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The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) has produced a document, powerpoint presentation, and video series aimed at "asking" the right questions to get the "right" answers (the ones the bean counters want to hear for budget purposes) out of your fire chief and police chief.
One I recently was privy to opened with a slide entitled "Why Do Firefighters Work 24 Hour Shifts"? The next one read "Because they want to". Imagine the misinformation that could be passed on to folks that make decisions if someone from the fire department was not there to wave the BS card and support it with facts.
Everytime the ICMA sends "polls" out to fire department seeking information, they essentially are gaining an arsenal of facts that could be misinterpreted or skewed to favor someone's agenda or opinion.
With regards to 24-hour shifts, the ICMA has data showing how our "productivity" is affected over the course of a 24 shift, such as response time during the day vs. in the middle of the night, "what" we are doing during the shift (i.e. plugs for an hour, inspections for an hour, physical fitness for an hour, eight "chase the ambulance runs" @ 20 min apiece = 2 hours and 40 min of emergency run activity for a total of 5 hours and 40 min of "activity" per shift). In this scenario, the ICMA plants the question "what are your firefighters doing for the other 16.5 hours they are on the clock?" Sleeping? Eating? Working out? Meanwhile, someone at city hall is making the statement that "our clerks have to take an hour of unpaid lunch and don't get to nap... how come the firemens get to?"
Anyone who has ever been a firefighter knows what we do - the preparation per shift, the training, answering runs, community relations, and etc. The problem is that it would be easier to get nuclear launch codes from military than to explain the preparedness of being a firefighter and the history of "why" we are where we are at today in the fire service. They also have no clue whatsoever about 24-hour a day capability and preparedness for emergency response.
In summary, be aware that everything (literally) you do on-duty (and probably off-duty as well) is under the microscope. Where it is painting plugs, answering a house fire, inspecting a target hazard, or getting groceries at the store, somebody, somewhere is attaching a dollar sign ($) to it and trying to determine if we can cut it, you, and anything else.
One I recently was privy to opened with a slide entitled "Why Do Firefighters Work 24 Hour Shifts"? The next one read "Because they want to". Imagine the misinformation that could be passed on to folks that make decisions if someone from the fire department was not there to wave the BS card and support it with facts.
Everytime the ICMA sends "polls" out to fire department seeking information, they essentially are gaining an arsenal of facts that could be misinterpreted or skewed to favor someone's agenda or opinion.
With regards to 24-hour shifts, the ICMA has data showing how our "productivity" is affected over the course of a 24 shift, such as response time during the day vs. in the middle of the night, "what" we are doing during the shift (i.e. plugs for an hour, inspections for an hour, physical fitness for an hour, eight "chase the ambulance runs" @ 20 min apiece = 2 hours and 40 min of emergency run activity for a total of 5 hours and 40 min of "activity" per shift). In this scenario, the ICMA plants the question "what are your firefighters doing for the other 16.5 hours they are on the clock?" Sleeping? Eating? Working out? Meanwhile, someone at city hall is making the statement that "our clerks have to take an hour of unpaid lunch and don't get to nap... how come the firemens get to?"
Anyone who has ever been a firefighter knows what we do - the preparation per shift, the training, answering runs, community relations, and etc. The problem is that it would be easier to get nuclear launch codes from military than to explain the preparedness of being a firefighter and the history of "why" we are where we are at today in the fire service. They also have no clue whatsoever about 24-hour a day capability and preparedness for emergency response.
In summary, be aware that everything (literally) you do on-duty (and probably off-duty as well) is under the microscope. Where it is painting plugs, answering a house fire, inspecting a target hazard, or getting groceries at the store, somebody, somewhere is attaching a dollar sign ($) to it and trying to determine if we can cut it, you, and anything else.
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Uh huh- riiiiggghhhttt... ( I wonder if this has anything to do with how much we like our rumor mill, or to grumble, gripe, and agitate... It's easier to deal with small annoyances or personality conflicts if you get to leave and recharge your batteries after 8-12 hrs)
They stated we only work 3 hours a day. They did not include fire cleanup, training, reports, etc. They manufacture the numbers so that they get the results they want.
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