Good Job or Great Job?

[Dinosaur 844]

So which is it? After an incident we very often hear "great job by all" or words to that effect. What makes it a good job? Or a great one? How do we in the emergency services measure our performance and decide that our work was good or great? Other industries have peer reviews, grand rounds, quality improvement/assurance programs, critiques, but we in the emergency services (with the possible exception of EMS but that's not what it used to be) do not.

We say great job even when someone has lost their life or their home and property. What makes that a great job? Is there an objective measure of performance that we use to say it?

When it's not a great job (even though we usually say it anyway) how do we evaluate performance and identify areas for improvement?

How do we improve our services?

[v85 212]

I think for some, everyone in the emergency services organization going home safe counts.

Other than that, short of a few situations (rescuing someone from a fire, a CPR save, catching violent criminals in the act) it is hard to measure outcomes, because the incident started before emergency services arrived.

For example, if someone's house is on fire and does $10,000 worth of damage, that is pretty bad; but if you are able to contain it to a room and contents, save the overall structure, protect exposures, get the pets out safe and manage to not get hurt yourself, I think that qualifies. You could also look at how "smoothly" the incident went and if all procedures were followed.

Also, what do you mean that emergency services don't have critiques outside of EMS. After most major incidents most agencies do hold after-action reviews and tactical debriefings.

[SECTMB 612]

I've always thought that it is a subjective response following an incident based on the perceived performance of the personnel on scene. We all know, or should know, if we did everything we could, and did it correctly, to minimize the damage to person(s) or property. Deaths, injuries and damage may be part of the equation, but our successful intervention to lessen their severity determines whether we rate a 'good' of 'great' job rating.

And, of course, we all should know when we didn't do things correctly and the outcome may have been different had our performance been better.

[sympathomedic 383]

I am just having an image of a bunch of tired, wet, hungry firemen trudging away from a smoldering foundation and hearing the OIC say, "Wow, that should have been an easy save. I guess we really suck. We need to get way better at this". I just can't see that happening.

[Dinosaur 844]

I am just having an image of a bunch of tired, wet, hungry firemen trudging away from a smoldering foundation and hearing the OIC say, "Wow, that should have been an easy save. I guess we really suck. We need to get way better at this". I just can't see that happening.

It certainly doesn't have to be like that. But how about the next drill night they regroup and discuss it in detail? Or the OIC grabs the guys who did suck and tells them how to get their act together. I remember those days... When chiefs were chiefs and not sheep!

[FDNY 10-75 640]

I gotta say it's getting really old every time I look at someones photos of a fire and read "great job guys" on facebook when obviously poor tactics have caused extensive damage and further extension of fire. Or worse, lack of tactics/experience have caused a fatality. It seems to me that there isn't enough negative feedback, specifically in the fire service (Most EMS systems have QA/QI now, I hope). We have 'critiques' with the battalion after a job where we discuss how/why things were done and often point out mistakes but I know this isn't a practice across the board in the career or volunteer service. I have also been to plenty of 'critiques' for other departments where nothing but a few pats on the back were given out despite glaring issues with training, manpower and safety.

For the record, I am not attacking any service, just voicing my opinion.

[wraftery 1,275]

Sometimes what you get or don't get is attributable to luck. Look at the Train crash. It could have gone many ways that are worse than that crash. but it didn't.

Not saying you shouldn't train for the worse, just that as many times as poop occurs there are an equal number of times that the smoke clears and you see what could have happened.

[sympathomedic 383]

Refering to 10-75's post: I am not sure how often a fire agency gets sued over a suppression issue. Last I heard, on average, EMS gets sued once for every 10,000 patient contacts, and that has been my own experience as well. I will venture that the incidence of fire suppression suits is less.

My thinking is that there is always the fear (I have any way) that a call will get QA'd as being done poorly and then there is a suit and that QA report gets to court. If there is nearly no fear of a suit, then there is no fear that will happen.

Alternately, if you have (almost) no chance of being sued, why work hard on self improvment? I know the crowd here on EMT Bravoland is likely anti-suit, but they serve a purpose. We live in a safer world because folks take precautions to avoid being sued. Sidewalk sheds at construction sites come to mind.

Most everyone does this work because they truly love it, and are proud of it. It can be hard to tell someone like that, 'Hey listen, you made some big costly mistakes here.' Not saying it should't happen when it needs to. It takes a true leader to get that message across well. Kind of refers to Dinosour's comment above.

