The Social Network & Community JUST for Firefighters
Raising The Bar
I took some time off this week to head to Atlanta with the family; my wife had work to do and I got to spend some time with my daughters. While there, I got a chance to go to the new World of Coke museum, the Georgia Aquarium, and the Children's Museum which were all within walking distance of where we were staying, downtown right off of Centennial Park.
With so much in the way of excellent venues being so close together, I had the opportunity to realize that this area in downtown Atlanta, like so much of the city, is truly what I consider to be a world-class place to visit. The whole definition of world-class led me to consider what we mean in the fire service when we say "world-class" in the same breath as "progressive" and "professional".
Defining these terms always seems to be in the eye of the beholder. I know of a department struggling through their own nightmare right now as they have lived for years believing they were the definition of an excellent fire department only to find they have been operating in the 70s. I guess its all in how you frame your reference as to what is "good" versus what is "excellent".
While involved in the Nation and being exposed to so many ideas, we have come the full circle to realize that many of us are visiting the same problems within our own organizations that others have been experiencing for years. What's funny is the same discussions keep popping up in different versions on here, not referring, of course, to the many discussions of vehicle lighting or colors, which defy logic anyway.
We don't impress anyone with our professionalism or progressiveness by experiencing the same problems over and over again. Being effective doesn't include repeating mistakes others have made, got the t-shirt for, and moved on from. If learning isn't occurring from what we see here on the Nation, then what good is the network? (Other than picking up hoochie-mamas we dragged on about in one thread already).
I guess what I expected and anticipated was substance. I've said over and over again that it's like panning for gold, but it seems like I'm having to go through more silt to get an occasional fleck of the good stuff lately.
I am not even going to suggest that my blogs and posts are always grammatically correct and spelling properly covered, but at least I give it a shot to make sure the sentence I wrote makes a little sense. Some of the posts I have read lately (and in some other networks I have seen as well) look as if someone should have scrawled them out in crayon instead, and I'm talking about the thick ones, too.
What professionalism do we want to convey in our own organizations? Do we want to accept substandard performance; does it make us look credible when we are trying to convince Town Council we need raises or better equipment or more personnel? When we post on here or elsewhere, do we realize our names are attached to what we just belched out into the blogosphere and do we care that whomever we are trying to influence (because that's what we are trying to do when we communicate, to influence someone to see our point- unless of course you have no point, and that seems to be the case in some of the things I've read).
Having just a little pride in what you post is one way to add credibility to yourself and your organization, but what I hope you see is that there's a bigger picture here and if you can't express yourself in a professional manner, how can you hope to win over the minds of people who have no idea who you are, and have never met you before? This is your first chance in many cases to make a good impression and in many cases, it just doesn't seem like many care.
If someone (not a firefighter) were to jump on this site and take a look at the Nation, does it reflect what you want them to see about you or your department? In quite a few cases I'd say it does and that may or may not be a good thing. Think about that for a while.
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Comment by Mick Mayers on January 24, 2008 at 8:01am
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In response to point one, I think it was Patton who said, "Shoot for perfection and falling short of that, we shall achieve excellence".
In response to point two, I think the reason we are in the hole we are in is because we (the collective fire service) have allowed ourselves to be less exclusionary in response to the difficulty in finding personnel. We have to remember though, in our desperate quest to fill vacancies, we may be telling others that ANYONE is capable of being a firefighter- all you have to do is fog a mirror and you are in.
I'm reminded that in the Executive Fire Officer program, the need for the paper is based on our desire to create a body of research based on actual research and not on anecdotal evidence. This body of research elevates the fire service to a "professional" level, but time and time again, I hear about how "unnecessary" the paper is. When I hear that, I also think about the people who train other on the "way we do things around here" compared to the "latest and most cutting edge" standard. I mean, who needs incident command and standard commmunications anyway? "We haven't done that around here because what we have been doing since 1960 works just fine".
The next time someone is complaining because the fire service is getting the broom closet in the office building of federal government while the cops have the corner office, they need to be reminded that if we don't elevate the bar, the EMS industry may be taking the office next door to the cops and we will still be in our same old place, wondering what the hell happened.
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Comment by Mary Ellen Shea on January 23, 2008 at 10:02pm
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Someone on here (look up to the top of the response rung for a clue on who that might have been) said to me that he expects, no..DEMANDS excellence from his fire brethren; and because the bar is set high, his members rise to the occasion again and again, surprising themselves, but not their leader...
..and then someone else on here (look up one rung) and I were discussing an advertising flier and whether asking if someone was smart enough to join the emergency services was exclusionary....and as he so wisely stated, you can seek quantity, or quality....expect more, and you'll receive a higher quality of recruit.
Quality, intelligence and common sense begets the same. I'm always willing to excuse someone's demonstrated deficiencies in grammar, punctuation and verbiage providing that the message is valid, and that the poster is open to correction and helpful editing.
I have NO patience for concerted, determined and willful idiocy.
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Comment by Tiger Schmittendorf on January 23, 2008 at 1:01am
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Mick -
I'm sure this next statement could be mis-construed as elitest, but there are literacy campaigns for virtually every demographic of society, perhaps it's time for a literacy campaign for firefighters.
I share many of your same frustrations and from time to time, I am amusingly annoyed at some of the rants contained herein. However, the annoyed moments tend to outnumber the amusing sensations more often than not.
Just because you wrote it yourself doesn't necessarily give you the right to claim it as "intellectual" property.
I am a firm believer in always putting on our best face, and as Sean can attest, I am guilty of promoting some organizations to be better than they really are, only in hopes of motivating its members to achieve the high standards we've set for ourselves.
I can sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo as some would say.
So, if there's truth in advertising, and this is our billboard, I only have two words for you: YIKES!
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