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Thread: Cultural question - how to avoid being That Guy

  1. #11
    THE THIRST MUTILATOR Nephrology's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Drang View Post
    From his description, his Emergency Management position is planing for disasters: Mitigation, Response and Recovery, Training for same. Just guessing here, based on what he lists as his location, I would think tornadoes, winter storms, flooding, and HazMat spills, and maybe Active Shooters, or terrorist attacks on really, really secure bank vaults.... If he deals with medical personnel it will probably be arranging Incident Command System courses for them.
    You should still always do what the nurses tell you to do.

  2. #12
    Site Supporter Notorious E.O.C.'s Avatar
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    First - thank you to all who've weighed in. If I don't specifically address something you've said, please don't take it as me disregarding it. Rest assured I'm weighing all the advice.

    @mods - thanks for fixing the typo title. Massive facepalm there.

    Quote Originally Posted by JustOneGun View Post
    Hard to give you specifics without knowing specifics.
    Understood. I'm trying to calibrate my vagueness to avoid making it easy to link this handle to others I use elsewhere, let alone to my meatspace self. I don't expect my new employers to have a problem with anything I've posted under this handle but I never know what'll splash back on me.

    Having said that - when I say "small," I'm talking ~60 sworn and, due to the incorporation of some other public safety functions, ~100 non-sworn. My immediate supervisor is sworn but he's the only one in our unit.

    Quote Originally Posted by DpdG View Post
    You may have the unenviable experience of being stuck between the command's desire to say they are ready for anything, and the operations side of not actually being ready due to a litany of hurdles. Sometimes one side will be right, sometimes the other will be right, but in both instances you will be stuck in the middle. Its your job to be the subject matter expert and give the best and most reasoned advice possible. One of best compliments I've heard was "he told me what I needed to hear, not necessarily what I wanted to hear." Try to be that guy.
    That, at least, is familiar territory. My previous position involved a lot of specialized HAZMAT planning (not LEPC, but the same general lane). That jurisdiction had a lot of politically-driven guidance handed down from the state which did not align with objective reality. I tried very hard to keep my written plans on the side of objective reality. To do that, I relied heavily on the guys who were going to have to execute those plans in the field. So, more of the same here.

    Quote Originally Posted by DpdG View Post
    It sounds like your role will be mostly supporting the agency's mission, not executing it. That is meant to be descriptive, not derogatory.
    Not taken as derogatory in any way. You nailed it exactly - and, in fact, that is how I view emergency management's mission regardless of what level of government (or private sector) it serves. Our function is coordination and subject matter expertise. We're not the boss of anyone. If I ever wind up director somewhere, I'm going to put a crappy Latin translation of "responsibility without authority" on my office's seal.

    Quote Originally Posted by octagon View Post
    I would add to go on ride along, go to roll calls to meet and speak with the troops who may be looking for something you can provide or be expected to do something you are implementing. Just as Admin are often looked at as outsiders with the mentality that "They don't know what we have to do out here" from the front line workers you don't want your first contact or experience to come in the emergency situation. At least get an idea of who does what in the organization and how things are being done day to day in non emergencies and in more complex critical incidences where your input will be more involved.
    Ride-alongs are already requested, as is a seat in the next session of this department's citizen police academy. I also am trying to monitor the dispatch channel while I'm in the office so I can get a feel for what a normal level of activity sounds like and what the most common calls for service are. I can read the written logs but there's no substitute for building that knowledge base.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rex G View Post
    Are there any local C.E.R.T. teams in your area? If so, liaise with them. If not, see about starting one, and recruit folks who have the ability to get things done, and are willing to be called-out. Go to the FEMA site, and look for Community Emergency Response Teams. Be careful with this, of course, as peace officers may resent assertive civilians arriving at scenes. Cooperation should be stressed.
    This department actually is the organizing body for the CERT team in its jurisdiction. It's small enough that every officer is at least familiar with the team's existence. There's a lot of administration support but I don't know how the road officers feel about it.

    (Side question: is "road officers" or "street officers" appropriate terminology for differentiating not-administration from administration?)

    Quote Originally Posted by Drang View Post
    Around here Emergency Management is usually under the Fire/Rescue organization, but a few areas -- usually remote, rural counties -- run a combined "Public Safety" department.
    Due to the wording of some state laws, it's more common here to see independent agencies at the county level. The police subordination is unique to my new operating environment because of some political history with how public safety functions are handled here.