[v85 212]

The only thing I wonder about is how do you know why an incident is bad. I think it is pretty hard to determine that from looking at after action pictures or videos, because they don't show the conditions upon arrival, or show why you are seeing what you are seeing.

Also, I think a fine line needs to make sure that having honest critiques doesn't turn into having to find something negative on every as that would ruin morale very quickly

[ks1980 36]

Any job that all the members walk away and go home safely at the end of the day is a great job.

[sympathomedic 383]

OK. So if we arrive and there is a heavy smoke condition and a bright glow from the kitchen oven fire speading to the surrounding cabinets, and we extend the tower ladder bucket (UNmanned for safety) horizontialy and blast 1000 GPM through the window for an hour or so till water pours over the windowsills, THAT is a good job?

Can you set the bar any lower?

[SageVigiles 1,194]

Any job that all the members walk away and go home safely at the end of the day is a great job.

That should be the bare minimum expectation for every call, not how we measure whether or not we are doing a good job. Are there going to be incidents when there's a question as to whether or not that's going to happen? Of course. But come on, let's all be honest here, the majority of us are NOT living on the razor's edge everyday...

I'm not going to set up metrics for "good" vs. "great" but I think I get where Dinosaur is going with this. I'm all for positive reinforcement for your crew, you have to keep them motivated. I believe in praising in public and critiquing in private, but let's not push that to the point where we become the "everyone gets a trophy just for showing up" crowd.

Edited December 4, 2013 by SageVigiles

[firemoose827 324]

As an EX Officer...(yup, lost my population contest last monday night and I am a black hat again), I look at it like this; as I deploy the teams to do certain jobs, whether its stretch a line, vent the roof, do a search or whatever, I look to see that they do it correctly. Did they strectch the line the right path and the right size hose? Did they vent appropriate for the size of fire (Pop a few windows for small contained fires or place the right sized hole in the right location on the roof)? When extricating someone did they stabilize the vehicle right? Did they assess for dangers before beginning? Did they protect the patient from further harm? Did they use all PPE and use the tools safely?

Its different for each officer, but I agree with the above comment; there was a time when chief was a respected term, they ran their fireground like it was supposed to be run and dished out punishment when and where it was due without worrying if it would "offend"someone and make them quit the department or file law suits against them...I saw a fire chief from a mutual aid department once that I respected well enough before this incident and a hell of a lot more after-take a guy that was putting up a ladder upside down and backwords and start ripping into him right there in front of his department and ours. The guy learned a lesson that day and he never did it again. We need leaders who will do whats right for the department and the community who rely on us to help them. Not a leader that will pamper their members to earn their "votes" come time for the population contest (Elections).

Bottom line; a "Good Job" is one where the tactics used were appropriate, the teams acted with safety in mind, the incident was not allowed to grow any more and affect any more people, and there was no injuries to anyone, and all equipment and members made it back to the station in one piece. Good Job. Be Safe out there.

[SageVigiles 1,194]

As an EX Officer...(yup, lost my population contest last monday night and I am a black hat again)

Don't worry Moose, I stepped down as LT this week and I couldn't be happier.

Edited December 4, 2013 by SageVigiles

[Dinosaur 844]

Any job that all the members walk away and go home safely at the end of the day is a great job.

There's much more to it than that. That perspective is one of the things thats wrong with the fire service today.

[ks1980 36]

There's much more to it than that. That perspective is one of the things thats wrong with the fire service today.

Hold on, so your saying do the job safely and not doing stupid sh#t that will get you hurt or your brothers hurt is wrong? Are you kidding me, there are many many things wrong in the profession today and safety is one of them. Listen yes there is many things to be done and considered and critiqued after but everyone going home is my priority.

Maybe where you come from saving the foundation of the structure is good enough.

It's all subjective

[Dinosaur 844]

Hold on, so your saying do the job safely and not doing stupid sh#t that will get you hurt or your brothers hurt is wrong? Are you kidding me, there are many many things wrong in the profession today and safety is one of them. Listen yes there is many things to be done and considered and critiqued after but everyone going home is my priority.

Maybe where you come from saving the foundation of the structure is good enough.

It's all subjective

I'm not saying that everyone going home isn't a priority. I'm just saying that isn't the only benchmark.

[FireMedic049 597]

Hold on, so your saying do the job safely and not doing stupid sh#t that will get you hurt or your brothers hurt is wrong? Are you kidding me, there are many many things wrong in the profession today and safety is one of them. Listen yes there is many things to be done and considered and critiqued after but everyone going home is my priority.

