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.

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Do you know what this is? No? Then shut up.

This post has nothing to do with the actual article, though. In fact, my viewpoint on the situation is irrelevant. The reason I am saying “shut up” is that in a lot of comment and “letters to the editor” pages, the compulsion for someone to take away any doubt that they were an idiot outweighs any prudence or embarrassment that they are, in fact, an idiot.

What gate opened up to motivate these morons to chime in with their obvious, ill-timed, or just plain stupid observation? And to make things even more traumatic, in a lot of the news, the victim’s privacy and anger over the event, the hurt and embarrassment visited on the perpetrator’s family, the shame felt by coworkers, colleagues, etc. far outweighs the absolute insanity of “anonnumus” posting that “maybe it was the victim’s fault”, or “Obama’s birth certificate” was involved, or our mystery writer expounds on their experience being similar to when their front porch fell and killed all their dogs.

Apparently, none of this outweighs the need to be a public dunce. Perhaps part of the problem in anonymity is that people feel compelled to say what they think, which in this and more than a few other cases, isn’t much.

Back to us, though. I did see a similar reaction to several April Fool’s posts on FireRescue1.com. In pulling the page back up tonight to link at it, I’m amazed that seven days later there are still people who don’t stop, read the whole article, then read to see what others have said, before posting their own completely moronic response. “Shut up”, remember?

While the headline drew me in that day and my initial reaction was “WTF?” I was happy that I take a lot of what anyone says at face value anyway. Of course, I then took the time to read the entire article and got all the details prior to opening my mouth, or in this case, tapping out a comment that would expose my ignorance. You would think that the Mayor’s name in the one article might tip you off. Instead, a few of our own read what, two sentences, and type.

I can appreciate the pent up rage and frustration felt by those of us trying to maintain a positive image of our business. And I too see red at some of the statements made by politicians, the media, and others. But before posting your manifesto, do us all a favor and save us the embarrassment of having to explain the joke to you.

I guess the same could be said about my blog, but if you will take careful notice, I rarely write a rant. Want to know why? Because first, unless I am there, I don’t have all the facts. So I prefer to read things and believe there is probably more to the story. Secondly, even if what is said or done is really inflammatory, I give credit to the writer for putting their own personal spin on it, regardless of whether the bias is intentional or unintentional. So sometimes the headline is being written to draw us in and sometimes, it’s to pick a fight. And certainly not least, I believe that there are plenty of places on the internet you can go to if you want controversy, or negativity, or anger. I’m trying to provide a forum. I ask for people to embrace ideas they don’t necessarily agree with. You don’t have to own it; I just want you to look at it.

Before going off on someone, perhaps these people should write what they think, then save it. Walk away and if you still feel compelled to share it, then do so. But think about what you say, especially when all you plan to say is stupid anyway. Your fifteen minutes of fame may be your only fifteen minutes. Make it count.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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These aren't free.

In one corner, the people who think that what the South Fulton Fire Department did was reprehensible.  In the other, those who think that you need to “pay to spray“.  In the classic Firehouse Zen outlook, let’s go to the root of the problem.  Here we are in a brand new age of doing more with less. It’s our creed in emergency services.

The beauty of this all is that while there are those who want to limit the “reach” of government, we have to remember that the point of having government involvement in the first place is to protect us in our vulnerable moments.  I am neither a tax-and-spender nor a teabagger.  I don’t march in lockstep to anyone’s platform.  I have an open mind and I evaluate where things are beneficial to my community and things detrimental, and balance the risk vs. a reasonable cost.  It doesn’t seem to me that either of the extremes are acceptable answers.

This is a complicated issue and it can’t be solved by just glossing over the sound-bite material.  There are departments who have been doing the subscription thing for years.  Personally, I suggested to some funding-challenged departments a number of years ago that perhaps you could do a “soft-landing” subscription: you pay (in advance) for spray, but if you don’t pay (in advance), you REALLY pay.  Like 500% of the subscription rate, charged to the insurance company.  Something tells me the insurance companies would be insisting you pay or you don’t get insurance.  Something also tells me that if you fail to pay in this scenario, they WON’T be paying anyway.  But subscription service, while it seems like a logical solution, is fraught with peril.  There are just too many “what-ifs” to make it a workable solution to the whole.

