Centralized Fire Today, Tomorrow and Forever!

This one of my favorite topics on wlf.com and that is our Line Officers. The story: The Forest Line Officers called for a major Monday morning conference call with all Chief Officers and Captains. The topic of the conference call was related to work environment, avoiding harassment, treating people appropriately and how to work together. Important topics in my opinion. When it was the Deputy Forest Supervisor's (A Line Officer) time to say something he started off by saying: "Well it's time for me to piss on this fire hydrant". OK, so I am thinking "open mouth, insert foot” immediately. Many on the call took offense to the comment, especially since they had just been preached to by the Forest Supervisor and Civil Rights Officer. It created such an uproar that the Forest Supervisor sent out the following memo to her District Rangers (Line Officers) asking them to forward her memo to all employees on the call (cop-out). For those on the Forest who did not receive the apology, here you go. For all, only one thing comes to mind in times like these: Centralized Fire Today, Tomorrow and Forever!Forest Supervisor memo:
All -- It was brought to my attention that during Monday's conference call on work environment, after I had left the meeting, Deputy Forest Supervisor Snip used an analogy related to dogs and fire hydrants, and some employees have expressed they were offended by this comment. Though I was not present to hear the comments, in keeping with my commitment to ensure a positive work environment for all employees, I have discussed this issue with Name Snip and advised him of the inappropriateness of the comment, and outlined my expectations of him and his conduct in the future. Name Snip expressed remorse for his comment, stated he recognized immediately he could have used a better choice of words, and in hind sight, wished he had addressed the comment immediately. Please share this information with your employees who were on the call, and express both mine and Name Snip apology for this poor choice of words. Thanks.Snip NameForest Supervisor
Snip National Forest? Wondering which Forest? Yep, you guessed it right! Using an analogy we can all relate to. If a Deputy Incident Commander had done something detrimental to the team, would the Incident Commander send out a memo to Command and General Staff telling them to forward this to those in your functional areas OR would he/she pull the team together for the apology, get everyone back on the same page, have some good communications and move on with the business at hand. I think you all know the answer to that. Line Officers are not built to manage fire service organizations. Propose of this post is to again display another example of how each day Line Management and Fire Management grow further and further apart. The two groups simply see things differently and have different approaches to work/life values and working relationships.
Signed,Centralized Fire Today, Tomorrow and Forever!