Maybe where you come from saving the foundation of the structure is good enough.

It's all subjective

If anybody here sounds like they're from the "saving the foundation of the structure is good enough" crowd, it's YOU.

Everybody going home when the call is done is not a reliable assessment of the performance that yielded that outcome. By that standard, a fire department could go to a fire, do absolutely nothing and then return to the station with everybody that responded and be said that they did a "good job", when you'd be hard pressed to find ANYBODY that would think a fire department that does nothing to combat a fire did in fact do a "good job".

[antiquefirelt 994]

Everyone going home at the end of the incident is not a barometer of a good or bad job. Does everyone who goes to work and makes it home slap themselves on the back and declare the end of a successful day just for surviving? Every day there are many poorly executed incidents where everyone goes home, often they don't even suspect they could've done better. Similarly, some days we have LODD's but the firefight may have been handled well, maybe no one declares it a good job, but not every fire allows us to find that perfect balance of risk vs. reward.

Tell the East Franklin, NJ FD and the family of Kevin Appuzio that their effort wasn't a "good job".

Sometimes when you do everything right, things still go wrong. One mark of a bad job is when you leave without finding a single thing you could have done better or differently, maybe the outcome was positive, but if think you're already perfect you're just an accident or bad decision waiting to happen. A mark of a good job or FD might be one that never says a job was "good enough".

As we learn more about how fires behave through NIST and UL testing and numerous FD's helping show repeatable and measurable fire tactics and behavior statistics, we cannot forget that while it is a science problem we never have all the variables at our disposal to make a rapid decision, thus we use experience and training to make decisions based on anticipated answers to some of the unknowns. No one will get these anticipated variables correct 100% of the time, not even close.

What is a good job to one department may be way off from another. We all can point fingers at what we see as good jobs or poor ones, but when looking at our own FD's if you're not asking what you could have done better at every single incident, you're likely not doing a good job, regardless of the incident outcome.

Edited December 5, 2013 by antiquefirelt

[ks1980 36]

If anybody here sounds like they're from the "saving the foundation of the structure is good enough" crowd, it's YOU.

Everybody going home when the call is done is not a reliable assessment of the performance that yielded that outcome. By that standard, a fire department could go to a fire, do absolutely nothing and then return to the station with everybody that responded and be said that they did a "good job", when you'd be hard pressed to find ANYBODY that would think a fire department that does nothing to combat a fire did in fact do a "good job".

Ouch beating me up here, I was not under the impression we were speaking of tactics on the fire ground in this thread. Without having the pissing match, I never implied not doing anything that is a ignorant statement with all do respect. We can discuss tactics and all that is involved in foreground ops. I am stating a very basic, but important factor that we get to the box, do our job safely. Why is putting safety at the top of our priorities such a bad thing ? Or is getting our picture in the Journal news or news 12 more important?

At the risk of being repetitive, in the 15 years I have had so far in this field doing it in the Military, Career and. Volunteer capacity lots of things have changed. But sometimes as we progress we then take steps back. And safety is something on the fireground that often gets put to the wayside. The outcome of this is injuries or worse.

This thread is called "Good job or Great Job" my opinion which is like a elbow ( everyone has at least one) is we have a Great job lets do a good job at it and just be safe doing it. Simple.

[antiquefirelt 994]

Here's a good example of a good job or was it just a good outcome?

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/12/01/news/bangor/firefighters-police-rescue-veazie-man-from-burning-home/?ref=inline

[ks1980 36]

Antiquefirelt btw having moved here to Central Oregon a year ago brother you are dam right we are lucky if we save the foundation let alone the house or two next door. Hell saving the foundation here gets a " Outstanding Job" .

[antiquefirelt 994]

Antiquefirelt btw having moved here to Central Oregon a year ago brother you are dam right we are lucky if we save the foundation let alone the house or two next door. Hell saving the foundation here gets a " Outstanding Job" .

Around here the FD's have a great habit of holding critiques of most fires that require mutual aid, the down side is that these mostly turn out to be a chance for everyone to pat each other on the back and come up with collective excuses for the outcome. Not everyone grasps that they can point out mistakes without it becoming a family feud, then again nepotism is rampant in some FD's. Don't think the career guys are impervious to critique, just like a family, when we don't have an outsider to pick apart we tend to look at the other shifts. Every shift tends to have a slant on how they would've done it. Only one ever knows how the way they would done it actually works out (the one that catches the job). Of course being a small FD, we all get to attend the first alarms and greater, thus they all become our collective successes, failures and most importantly learning moments.