We do have a responsibility to the community to protect life, property and the environment.  But we are painted into a corner when we can’t raise revenue to sustain our operations, be it a fairly low cost solution or the full-on urban response solution.  Thus we return to the risk vs. benefit assessment each community must undertake before deciding, “Okay, we don’t want paid providers” or “We are going to shut down companies”, or “Our risk is low enough that we can make it with an all-volunteer force”.  This is something that has to be decided locally, but by responsible individuals who aren’t just looking at the bottom line.   There is nothing wrong with any of these scenarios if they can be applied effectively.  The problem is that when they are not, and the decision is made to do this anyway, it is often done with catastrophic results.  You know, of course, who gets left holding the bag in that case, don’t you? (That would be us, in case you didn’t get that hint.)

The elected officials of your community are charged with more than just appearing ad nauseum on your TV screen for several months leading up to November, although for some, it’s the only time I ever see them.  They are charged with making decisions that benefit the community and uphold societal standards.  I know of no society who thinks it’s okay to screw the vulnerable at the benefit of the privileged.  Well, I take that back- I know of no RESPONSIBLE society who thinks that’s okay.  For any “leader” of a community to say, we’re going to go with a subscription fee for service and it’s okay to opt out of it at the risk of losing everything you have, it seems to me like you are taking a chance that this could go terribly wrong.  Sending someone a letter to confirm they are “not in” doesn’t sound too cool either (I have had too many personal experiences with undelivered registered mail to have confidence in that solution).  I think if everyone was paying the fee and suddenly, someone wasn’t, I’d have someone give them a call and make a face-to-face confirmation to find out what the problem was.  Can you not afford it now?  Are you saying you are okay if we don’t respond?  I really think some follow-up is required here before saying, you are now on your own.

What may have seemed like a good solution has become national news, but it didn’t have to be.  Kirschenbaum in Chaos Organization and Disaster Management suggests that the whole social aspect of disaster response was overtaken by a bureaucracy concerned with job protection and cost reimbursement years ago anyway and this whole event pretty much emphasizes his point.  But when the community insists on having service but is unwilling to pay for it, other solutions must be found for funding.  In this context, “helping neighbors” for purely altruistic reasons has been trumped with who is paying for service and who is not.  This takes the whole emergency services as a business concept to a very predictable level.  But there really is balance to be achieved in every situation.  The challenges facing us in communities like Oak Park, IL and Xenia, OH illustrate there is such a thing as when the “fiscally conservative” become unreasonable, but compelling.  When we insist on the gold standard and our community can only afford the aluminum version, we expose ourselves to this kind of rhetoric.  I’m not saying that’s the case in these communities, but the situations making national headlines there only encourage community activists elsewhere who already think a scorched-earth approach to cutting the municipal budget is appropriate.  Our job as leaders is to foster innovative and efficient organizations while maintaining a responsible budget.  Again, balance is in order.

While we use the words “customer service” as a way to describe our efforts, it again goes back to doing what’s right for our neighbors and people who visit and work in our community.  While there are those of us who are paid to do this, we have to remember that it is a service we are paid to do often because the volume and type of emergencies we are called to solve exceed the community’s readily available resources.  Or maybe it’s because we don’t care enough about our neighbors anymore because we’re so wrapped up in “me”.  Regardless, until people begin to give away fire apparatus, permit us to operate without insurance, and clothe us in turnouts out of the kindness of their hearts, we have to pay for this stuff.  Therefore, every community, like it or not, has to endure funding these endeavors, through taxes, donations or subscriptions.  It’s up to you how you do it.  But it’s a requirement that it be done.