    Quote Originally Posted by Drang View Post
    From his description, his Emergency Management position is planing for disasters: Mitigation, Response and Recovery, Training for same. Just guessing here, based on what he lists as his location, I would think tornadoes, winter storms, flooding, and HazMat spills, and maybe Active Shooters, or terrorist attacks on really, really secure bank vaults.... If he deals with medical personnel it will probably be arranging Incident Command System courses for them.
    Yup! There's also the NMSZ, but due to distance, that's not nearly as much of a headache for me as Cascadia is for you.

    I do have three hospitals within my jurisdiction but not within my scope of responsibility. They have their own emergency management staff. I expect I'll be liaising with them pretty closely, though. And yes, Nephrology, all of their EM leaders are nurses, mostly ED personnel picking up Additional Duties As Assigned.
    Last edited by Notorious E.O.C.; 05-07-2017 at 06:03 PM.

  3. #13
    Sounds like you have gotten some good ideas and already have some decent plans. Keep an open mind and stay flexible and you should be fine. I always preferred Road Dog. Road guys/gals, Patrol, Uniform each place has it's own jargon and some may be used by insiders and not be derogatory where others may not. I would lean toward line officers or uniformed patrol officers and see what gets used.

  4. #14
    Site Supporter LtDave's Avatar
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    I worked in Sworn positions for almost 30 years and an additional 6 years as a civilian volunteer for a state law enforcement agency. Understand that as a civilian in a law enforcement agency, you will never be an equal. How you are treated will vary depending on the culture of the specific organization. It may be great or awful, likely depending on how "civilianized" the agency has become. If this is the first and only sworn spot turned over to a non-sworn employee, stand by. I'd try and have a talk with some of the non-sworn personnel to see if there are "issues". This may be hard to do if your position is going to be classified as management. My girlfriend is also a retired cop and now works in Emergency Management for a county where they are part of county government and not attached to a law enforcement or fire service. She loves her job.

    PS: the agency I retired from had about 90 sworn and well over 100 non-sworn positions. Any function that could be handled without a badge and gun was.
    Last edited by LtDave; 05-07-2017 at 08:03 PM.
    The first indication a bad guy should have that I'm dangerous is when his
    disembodied soul is looking down at his own corpse wondering what happened.

  5. #15
    Site Supporter Rex G's Avatar
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    Q: (Side question: is "road officers" or "street officers" appropriate terminology for differentiating not-administration from administration?)

    A: My best guess is that this is a regional thing, a question best asked close to home. If in doubt, well, how it is said may well be more important than the exact wording.

  6. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Nephrology View Post
    You should still always do what the nurses tell you to do.
    I usually said "Yes, Mom"...
    Recovering Gun Store Commando. My Blog: The Clue Meter
    “It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat.”
    Glenn Reynolds

  7. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Condition Write View Post
    This department actually is the organizing body for the CERT team in its jurisdiction. It's small enough that every officer is at least familiar with the team's existence. There's a lot of administration support but I don't know how the road officers feel about it.
    Are the CERT graduates actually organized? Some jurisdictions around here basically run the classes and then tell the grads "We gave up on trying to run your neighborhood teams, if you want to, great! Otherwise, remember what we taught and if, God forbid, the worst happens, do your best." Which sounds callous, but I can sympathize with not wanting to heard cats on a limited budget...

    Meanwhile, my town not only runs CERT training but gives volunteers advanced training and does organize them and incorporate them into emergency planning and exercises.

    How robust is the amateur radio community there?
    Recovering Gun Store Commando. My Blog: The Clue Meter
    “It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat.”
    Glenn Reynolds

  8. #18
    Member iWander's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JustOneGun View Post
    But don't make the mistake that we are not just like everyone else. The social dynamics of a police department looks more like the 7th grade than it does a college course on social dynamics.
    Excellent advice for you in this thread, especially the above comment. After more than 20 years on the job, I agree wholeheartedly. If anything, 7th grade is a stretch! I've found that nurses, fire fighters and the military have the same maturity level during down time. It's what keeps us sane, relieves stress and strengthens our bond. You'll know you're accepted when you're​ included in the banter or become the butt of their down time behavior.

    The above comments were written in crayon by a supervisor of professionals that think farts and practical jokes are funny.
    Last edited by iWander; 05-21-2017 at 08:11 AM.

  9. #19
    Site Supporter Notorious E.O.C.'s Avatar
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    This is apparently my week to summon dead threads to arise from the grave. @Drang recently reminded me of this thread's existence, and I realized last week that I'd just hit the 18-month mark at this job, so I felt it would be worthwhile to revisit it with an update and a couple of lessons learned.

    First off - thank you to everyone who responded. I failed to reply to each of you when this thread was fresh, but rest assured I did read and consider all of your input.

