Couple faces suspension from NJ Fire Dept. over wedding invite on Facebook

[Viper 139]

Quote

 

When love ignited, Garfield Fire Company 1 volunteer members Paul Mellor and Danielle Szep were proud to incorporate their fire department turncoats on their wedding invitations.

 

They posted on Facebook part of the wedding invitation that showed their names on the back of their fire department coats. Along with the well wishes and Facebook "likes" also came something that surprised them, a threat of suspension from their fire department chief.

 

 

http://www.northjersey.com/news/public-safety/couple-faces-suspension-from-garfield-fire-department-over-wedding-invitation-on-facebook-1.1536132

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Jackass

[antiquefirelt 994]

Social Media policies are a big thing and it does not take much online content to make a dept or company look stupid. While it wouldn't seem this was the type of posting that a policy was implemented for, if its a violation of the policy, it must be treated as such. Picking and choosing how and when to apply policy is, well, very bad policy. And I'm not sure as we're not nearly as "Firematic" as a whole up this way, but "traditional Fire Dept. Wedding"? 30 years this month and I have never heard of or seen anything speaking to fire service wedding traditions. I've seen antique fire trucks as limo's but I didn't realize this was a thing.

[velcroMedic1987 330]

Stupid.  Just plain stupid.

If there's no policy, they didn't do anything wrong.  If there is a policy and a photo of turnout gear violates it, well, that's pretty extreme.

 

 

[antiquefirelt 994]

9 hours ago, velcroMedic1987 said:

Stupid.  Just plain stupid.

If there's no policy, they didn't do anything wrong.  If there is a policy and a photo of turnout gear violates it, well, that's pretty extreme.

 

 

I would agree up to the point that the firefighter defiantly adds that there will be future FB photos with apparatus and gear, at which point, if there is a policy, then it goes from something easily addressed to insubordination. 

 

Often the issue isn't the photo of the gear, but that it establishes the poster as an employee/member and all other posts are now linked/associated with the department. Someone who sees other things undesirable of that member or that members friends, now sees the kind of people the FD hires/allows as members. Those die-hard social media fans often fail to realize that in the public sector: perception is the peoples reality.  

[Jybehofd 85]

the chief made a policy.  chain of command.  it may be stupid but its something they should have talked to the chief and powers to be prior to bringing it to the media, now they will have a bigger issue. 

 

[Dinosaur 844]

On 4/1/2016 at 6:49 PM, Jybehofd said:

the chief made a policy.  chain of command.  it may be stupid but its something they should have talked to the chief and powers to be prior to bringing it to the media, now they will have a bigger issue. 

 

 

Is there a policy?  The article seems to suggest that there isn't.

Chain of command is one thing in the firehouse and certainly on the fireground.  It's not so clear in cyber-land and do you know what the chain of command is in that department?  Is there a board of directors or commissioners for non-firematic issues?  That wouldn't be in the chief's chain of command.

There are two sides to this coin. 

[Jybehofd 85]

there is always more then one side to a story, but at first if a chief orders you to do something as simple as to not use department issued equipment on your facebook page.  Would you go and cry to a news station about it? or take it down then meet with said chief and talk about whats going on? 

 

If i was the chief and this happened. I would expect to meet with them or set up a meeting about having pictures of department equipment posted on a personal facebook page.  to me it sounds like there was an issue in the past that brought this about, im guessing it was bad media.  

 

if i was getting married and wanted to announce something like that using the fire department equipment i would put it past the chief and fire commisioners before i would post a single thing.  

 

Image is everything theses days, cops going out and doing acts of kindness and recording it, i that most of the cops doing good videos, that are recorded by there partners or themselves is given department permission before its posted on line.  What the public posts is out the any and all departments control.   just look at any of the numerous videos people post about police.   I only mention police because well they are a hot topic in social media.  I admire cops, some days i wish i was one.  

 

this is also a good read about millionals 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/taitran/2016/02/21/a-millennial-response-to-an-open-letter-to-yelp-ceo-takeaways-for-millennials-and-companies/#7672fae433a6

[AFS1970 504]

From what I have read the policy was not know to the firefighters in question before the posting. Now announcing an intention to post more pictures is likely taking this to a whole other level.

 

This story is an example of a horrible way to follow the letter of the law (rule) and not the spirit of the law (rule), I doubt anyone that was involved in drafting this rule ever gave a single thought to someone wanting to use their turnout gear in a wedding invitation photo. 

 

This is also a very bad example of having all or nothing policies that do not allow for any judgement calls. While some see this as insulating a department from a bad judgement call, I see it as forcing the department into a bad judgement call.

[antiquefirelt 994]

Without the details of the actual actions it's hard to say if this was well handles by the Chief or not. I might note that he did not in fact suspend the two. In fact the "threat" may have been just the notification that they'd violated the policy that could result in suspension. With the evidence out there for all to see, if the Chief wished to suspend them, he probably would have. I'm guessing it another case of the rules shouldn't apply to x, y, and z.