.  I received multiple e-mails over the past few weeks about a confined space training near-miss that in reading the information, I found to be pretty troubling.  Once again, it appears (at least from the published report) that training can get pretty hairy, especially when there is a certain amount of complacency among students and instructors.  But it goes to a deeper question: When training, at what point do we raise our hand and say, “Hey, something doesn’t seem right here”?

When we engage in fire, EMS, and rescue activities, we are participating in what is considered to be an extraordinarily dangerous setting.  In training, we have the ability to create scenarios that test our students, but we as course designers must consider the alternative outcome to successful completion of a task, and by that, I am referring to failure.  When someone is unable to complete a task, or the environment becomes too daunting, or unforeseen events occur, there has the be the ability to directly swing into normalcy (read: safety).

In burn buildings we provide extra exits and in high-line rescue training we continually monitor redundant belays.  Whatever the topic, we intentionally build our scenarios to consider the “what if?” events that might occur.  While crawling through an active 18-inch pipe might provide a “confidence building” exercise, what is the plan if someone gets stuck?  Or in the case at hand, weather creates a very real scenario?  Thankfully a greater disaster didn’t occur.  But while in confined space situations we must “train in representative spaces”, and nothing provides more realism than using the spaces themselves, we are also obligated to monitor those spaces and aggressively manage safety concerns for personnel.

When an instructor is telling you to do something that doesn’t seem right, there is also an obligation on the part of students to respectfully raise a hand and question the scenario.  Unfortunately, not every instructor out there is experienced or dedicated enough to insure that the proper learning environment is provided and adequately managed.  As real professionals, we need to not only do risk management on the emergency scene, but in training as well.  There are plenty of instructors from whom I have taken a class, only to walk away shaking my head.  If I am responsible for hiring instructors, I at least qualify them myself or seek the advice of colleagues who have worked with those people before.  Our business, however, is too dangerous to leave the teaching to amateurs.  Look for credible instructors with a history of work when you are trusting someone with the lives of your personnel.  We kill and injure enough of our people in real situations.  There’s no reason to do the same when the urgency doesn’t exist.

Posted by on December 1, 2010 • Filed under: change, customer service, education, EMS Topics, FEMA, Fire Prevention & Education, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, government, leadership, motivation, National Fire Academy, planning, politics, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Successful Coaches Match Schemes to Personnel, Not Vice-Versa

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Hilton Head and Bluffton, SC firefighters training on structural collapse.

When you don't have the resources internally, develop partnerships.

Successful coaches don’t force a system down the throats of their personnel without a very good reason. Instead, through careful evaluation of skill sets, they point their personnel toward positions in which they will have the greatest impact.

I’m a huge football fan. I’m impressed by teams that are able to recruit and develop personnel to fit their particular schema.  But there are also those who try to take a scheme they have bought into wholesale and refuse to adjust based on what their personnel can and can’t do.

If you wonder about what I’m getting at, look at it like this: If you are a fire chief in a small town or suburban department and insist that your department uses tactics employed in the big urban departments, I would suggest that you objectively evaluate the success you have with that and consider using different tactics.  Truly urban fire departments can bring resources to bear quickly. Urbanized areas often have great water supply and relatively short response times.  In a lot of departments around our nation, we don’t have an unlimited amount of companies to throw at an incident. We don’t have great water supplies everywhere.  As a result, we must find alternative delivery methods.

If you fail to admit this to yourself and choose to ignore the need to develop other abilities, you will continue fighting the same battles with the same results.  Develop vision and understand that there are other ways to do the job you do and to provide the service desired by your community, by getting them to help solve some of these issues.  Open up some planning sessions to the public and solicit ideas.  See if the people you serve have ideas that can provide resources you didn’t think were available.  If anything, the participants will enjoy learning more about what it is we do, as well as to educate the public on the things we really need.

