London Fire Brigade - Senior Officers

[velbert]

From the Twitter account of Tom George recently retired Deputy Commissioner LFB:-

[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

[noisycat]

If I was still in the job, I’d be quite happy if none of the principal officers turned up to a job as a lot of the time, their attendance could interfere with the efficiency of the job. In some circumstances, it wouldn’t be their fault, as you’d have some officers trying to justifying their position and we all had to make sure the boxes were ticked, i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Some of the best jobs I went on were ,where we had 4 or 5 trucks and an ADO or DO in charge, with Stn O.’s and JO’s supporting. How many times do they make any difference and how often, do we see the PO’s from the Police and Ambulance service, attend a major incident. A lot of the time, they’ll attend because some politician turns up, to look good for the public.

[cactus jack]

I can't speak for anybody else but personnaly, I am quite glad Tom George no longer sets foot on the fire ground.

[bill.advanced]

That old chestnut regarding senior officers.
I remember well several incidents were one DO would tell you to do one thing whilst one contradicted the other.
In a winters evening in 1977 I was attending a fire in a large derelict building in Glasgow’s west end. I was running a feed for the TL when I was ordered to go and get a torch by an SDO. I ignored him and continued to run the feed to the TL. He then threatened me for disobeying his order to get him a torch. I simply stated that I did not hear his order. (Selective hearing comes in handy sometimes ) He was furious and asked me my name, I gave him my name. He then consulted with my station officer.
On return to the station I was summoned to the office by my station officer.
He tried to keep a straight face whilst giving me a dressing down.
But after about a minute he started to smile and simply said, well done the mans a twat, you were right to ignore him. But warned me not to do so again.

I worked under some great senior and junior officers, men I still admire to this day.
But there were one or two I despised, and this SDO was one of them.

[Nightstaffer]

If you say POs shouldn’t turn out to incidents because you feel that they don’t know what they are doing then what’s the problem with non uniformed people taking senior executive/ directorships and CEO positions

[noisycat]

I’m not against it, as long as they don’t deal with operational incidents. Strathclyde had a DCFO who came in at that rank but had blue lights on the car and was given the QFSM which was totally wrong in my opinion.

[Duped Again]

That old chestnut regarding senior officers.
I remember well several incidents were one DO would tell you to do one thing whilst one contradicted the other.
In a winters evening in 1977 I was attending a fire in a large derelict building in Glasgow’s west end. I was running a feed for the TL when I was ordered to go and get a torch by an SDO. I ignored him and continued to run the feed to the TL. He then threatened me for disobeying his order to get him a torch. I simply stated that I did not hear his order. (Selective hearing comes in handy sometimes ) He was furious and asked me my name, I gave him my name. He then consulted with my station officer.
On return to the station I was summoned to the office by my station officer.
He tried to keep a straight face whilst giving me a dressing down.
But after about a minute he started to smile and simply said, well done the mans a twat, you were right to ignore him. But warned me not to do so again.

I worked under some great senior and junior officers, men I still admire to this day.
But there were one or two I despised, and this SDO was one of them.

I totally get what your saying Bill. However at least the one you mentioned turned up.

Now in Scotland we have very few senior officers with Watch and Station experience. It’s apparent when you speak to them that they’ll talk about anything with you, using management speak or buzz word bingo as we call it. Anything except the experience of front line incidents.

Now they simply when mobilised put back
Messages like “monitoring by radio”, or the new trick “nothing further” They are shameless!

Occurred recently when a DACO had to basically order an Area Manager to a particularly harrowing incident. How it never hit the press?

I thought the new Chiefy would stamp down on it, but no. “Nothing to see here, everyone move along”.

[bill.advanced]

I totally get what your saying Bill. However at least the one you mentioned turned up.

Now in Scotland we have very few senior officers with Watch and Station experience. It’s apparent when you speak to them that they’ll talk about anything with you, using management speak or buzz word bingo as we call it. Anything except the experience of front line incidents.

Now they simply when mobilised put back
Messages like “monitoring by radio”, or the new trick “nothing further” They are shameless!

Occurred recently when a DACO had to basically order an Area Manager to a particularly harrowing incident. How it never hit the press?

I thought the new Chiefy would stamp down on it, but no. “Nothing to see here, everyone move along”.

Duped if they have something to offer then fine.
But even in my time I witnessed a senior officer in tears, a firefighter with a DO who had been a complete Pratt pinned to the wall, myself and another ff having to get him away from the DO, and I was injured in 1990 by the sheer incompetence of a DO.
The correct procedure for turning off the water supply on an HP was for the driver to remove supply from the pump.
This idiot turned the lever on the cage creating a 180 psi surge back to the pump.
The hose split along the fold and myself and two others were thrown into the air when struck by the water, one landing on me to make matters worse.
After that the lever was removed from the HPs.
It also turned out that they had no records for any of the hose.
This led to a hose testing facility being opened in Cowcaddens, and every length of hose having its own history record.

But most of the time I thought senior officers behaved properly and showed a good level of competence.
These types of incidents were very rare.

[noisycat]

We lost a building once, when 2 SDO’s started moving monitors about and grabbing hold of jets. A lot of us, just stood there, shaking our heads, as their job was to command the scene, not become hands on. It always struck me as strange, as when officers were interviewed for flexi jobs, not one of the questions, was ever to do with operational incidents. Managing a bank or a supermarket seemed more important than commanding incidents.

[Fireysam]

Now they simply when mobilised put back
Messages like “monitoring by radio”, or the new trick “nothing further” They are shameless!

And do you have an idea why any of these messages would go back?.... because your first sentence is factually incorrect Duped