Honesty and Integrety

[kurtj36]

Last year..I had an opportunity to move to Gatlinburg,TN because my job let me transfer to our Sevierville, TN location. I have 18 yrs service in Fire and EMS, so when I went to apply at Gatlinburg Fire Dept. I was told yes I can Join, come to the meetings and training in which I did..this went on for 6 months before even getting an interview, phone calls and emails to the dept. went unreturned. Even after the interview, I heard nothing. I finally got ahold of The Chief himself who by the way is a great guy and an outstanding fire chief. He had been told by his people that I was no longer interested, which was a bold faced lie!! After spending a total of about 7 months trying to get on..I packed up, my company let me tranfer back to my home state, and moved. I then joined a dept. with no delay at all.

That whole experience gave me a very bad impression of the dept. and the community. Which is a shame because the Chief is an outstanding man personally.

[cmfireguy]

I understand your hardship with the city of Gatlinburg, But it seems you've went about it the wrong way. Maybe next time you can talk to someone that has more of a say so with the hiring process.

[kurtj36]

The people I talked to were involved in the hiring process...including the training officer who was indeed in charge of screening and hiring. What doesn't excuse anything was the fact that they lied to the chief saying I was no longer interested. That itself demonstrates very poor standards of conduct!

[Maverick88]

In my personal opinion, expressing your displeasure with the department on a public forum instead of talking to those that could fix or talk things out with you demonstrates a poor standard of conduct. Sir.

[kurtj36]

Excuse me Maverick, let me add something. My original post was a summary of what had happened. I executed all means and ways possible including talking with the city. I don't need a lesson on standards of conduct, I assure you I utilize all resources possible before proceeding to the next level. Those involved at the department chose to be unfair about all of this, not me. I also assure you that if it was because of "my" standards of conduct then I would have trouble getting on with any department. Your right about one thing, this is a public forum. Last time I checked we still had freedom of speech in this country.