No Mosh

The Balcony.  An architectural device to elevate views, a capitalist trick to squeeze more money out of a performance venue and the name of Catfish and the Bottlemen’s first album.  Also, an organizing principle, hammered into our heads at the Kennedy School.  “Get off the dance floor. Get on the balcony”, Marty would implore.  The balcony was where we could see the big picture, think through interventions and – presumably – hob nob with others who sought refuge from the mosh pit. 

Nevermind that mosh pits are fun.  Sweaty.  Kinetic.  Blurry loud and smelly, with the not to be dismissed feature of (as I recall) sweaty, kinetic, musically-inclined young women.  There are worse ways to spend a Monday night.

Not too big of a mosh pit this Monday afternoon, though.  Car and truck collide and the pagers go off.  Me, Mitch and Probie James are first to the station and into 33.  I look up on the board and see Chief 2 Jeremy is reporting to the scene.  So (somewhat reluctantly) I climb into the officer’s seat again.  For the record, I do not step on the air horn button this time.  So … progress.

We can wait or we can go.  Mike walks by and we tell him to take the next two arriving in Squad 39.  I did not sign up, Mitch did not sign up, James did not sign up to wait.  We signed up to go.  Radio traffic indicates person is trapped in the car and we are not waiting.  Out the door and the quick trip to the accident intersection.  A small radio problem on the way, which will get a little bigger on scene.

Arrive on scene, advise County dispatch, but forget to announce what radio channel we are switching to.  In part because my radio was on and 33’s radio was on and there was some squelching between the two of them.  Mitch has put 33 in good position for protecting us and James starts handling traffic on the north side.  Me and Mitch walk up to the car and learn the passenger is ok, but a little shaken and not ready to exit.  EMT Heather works two hundred feet away and was first to arrive.  She was talking with the woman in the car as we arrived. 

Seconds later, our ambulance arrives.  They will take care of the woman in the car.   I just need to manage scene safety and … here is where the error happens. 

James has traffic stopped to the north and we need traffic stopped to the south and I could have / should have told Mitch or a police officer to take care of that, and kept the big picture focus.  But I didn’t.  I saw a problem and I went to it.  On my way there I heard on the radio Chief 2 was on scene, assuming command, and I thought … ok, good.   James has traffic stopped on the north side of the scene, and I’m about to have it stopped on the south side.  Woman in car is ok.  Our ambulance and an officer is on scene.  We are in good shape.    

When we debriefed, it was clear I was wrong.  I should have sent someone else to handle the south side traffic and handed off command face to face with Chief 2.     

The problem was, “Go to the problem” is my well-worn first rule of leadership.  Do not avoid the problem.  Do not look at the problem from a distance; a distance of time or space.  Do not have someone else describe the problem to you.  Go to the problem.  Immerse yourself in it.  See it up close.  Understand it.  Touch it.  Feel it.  Fix it.  Start fixing it now.  On the matter of speed, no less a problem-solver than General Patton once observed, "a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite time in the future".  OODA loop, and all that.     

Go to the problem is a good rule and it has served the places I have worked and volunteered (ninety-nine times out of a hundred or thereabouts) quite well.  And it is joyously part of the package of firefighting.  Jump out of the back and go fix a problem.  Standard operating mode layers with the attraction and fun of danger, all for the public good.  Seriously swell stuff.     

But the officer’s seat is different, and I need to learn that.  I absolutely did not join the department to sit in the officer’s seat.  I do not want to do it.  Fourteenish years of being responsible for a thousandish employees, with a third of them with guns on their hips or in big red trucks, heading for burning buildings, is plenty of responsibility, and I am not aspiring to any operational command at the department. Not one iota.   

The dilemma is a small-town volunteer department is such that you need to be able to do everything competently, because it may be just you and one or two others sometimes who can get to and out of the station in time to make a difference.  And the others could be probies.  You need to be effective both on the balcony or the dance floor, because you do not know where your ticket is going to be punched when the pager goes off.  And if you are in the officer's seat, you need to recognize the cavalry spirit of a first arriving fire engine crew is its own risk vector to be managed. 

So, while “Soundcheck” came on Catfish and the Bottlemen’s second, rather than first, album, it is instructive nonetheless.  All those people down there in the blur of this rather spectacular frenzy?  They sure look like they are having fun.  Given my druthers, I would be with them. 

But if I am up on the balcony, my job is to watch out for them, and keep them safe.