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The subject was Ruth Cranston, author of World Faith: The Story of the Religions of the United Nations. She spoke of achieving the insight that all of the world’s religions, despite their differences, were united in very similar tenets of how to live with our fellow man.  Even when there is constant disagreement with how we go about our daily lives, she posited this about the commonalities of religious belief:

They [the world’s religions] taught the unity of all life; the interdependence of all men; love and service to fellow man; help, not exploitation, of the weak and backward. They taught nonviolence and non-injury. They all taught purity of life and of motive, simplicity of life too, and that true riches are within. They taught the worth of individual man and the ability of every man to rise to higher states of development than we are now experiencing. They taught the immortality of the soul and the building of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.

Her suggestion was that despite the worship or belief in which we practice, we experience several common denominators that should bring us closer together rather than farther apart.  While a lot can be taken from that paragraph, it seems that like I say constantly in my forum here is that we as emergency service providers have more commonalities than differences.  In fact, those of us who are true believers in what we do as a profession probably understand that the phrase “customer service” is just a name we put on a concept in order to define it.

Of course, the belief of a higher calling to serve is about those who are truly in this and believe in this as a profession of service and enjoying the benefits of the occasional adrenaline rush, in contrast to those who are in this for the adrenaline rush and enjoy the occasional effort to serve, and even then, if that subject comes up at all.  I say that because it is my observation that a majority (if not all) of the problems we have in emergency service can be traced back to those who fail to see this career, whether you are paid or volunteer, as one in which we should serve rather than to be served.  It is this entitled mindset, that we are automatically due respect because we wear the badge, which causes problems.

The term customer service is probably pretty cynical, when you think about it, because it might suggest to the casual reader that the ideal we seek is all about making sure our profession enjoys the financial benefit of such service.  In fact, as emergency response personnel, the term “customer service” embraces the concept of all that is considered good in mankind, in that we realize the worth of others and we seek to serve those in need of help, despite their social status.  While we can quantitatively point out that having a customer service attitude benefits us in public support, there should be a much more altruistic reason for our embracing that belief.

There are two schools of thought in the “anti-customer service” camp.  One, of course, is that the public doesn’t have a choice, therefore they are not customers.  The second goes along with my statement that what we do is so much more than a client relationship.  I have argued that the public does have a choice, as Chief Alan Brunacini did much more so before I have here.  But the latter discussion bears some serious consideration.  Is the concept of customer service too simplistic? Customer service could be construed as providing a real effort only when we stand to gain from that interaction.  It might be perceived that the service we provide is done only because we expect a return on investment.

While remembering conversations with Chief Brunacini as he advocated the benefits of customer service mentality as a method for obtaining taxpayer support, I also recall that he never said that the concept was exclusive to that expectation.  If you remember, the overarching mission was to “Be Nice”.  While that’s good for marketing, it’s not something you can force down people’s throats and expect it to happen magically.  He advocated a cultural shift in his leadership that was summed up in two simple words, therefore easy to remember and easy to implement.  The customer service mentality, likewise, was easy to relate to.

Our job as leaders is to communicate our mission.  That communication requires not only our shouting it out there, but the return acknowledgment that understanding has been achieved.  The mindset of “customer service” is palpable.  We understand it and we know what is good customer service and what is bad.  We can easily empathize with a customer who is frustrated with a certain way in which their matter is being handled or appreciate the sincere gratitude experienced by a customer who is receiving excellent service.  For the purposes of defining an accepted approach to interaction with the community, it helps to be able to frame those interactions in a manner in which we are familiar.  So while, yes, our delivery of service is much more than the interaction of a salesperson and a client, it provides us with concrete objectives by which we can measure our outputs.  It is pretty easy to say, “Fire Went Out” and check the “Good” box.  It is much more difficult to say, “Obtained Confidence of Taxpayer”.

Our job can be seen from a purely pragmatic standpoint, one in which we have been tasked to provide a service and we must efficiently produce results.  Or we can say that our job is that of serving humankind with compassionate and ethical assistance when they are most vulnerable.  In either case, the ultimate measurement is the same; as Cranston implied, reinforcing “the interdependence of all men”; loving and serving fellow man; and helping, not exploiting, the weak and needy.  It is our charge to insure whichever path we choose, we do so with the understanding that we are there to serve.

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