Chief Concerns: When Is It Time to Just Shut Up?

It may be worth beginning this article with a disclaimer of sorts: The content of this writing has no intention, real or perceived, of taking a political party side to any argument. Those who choose to make those parallels should study the title.

In a broad sense, our fire/EMS/public service mission statement is truly universal. The following could be that statement: “We will provide prompt and efficient public safety response to our communities and constituents. We will constantly strive to improve our performance measures, while also improving the safety of our personnel and the overall level of safety within our communities and/or areas of responsibility.”

While this article is not about mission statements in general, I do want to talk about what I believe are the core words in that statement—“public safety.” Firefighters and paramedics usually swear an oath to uphold the laws of their jurisdictions (and if they don’t take this oath, we should be demanding it). That oath is a very solemn promise we make to uphold the laws of the land while providing public safety services, thereby maintaining the public’s trust in our personnel and our departments. Unfortunately, I find that all too often we gloss over the reality of public trust with the altruistic belief that we are above reproach.

Sharing opinions—then and now

We have certainly seen the evolving phenomenon of social media-assisted career-suicide (SMACS), a term coined by others and applicable to everyone. With the invention and availability of smartphones, most of us have what can essentially be considered powerful mini-computers on our hips and at our fingertips at all times, creating dilemmas that previous generations were able to avoid. What is that dilemma? It is the choice between instantaneously broadcasting what you’re thinking to the world in a matter of seconds and taking a deep breath and deciding to NOT do so. 

Not that long ago, I’d write an article on a piece of paper and mail it in an envelope, likely from my house. Now I type my articles on my smartphone and submit them electronically, often while on the road. When writing by hand, our “send” or “post” button was “activated” the moment we stuck that letter in the mailbox, mind you it would be days or weeks before anybody would be able to peruse the writings, and even then, it would only be the person to whom the writing was sent. This writing “delay” was actually a luxury, as it served as filter for our thoughts. If we wrote in a moment of passion or anger, as long as we didn’t “hit send” (put in the mailbox), there was no harm. In other words, there was more time to consider our thoughts before sharing with others.

Today, those same thoughts sent or posted during a moment of passion or anger are instantaneous and, in many cases, irreversible, available for millions to see. What compounds this fact is that, as a society, we have not mastered either the capacity to understand the demonstration of that instantaneous passion or anger, or the capacity to overlook it as a fleeting moment. In some senses, we are becoming desensitized to the flurry of information, until the flamboyant rises to our own instantaneous conscience. 

New methods of interaction

So what does this have to do with maintaining the public’s trust? Tons. In the past, the development of public trust was largely maintained and fostered as a factor of on-scene or community interactions from various events. Today, our members interact or are visible on various social media platforms at all hours of the day. Forwarding and sharing of information exacerbates the problem, through the rapid proliferation of whatever comment or view has been espoused. It might be a comment about a recent call: “You wouldn't believe that fat slob we just ran. What a piece of &^%$.” It could be a comment on department policy: “Management has no $*@^ing idea what they’re doing.” Perhaps it is a comment on recent politics or policy: “I’m here to tell you, if they take away my benefits, I’ll kill that ….”

Many times, after someone has had the luxury of time to think about it, they try to delete the comment, only to discover that it’s already been shared, printed, emailed or even slid under the chief’s (or politician’s) door. Worse yet, they sent it to the media. Too late. 

These instantaneous feelings, comments, rants—whatever you want to call them—are now in the public domain, and by the mere act of your position as a representative of the government, the comments are thereby also representing the government. You can scream “rights of free speech” all you want; however, when you are on the job (paid or volunteer) and when your comments, views or rants affect the public trust of you or your organization, then you are failing at your mission—and also violating the public’s trust.

It is imperative that we teach our folks the importance of public trust. We must do a better job teaching our members that sometimes the best comment is no comment at all. Take the time to breathe, think and decide whose interest your comment or actions are helping—that’s right, helping. That is why we’re here, right?

Just because that mini-computer is available at our fingertips 24 hours a day does NOT mean we have to purge our thoughts immediately.

Make no mistake, I recognize that this is much more than just a fire service problem. There are many demonstrations of this lack of thought control and this spontaneous mind-purging that we see all around us. But we MUST be the ones taking the proverbial higher road to ensure that Grandma Jones doesn’t have a second thought or even the slightest worry about depending on us in her darkest moments. 

My “chief presence” on social media was who I was—100 percent me. There were no alter-egos or other personal accounts, and as “PGFD_Chief,” I strove to provide positive organization and community reinforcement for all the things we did. While sometimes the chief presence ran afoul or in front of the PIO, my presence was ALWAYS factual and non-political, and strove to constantly ensure that the public knew what their chief and their department were doing and why.  

There was the occasional personal post, but let’s face it, for chiefs, once you're a chief, there’s very little “personal” life; you’re always a chief. What you say and what you do is magnified by many, all the time, which brings me to the closing part of this article.

All actions

We’re not only talking about social media; we’re talking about maintaining the public’s trust through all our actions and words. Two recent actions by fire department members bring pause and purpose to this discussion. A rope tied in the general likeness of a noose, draped over an African-American firefighter’s desk in a fire department class is a highly irresponsible and irrevocably stupid demonstration of spontaneous actions that should have NEVER happened. No amount of explaining or trying to justify this should be acceptable to us. Someone should have thought, “It’s time to shut up,” with the “shut up” being their conscience telling them, “This is a bad idea, don't do it.” This was likely fully within the control of several people to keep this from occurring.

The second example: A recent social media post by a young firefighter on his personal page, proclaiming his willingness to save a dog over that of certain human beings, was clearly a moment of passion this young man was unable to control. And just like that, with the proverbial switch—“SEND”—now we're talking about it here in a major fire service publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

I'm not intimately aware of how the jurisdictions have dealt with these two incidents; however, the standard, “removed from operations and under investigation” DID seem appropriately actuated by the administrations in a timely fashion. We all witnessed the expressions of frustration in the departments and communities after these events. Imagine the unfiltered reaction of the public in these communities. Both actions, among many others we have seen, smack at the heart of the public’s trust in our ability to provide our service mission. 

In sum

I encourage you to take that extra moment—enjoy the luxury of time—before you “open your mouth” and before you hit “SEND” or “POST.” During that moment, ask yourself whether your mother or grandmother would approve. Ask that little wall-judge whom I’ve talked about before, “Is this the right thing to say (or do)?” If you can definitively say to yourself that they would all approve, then have at it. Just remember, SOMETIMES the better part of valor is simply learning when it’s time to shut up.