Posted by on November 23, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Funding & Staffing, leadership, motivation, planning, politics, professionalism, revolution, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Be Proud, But Humble

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I work for a pretty damn good fire and rescue department. Take this link shared with you all from SCONFIRE. You like that? That’s us. And by us, I mean my department, the one I’ve worked with for the last twenty-eight years.  And in two other links, you’ll see that this is us too, “Going Green“, and here, where we are going “High Tech“.  Props, as always, to Grant at SCONFIRE for sharing these stories.

There’s a lot more.  But I’m not here to brag.  I’m here to tell you that while “pride goeth before a fall”, pride is also necessary to motivate your personnel, and a little pride can go a long way.  If you are going to implement change in your organizational culture, there should be a reluctance to be where you were and a desire to go where you are going.  You can quote me on that.  But pride has to be tempered by a few things, reality being one.  Knowing that even the best are fallible is another.

It isn’t easy.  We have had our bad days just like everyone else, and we continue to have bad days just like everyone else. We too have people in our department who, given a million dollars in a briefcase, would be upset that it wasn’t on a silver tray.  I certainly don’t view everything with rose-colored glasses, although some people might believe that to be the case because I’m not talking about the negatives, but discussing the positives.  We have challenges and I have personal challenges.  But instead of seeing these as roadblocks, I see them as opportunities.

If you know me well, you know that I am actually a deep-seated cynic.  But I have been places where I have found such turmoil and trouble that I know I have absolutely no right to complain.  Unfortunately, I have been in a lot of these places.  Conversely, I have been in places where they have got it right.  They may not have every resource they ask for, but they make the best of what they’ve got and they remain hopeful and optimistic, knowing that each day brings them another little piece of the puzzle they can work toward completion.

There’s a fire department in a neighboring community where the Fire Chief used to be my chauffeur, a long time ago.  This guy gets “IT” and he has done everything he can do to infuse “IT” into his people.  When I ask his personnel how things are going with “Big Daddy”, I have never heard a single one of them complain.  They are upbeat and positive about their department, about where they are going, and about the leadership.  They make things work and they have fun doing their jobs.  And that Chief isn’t just letting people come to work and play checkers either.  They train often, they do all the jobs we do short of ALS transport, and all kinds of other things.  These people have a lot of pride in their organization and it shows.

I am extraordinarily proud of my department and most of all, of the people we work with, and the people we work for.  The community here is generally pretty proud of their department also.  We get a lot of letters of thanks and praise.  We get awards.  Our Town Manager pretty much says we stay off his radar, and that’s a good thing.  But it’s not all sunshine and roses and it’s important you know that.

There is being proud and there is being delusional.  While we are very honored to have our team and the resources entrusted to us, we also realize that at any time, at any instant, things can go wrong.  We realize that one saved building isn’t a far stretch, maybe nine or ten minutes from being a total loss.  While our community relies on the entire system to be good at what we do (through education, prevention, protection, service delivery, and customer care), one slip in the well-oiled chain can wreak havoc on the entire machine.

Not that this is a good time to be paraphrasing Brian Kelly (the head football coach at Notre Dame), but he tells his players that when they are on the field, they are 1/11th of the team. If everyone does their part, things will work according to plan.  When someone doesn’t, someone else has to do MORE than their job to take up the slack.  We can be as proud as we want, but if one person lets us down, we are all toast.  For those reasons alone, a little humility will go a long way when things don’t go as expected.

We tell people in our organization all the time, if you screw up, own the situation.  Raise your hand and say, “My bad” and we’ll do what we can to fix the problem together.  None of us, most of all, me, is perfect.  We’d better be ready and willing to say, “I’m wrong, I’m sorry” when it is warranted.  Our informal motto is, “Do the right thing”.  When you have that kind of an outlook at all times, it can solve many equations.

If your own organization is reaching and it seems frustrating, know that everyone, including the Phoenixes and the FDNYs and the Metro-Dades and the Fairfaxes all have their days.  Just like our department has, and I’m sure your department has.  The element of success, however, is to ride out those days as an intact team, absorb the problems, fix what is necessary, and move forward.  Don’t dwell on the problems, learn from them and move on.

