Leaving Fire Trucks Dirty for next shifters to clean

[ottawaarff]

Hi;

Any suggestions on how to convince B shifters to clean after themselves and to leave a clean station for the C shifters?

Would you recommend that:

The B Captain be disciplined?
The C Captain informs the B Captain that the situation is not acceptable and the departing B shifters finish the job?
Do nothing?
The C shifters clean without complaining as it is their job anyway?

[FWDbuff]

Assuming that you have written guidelines or standard operating procedures for how the station/equipment/living quarters shall be maintained by whom and when:

If I were the Senior officer in charge and my guys were griping about this, I would:

-Have the guys show me the offenses. I would make careful notes, documenting the offenses by the preceding shift and times/dates.

-Have my guys clean it up with my apologies. I would also advise them that under penalty of my wrath, they are not to say anything to the other shift in any fashion, shape or form.

-I would then confront the oncoming Senior Officer the next morning, behind closed doors and explain what is happening, showing him the notes of who, what, where and when and that according to my guys this is not the first time it has happened. I would then ask that he/she please try to adhere to the SOP's or policies regarding cleaning the station/quarters/equipment- and let them know that I told my guys to keep their yaps shut for 2 reasons- not to **** off your guys, but more importantly to keep it here in the station and so that "downtown" doesnt find out about it.

[Truck-10-VES]

Just saying. At any department, anywhere you work. The shift before you is always lazy, and the shift after you complains about everything.

[FWDbuff]

Just saying. At any department, anywhere you work. The shift before you is always lazy, and the shift after you complains about everything.

This is precisely why I love the group chart schedule- you never work with the same guys all the time- always a mix. We never had any of those "A Platoon- B Platoon" squabbles.

[mikeyboy411]

FWDBuff, I agree with your answer. In our FD we call it "fact finding" and in this situation I would definitely fact find really deep. In addition to what you've listed questions I'd want answered are: 1) Were they up all night on calls? 2) Did they run multiple calls back-to-back-to-back and didn't have time to clean? 3) Did their Chief or C.O. send them to bed because they were up for multiple days? 4) What's the point they are trying to get across? And other situations that could have caused them to miss the clean-up. I've also taken pictures to back-up my claims.

We've had this situation happen and I've seen and heard of some very interesting solutions that were very effective.