Is our culture keeping us from talking about what's important?
Brian Simpson, PhD, argues that the coping tools responders build to survive the job also make it hard to talk about what the job does to them. He says new mental health resources cannot change a culture that treats silence as strength. Formal and informal leaders have to speak first, he writes, about what they have been through and what has helped.
The Unwritten Rules of Baseball and Firefighting
Brian Simpson, PhD, compares baseball’s unwritten rules with the ones that run the firehouse, from where people sit to why members play through pain. He gives officers a simple test for each rule: does it make the crew better at the job, or does it only protect someone’s position? He argues that an officer who stays silent is making a leadership decision, and that the rules need to be said out loud.
Even small traditions can help us remember the ones who came before.
Brian Simpson, PhD, remembers a battalion chief whose quirks became crew traditions, and explains how those customs outlived the man. He argues that small traditions keep a department’s memory and give its members a sense of belonging. He asks leaders which customs shape their own crews and where those customs came from.
If this is the best job in the world, why are we having trouble recruiting?
Brian Simpson, PhD, says his department’s hiring tests once drew nearly 100 applicants and now draw 15 to 20. He doubts pay is the cause and points instead to barriers that fire service leaders built, including years of self-funded certification and months of silence on hiring lists. He asks why departments recruit and treat new hires the way they do.