[efd184 59]

How about we stop patting ourselves on the back for everything? You signed up or are being paid to do a job so do it. Good job bad job great job. As long as you do it to the best of your ability and move on. Do you really need to hear " great job john! You really put out that fire!" NO!!! Or how about " great job john you really set that hydrant up quickly!" NO!!! It's your job vol or career do it and move on!

[FirNaTine 370]

How about just do your Job and let's stop looking for ribbons and praise. I see too so often guys want a ticket tape parade for doing their Job which is usually just the Basics. I always love the Officers who tell their men "good job fellows as they're looking at the smoldering ruins of what was somebody's residence. The caliber of people becoming Career/Volunteer FFs has changed so drastically that just a guy hitting a hydrant properly has become a big deal to some or for that matter even knowing the address of the incident and how to get there has become a big accomplishment! Just do your Job!

[FireMedic049 597]

Ouch beating me up here, I was not under the impression we were speaking of tactics on the fire ground in this thread.

Considering the content of the initial post and for that matter many of the subsequent comments, I'm at a loss as to how you could possibly think that we weren't talking about fire ground tactics in determining if a "good" or "great job" had been performed.

Without having the pissing match, I never implied not doing anything that is a ignorant statement with all do respect.

It may not have been your intention to imply such, but when you state "Any job that all the members walk away and go home safely at the end of the day is a great job." , you have in fact implied that it includes doing nothing. The only other possibility I can see here is if you were using the word "job" as a reference to occupations in general rather than using it in fire service context in which it refers to an incident or working fire response.

We can discuss tactics and all that is involved in foreground ops. I am stating a very basic, but important factor that we get to the box, do our job safely. Why is putting safety at the top of our priorities such a bad thing ? Or is getting our picture in the Journal news or news 12 more important?

Getting on the news or in the paper has nothing to do with what's being discussed. Putting safety as a high priority is not a bad thing. I say "high" rather than "top" simply because putting it as the top priority would technically prevent us from doing our job. If it's the "top priority", then we wouldn't engage in any tactic that could result in injury. I would suspect that everybody on here would agree that we should be doing everything in our power to safely get to the scene in an appropriate manor, operate in as safe a manor as reasonably possible, and return home safe and sound. The point being made is that everybody going home at the end of the incident is not an indicator that we "did a good job" or "did a great job". I know of numerous incidents in my area in which "everybody went home" afterwards, but clearly did not do a good job.

I watched video of a fire in my area (not involving my department) a week or so ago that destroyed most of a house. The video/audio started during the response to the scene. They arrived to find fire venting out a front bedroom window on the second floor. They failed to lay in despite having the ability to do so. It took them about 12 or so minutes to put any water on this fire, which at that point was from their ladder pipe. It was rumored, but not confirmed that their on board tank was empty. They had an crew inside at that point trying to advance on the fire, despite being told to back out by their chief and our dispatch transmitting the "evac tones and message". There was some other stuff, but you get the point. Everybody went home, but it was pretty clear to the experienced eye that they did not do a "good" or "great" job.

At the risk of being repetitive, in the 15 years I have had so far in this field doing it in the Military, Career and. Volunteer capacity lots of things have changed. But sometimes as we progress we then take steps back. And safety is something on the fireground that often gets put to the wayside. The outcome of this is injuries or worse.

This thread is called "Good job or Great Job" my opinion which is like a elbow ( everyone has at least one) is we have a Great job lets do a good job at it and just be safe doing it. Simple.

[antiquefirelt 994]

How about just do your Job and let's stop looking for ribbons and praise. I see too so often guys want a ticket tape parade for doing their Job which is usually just the Basics. I always love the Officers who tell their men "good job fellows as they're looking at the smoldering ruins of what was somebody's residence. The caliber of people becoming Career/Volunteer FFs has changed so drastically that just a guy hitting a hydrant properly has become a big deal to some or for that matter even knowing the address of the incident and how to get there has become a big accomplishment! Just do your Job!

It's getting to be like the NFL, I always snicker at the receiver being paid millions of dollars who catches the ball for a TD and does an end zone dance like he's a kindergarten kid. Act like you've been there, the lady who just cashed me out at the grocery store didn't slam the register shut and do a little number because she did her job successfully. Here is certainly a time for praise, but the "everyone's a winner, there are no wrong answers" people are killing us.