Even the best have their moments, but if you take the time to reflect on what you have accomplished, realize how far you have gotten, and look forward to the trip ahead, the pride in that journey is a significant motivator to keep the team together.  Pride acts as one of many force multipliers.  Like any other tool, use it carefully.

Posted by on November 9, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, Training & Development, US&R • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Perception

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We all have a job to do.

When it comes down to it, we don’t really know what’s in the hearts of anyone else, do we?  All we can do is read what people write and listen to what they say and watch their face to see if we are getting anywhere. The internet provides a place where anyone can feel brave and say what they want to say behind the anonymity of a computer terminal without fear of reprisal.

It’s those who feel the need to draw lines in the sand wherever they go that are probably the most disturbing.  Is it fire vs. EMS?  Career vs. volunteer?  East Coast vs. West Coast?  Rural vs. Urban?  European vs. North American? We all have a job to do and the job has different elements depending on where we are, what we are dealing with, and how we perceive the issues at hand.  Why fight about it?

If we were all the same, I could see being able to say who is better, but it’s the equivalent of comparing apples to elephants.  There are similarities in certain facets of the business, but really, as we have said on here a hundred times, emergency service delivery is a very specialized business in your unique community.  There aren’t too many tenders wandering the streets of Manhattan, and conversely, there aren’t many six-man truck companies in rural Arkansas.  Saying one is better than the other is ridiculous; they don’t compare.

Anymore it seems like the nameless and faceless just want to stir up controversy for the sake of stirring up controversy.  Of course, it’s easy to stir up controversy if you have no fear of reprisal.  There used to be a certain argument that the controversy was there to open up minds and to inject fresh ideas, and given some recent posts I have been watching, I am inclined to say that I saw no new ideas or the championing of best practices.  I didn’t see people fighting injustice with their secret identity.  Instead I saw bullies and provocateurs making illogical statements and specifically baiting others, just to get a rise out of someone.

It’s a product of our society, I guess.  We can all be intimately connected yet have enough distance between each other to feel safe.  People bemoan how uncivil society has become, but forget that when we were all cooped up in our little neighborhoods, if someone acted in a manner contrary to the social mores, they became quickly ostracized.  Living in a community with others you had to get along with meant that associating with provocateurs wasn’t safe.  Now we can align with people who espouse all kinds of wild ideas and don’t fear anyone, because really, how will anyone know?

Firefighting and other public safety personnel were always respected because honestly, these people were part of our community too.  We didn’t do things that hurt others because we felt a certain connection to them.  We went to school and church with them.  We were likely related in some form or fashion.  Our parents knew one another.  These days, there’s enough distance that you can be the bully you always wanted to be and hide your 95-pound weakling body behind the monitor.  If you treated people like that in your old neighborhood, you’d likely have the crap beaten out of you.

I believe there is a certain amount of merit to having a pseudonym, if it is used for good, and especially if you know that saying the right thing will have detrimental consequences.  But I don’t see so much of that these days as the other, the troll who just wants to make spurious statements and not have to back them up.  There’s nothing I love more than reading through a thread of meaningless diatribe to find out the idiot on one end is some Junior with the wacker-pack and a keyboard.

If you really want our industry to be recognized as professionals, it requires conduct that is professional.  It requires discussion and exposition of ideas, but it doesn’t have any room for intolerance or illogical thought.  We must remain open to the perspective of others, regardless of whether they are the aforementioned Junior or the saltiest jake on the truck.  But being respective and considerate of other ideas doesn’t mean that we have to lay down and sing Kumbaya if someone is being a troll.  Maybe we need to call some of these people out, or even better yet, ignore them, and perhaps they will go away.  We all have a responsibility to project what we desire in our society as a good example, and to guide the poor examples either toward enlightenment or toward the exit.  In either case, it requires action, not ignorance.

Posted by on November 3, 2010 • Filed under: change, command, Command & Leadership, customer service, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Fires, government, leadership, motivation, politics, professionalism, rebellion, rescue, revolution • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Disincentive for Responsible Reporting (Tax and Spend Socialists)

7 comments

Take a deep breath. There, that's better, isn't it?

