Friday, August 2, 2013

Pride and Ownership

Every now and then you hear people talk about pride and ownership. This can be pride in your possessions, your work, your hobbies, or their families. Ownership plays into that because if you own it you should be proud or have pride in what you have. Fire Department use this term as well. It usually involves their members and the way they treat the equipment and apparatus.

Taking pride and ownership around the station can be as simple as washing the truck after you use it. Making sure that all the equipment is cleaned and ready for the next call would be another way. But yet we all need those constant reminders that we need to put fuel in the truck, make sure equipment is put back in working order, airpacks are filled, water put back into the tank, and medic supplies restocked after a medic run just to list a few. If you don't do that, does it mean that you don't have pride in what you do? Probably not, unless it continues. But how many times do you have to be reminded to do the simple things? At some point someone needs to take ownership for what they have or have not done. Our customers depend on us to respond in their time of need. How can we do that if the apparatus was not properly taken care of after the previous response? What would be even worse is that response coming days after the last run that apparatus went out on and nobody had checked it since then. Whether we label ourselves volunteer, paid on call, or full time, we all do the same job with the same goal, to serve the public.

It is easy to make excuses for why it was not done. We have all used one or two excuses at some point in time but just taking those few extra moments to make sure that the job is done right is becoming extremely important. We need to take pride in our equipment and apparatus. Again, it is as easy as washing the truck when it needs it. We need to take ownership and pride in the apparatus that the community is providing for us. They expect us to be ready to respond when they call and we should expect ourselves to have everything in working order after we are done with our call. When something gets damaged or needs repair, report it and let the officer(s) know about it. If apparatus is damaged, let it be known. Some people might blow it off and think it was no big deal, WRONG! It is a big deal. We are not taking pride nor ownership by letting them think that way. It would be no different than say I take your car out and get in a wreck and then give you back your keys and say "oops! I damaged your car. Sorry!" and then walk away. So why do we think it is ok when we damage apparatus and think it is still taking pride and ownership in belongings. It is not.

Pride and ownership is shown by people in different ways. The end result is a better department because the people care about the job they are doing and the equipment provided to them. Apparatus is ready for the next call because it was properly taken care of after the previous call.

Training clip