    It has been an interesting experience. As mentioned above in discussion with @Nephrology and @DpdG, my specific job has very little to do with law enforcement functions. Emergency management in this jurisdiction is housed under the police department for political reasons, not operational ones, and was previously staffed largely by cops. The problem with that (observed and acknowledged by the command staff) was that the department culturally and operationally prioritized immediate law enforcement tasks over the slow-burn program management work that forms much of a robust EM program, so the ostensible EM guys were always getting pulled away to be cops. To be fair, they all got into law enforcement to be cops, not to be emergency managers. Bringing in a non-sworn guy with prior EM experience was supposed to fix that. In practice, results have been mixed.

    One of my initial concerns was that I would get sideways with the officers and sergeants who had wanted the EM lieutenant position for its rank and regular office schedule. That turns out to have been a non-issue, thankfully. There are a couple of officers who are wanting to transition from law enforcement to EM (not necessarily here) and I've been able to throw them some career and educational advice.

    One of the issues I observed early on is that most of the department had no idea what the EM shop did, despite it formerly containing two sworn personnel. That led to a lot of skepticism and standoffishness, as several of you warned me. I've been able to make some inroads on that, partially by simply being more visible, but also by being useful. I think the big breakthrough was during a planned event over the summer when we had every officer on the street for traffic control and I was running the emergency operations center in support of that. Apparently, "support" has been the missing keyword in previous EOC activations, and it turns out that my flat affect lends itself to a decent radio voice. There's been a noticeable thaw since then.

    I also handle a lot of the after-action reports, which we do not just for major incidents but also for the larger planned events (improvement plans coming out of those AARs are another issue entirely, due mainly to executive-level politics...). I think my other big breakthrough has been getting on the street whenever I can escape the EOC during the large events to link up with the patrol guys and see what they're actually dealing with. There has been a lot of frustration about recurring problems for which the command staff lacks visibility, both literally and metaphorically, and I've been able to document those issues and occasionally get someone to do something about them. I like to think it also helps that I'm being transparent about what I'm reporting up the chain and anonymizing those reports when requested to do so.

    I am somewhat amused that @JustOneGun and @Ohsheepdog nailed it with their analysis of department culture. The social dynamics among the patrol guys are very much along the lines of high school jock culture. Thinking jocks - I work with some very smart people and the department has a robust continuing-education benefit program - but jocks nevertheless.

    All of this is to say that you guys were right about most of the social friction points, and I think I've avoided too many catastrophic screw-ups on that side.

    Unfortunately, my biggest headaches are not cultural but political. The command staff here, as well as the jurisdiction's executive leadership, exhibit a bad combination of micromanagement and benign neglect toward EM. Put simply, there's a lot of pride in what, from my professional perspective, is a Potemkin village of an emergency management program. Because of that, there's no support for program improvement, because pursuing improvement would require someone to admit that the current state is less than perfect. As someone whose drive in this field is to identify and solve problems, directly-ordered inactivity on critical vulnerabilities is driving me nuts.

    With regards to the subordination of emergency management to a law enforcement agency, I tried to go into this with an open mind. As I commented in the somewhat-recent EM thread in General, this organizational model seems mainly to be a regional thing, and it's not one with which I had prior personal experience. After a year and a half working in this framework, my opinion is that being an employee of this police department is usually a very good thing, but having emergency management answerable to law enforcement is a fail for my profession. To expand on what I noted above, the LE focus on constant immediate response to calls for service is fundamentally incompatible with the long-term "blue-sky" work of EM to develop relationships and lay groundwork between the rare "gray-sky" catastrophic incidents. This drives misunderstanding and neglect, even at the command staff level where strategic thinking is otherwise occurring, because EM is not seen working at the same operational tempo as patrol officers and therefore is not perceived to be a priority. This is not a criticism of law enforcement as a whole, nor even this department: from an LE mission standpoint, that prioritization is correct and necessary. However, from an emergency management mission standpoint, the lack of professional autonomy in strategy, planning, preparedness actions, and interfacing with other public safety partner agencies is a crippling impediment. I don't know how to fix that without political leverage at the policy/executive level than I am highly unlikely to develop in this position.

  10. #20
    Member GuanoLoco's Avatar
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    Sounds like you need to be identifying more fertile ground for your talents and ambitions.

    Too often in my career I got stubborn and stuck it out working in an adverse environment that I could not fix ... longer than I should have. For a while it builds skills and character. Sometimes you come to the conclusions that others can make bad decisions faster than you could possibly fix them, and there is little Return on Investment for doing so.
    Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Doodie Project?

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