I don’t even know where to begin with this discussion except to offer my apologies for using a derogatory term to describe one side of the issue and failing to come up with a sufficiently derogatory term for the other side. When I decide to offend, I think I’m an equal opportunity offender, because like I stated, I’m not a proponent of either camp. I think for myself.  And for the comment from one individual who suggested, “This and the many attempts to drag the tea party into the mud show how desperate you guys are”.  I am not “you guys“, because I certainly don’t believe in the alternatives either side has presented me as being responsible or for the good of the people.  Given the rhetoric on both sides, I’d be embarrassed to be in either camp.

Likewise, it appears I have been the subject of misinformation. While I am well-versed (and abhor) the quid pro quo tax-and-spend mentality of the liberals and bureaucrats in government, the extreme in the other direction, given discussion I have had with friends and colleagues who have expressed to me their support of their ultra-conservative views (and defending the Tea Party Movement) has been one of scorched-earth budget management and widespread privatization of almost every aspect of governmental service. However, as has been expressed in comments regarding my last post, that is not the platform of the Tea Party Movement. Of course, this is pretty difficult for me to embrace, because there doesn’t seem to be anyone who can consistently state anything to me about the Tea Party Movement other than their anger at the status quo. So other than, “Vote the bums out” and “Obamacare is going to cost us jobs and decent healthcare”, both statements of which I think are pretty extreme in themselves, I haven’t heard anything that causes me to get warm and fuzzy when I think about these individuals taking office.

So since I now have your rapt attention and expect to get plenty of hate mail from the OTHER side of the fence, maybe the two poles will come together to listen to what I have to say without finding it necessary to accuse me of unprofessional or crass behavior.

When I speak of “lock-step” marching to the party line on EITHER side, it is the mindless reliance on sound-bites and partial information because I think many people have become too lazy to think for themselves.  Thus, this article.  Because like I said, the fault I had in the last article was 1) not coming up with an equally sensitive descriptor of another point of view and 2) not having an accurate view of the platform of the other side I chose to illustrate my case.  Because really, there are many more than two points of view and to suggest that these extremes were the only extremes would be grossly oversimplifying the issue.

Believe me or not, I had no intention of pushing anyone’s buttons and I’m sorry for doing that.  It did, however, reveal to me the obvious.  There is a disincentive for responsible reporting and you all have unpleasantly illustrated my argument with a gold frame.

I have been writing on the internet since before there were blogs.  I am not, however, a reporter.  Much of what I speak of on the internet is anecdotal or observational.  I do, however, write technical articles and papers independent of FHZ, and my expertise is in research and strategic planning.  So while one of you chose to express your feelings about my “lame” article, I’d say that I’m not hurt, in fact, I’m smiling a little to myself because the only comments I ever hear about how lame something is happens to be when I’ve tweaked someone.

Since I can view the number of “hits” on my page, I take a particular interest in my “outlier” posts: those which show me wild spikes in readership.  I take great pains to present both sides of many issues.  Anyone who actually KNOWS me knows that I am very concerned in getting multiple points of view and understanding the entire issue.  I am not an “emotional poster”, or one of these clowns that has a conspiracy theory about anything coming down the pike.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you see it), I have a pretty stable and respectful readership that makes rational and sound comments based on their own experiences.

With the exception of the “Roto-Ray” article several months ago, those outlier posts have consistently occurred when the headlines or lead paragraphs have involved controversy.  It is clear: rational and reasonable discussion is not what people want to read.  With few exceptions, people want sensationalism and anger.  It’s no wonder the internet isn’t safe anymore.  People are willing to post damn-near fiction in order to get traffic.  What does THAT say about society?

I don’t have any interest in writing titillating articles and reveling in a flock of readers who are only coming by to see what awful thing I have to say about someone or something.  I don’t rant.  And this is neither MSNBC nor Fox.  When I talk about balance, I mean it.  But I would like to have more readers, if anything, because what I have to say, I think, should be said.  I would like to think that when I write, instead of creating hate, readers say, “Wow, that’s something to think about”.

I don’t apologize at all for suggesting that both extremes are wrong.  There are many more of us in the middle than on the fringes.  We are not all zealots and we certainly don’t all believe in the vast right or left wing conspiracies.  Those of you who do are often just unhappy people itching for a fight.  Those of us in the middle lean to the left or the right because we do see some values in one or the other direction of thought, but most sensible individuals realize there’s a certain value in compromise and consensus.  Let’s go back to the sandbox, shall we?

Any of you who have ever played in a sandbox know that there are sandboxes where personalities dominate.  In some cases, a bully has taken over the whole sandbox.  In some cases there are two opposing forces.  In many cases there is one force, the force of sharing and collaboration.  If you had three sandboxes side-by-side and you were choosing which sandbox to put your children in, I’d be willing to bet that none of you would choose to put your children in sandbox one or two.  So why would you choose to live in a society that encourages those behaviors and a grander scale?

Firehouse Zen is not for the weak-minded.  I am calling my readers to be responsible and ethical and balanced.  I ask you to take other points of view into account, if for any reason, it may reinforce your own beliefs.  I’m not asking you to embrace opposition, I’m asking you understand it.  In doing so, is where we grow.

Since I have the attention of those who just want sound-bites, let me tell you, there is a wealth of information on the internet that will make you a better person.  We don’t all have to flock to these negative sites and we don’t all have to be at war with each other.  Just as in the situation in South Fulton, there are other sides to the argument that never came out when the ADD bloggers began blasting out accusations and rhetoric.  Don’t fall into the trap of the unenlightened.

If you read the first article and still hate me, I’m okay with that.  But I ask you to re-read it and see that it wasn’t directed one way or another, and admit that to yourself.  If you don’t care to come back, I’m okay with that too.  And if you think I’m unprofessional or crass, I ask you to read my other articles and see if you still believe that to be true.   But I’m not about to apologize for telling you all, it’s not always about winning or losing, sometimes it’s about surviving the game.  Instead of fighting with each other, we should be pulling together to solve our most pressing challenges.  There are too many awful things going on out there that we could solve together and maybe we’d feel just a little better about one another.  Of course, if you choose to stay, I’d like that too.

Let’s reward insightful and responsible discussion and avoid the lunatic fringe.  Let’s work together rather than apart, and let’s step away from the negativity.  I’d just as soon do that myself and it’s my hope that you would too.

Posted by on October 9, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, customer service, education, EMS Topics, Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Nation, Funding & Staffing, government, leadership, Media Relations, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Constant Combat

2 comments

There are people I know who are in constant conflict.  We aren’t talking about warriors; we are talking about regular people who, from one day to the next, always seem to be involved in one event or another in which they feel like they must choose a side and fight.  Every day, every shift, they are irresistibly drawn to drama.

Even if it isn’t incredibly stressful at first, after a while, it is. It’s like a constant stream of water wearing away at you until eventually you realize the rift it has created is now a canyon.  We have to be selective about our battles. Constant battle also gives others the impression that you are a belligerent. Others may only choose to approach you in a defensive posture. If you wonder why you are always in conflict, this could be the issue itself. Constant combat numbs you to battles that really do require a fight.

Conflict occurs when values and perspectives contradict. Conflict is inevitable. Conflict is often necessary. Conflict motivates us to participate and to be productive, but conflict is a problem if we can’t manage it.  It is said that people who are obstructed are out of balance. The consistent imbalance is bad energy and it only produces more bad energy.

Good leaders must maintain balance; the only way to achieve that balance is to be open to more ideas, even the ones you disagree with. While I’m not saying you have to embrace them, you should still understand their perspective, as it will help you to understand your own perspective that much better. And while you may think you are right now, perhaps you can see where the other person has issues with your argument, or may even see that you don’t have all the facts. No sensible argument should be built upon a fallacy.

Posted by on September 27, 2010 • Filed under: change, Command & Leadership, fire service, Firefighter Nation, leadership, motivation, professionalism, Training & Development • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,