New Haven Fire Department

Incompetent Politicians........

Wow…..here’s a field ripe for the picking! I want to zero in on one example of political incompetence however, the New Haven Fire Department in New Haven, CT. Who is running the city? As Bugs Bunny would say; “whatta buncha maroons”.

Seems in 2003, the city paid a princely sum of money to have a promotional exam administered by an out of state firm. The exam was SPECIFICALLY designed to overcome any racial biases embedded in the process, giving equal chance across the board for all eligible department members. What happened ? The results came back with none of the black or brown candidates scoring high enough for promotion.

Well, Mayor John DeStefano Jr. and the politically powerful black chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners, the Rev. Boise Kimber, decided, in what I am sure was a purely a non-politically motivated move (yea, right) to basically forego the non-biased testing process, and devise a crude racial labeling system of the participants and make race a factor. The result was they were able to ensure their political hacks who did not pass the exam, were promoted. Those who passed the exam, and had the knowledge and skills to become leaders, were passed over. Let me just add here that Rev. Kimber is a convicted embezzler and perjurer. Interestingly enough, this would disqualify him from joining the ranks of the New Haven Fire Department, but apparently, he can sit as the chair of the overseeing Board of Fire Commissioners. Whomever put him in that position ought to be awarded the New Haven “Moron of the Decade” award. A politician with any miniscule tidbit of intelligence, would have never put a convicted felon in such an important position. Obviously the Mayor of New Haven, CT has no such tidbit of intelligence.

So…what do we have?

• We have a promotional process, which began as one that was legally defensible and designed to remove any biases, turned upside down and into a three-ring circus by these two incompetent idiots and their political minions. It obviously is no longer a legally viable promotional process since their intervention.
• We have a bunch of people who paid out of pocket for testing materials and took the time out of their daily lives to legitimately study, following the process. Some of these people passed, some of them did not. The ones who passed however, had the rules changed on them after they finished the process. Their sincere efforts to work hard, study, and move their careers forward, have been negated by these two political boobs.
• A situation where a person is promoted and is not truly deserving of that promotion threatens to subvert the entire chain of command within a para-military organization such as a fire department. The people promoted in this fashion will never have the respect of the men that work for them. Further more; they will never have the self-respect they SHOULD have, if they had earned the position in a fair and just manner based upon their knowledge and problem solving skills. Think about being in a close work environment with a group of people that you suddenly found yourself in charge of, just by virtue of the color of your skin. A work environment where your job knowledge and skill levels are lesser than those around you, but yet, they have to answer to you in high-stress situations. I can tell you what will happen. They will not support you. They will let you climb further and further out on a limb until you fall off.
• We have a situation where the taxpayers are going to be paying their hard-earned dollars to support and defend a ridiculous political agenda.
• We have a situation where the tax payers are paying their hard-earned dollars towards the increased salaries of those that could not legitimately demonstrate they had the knowledge needed to perform in a critical position.
• We have a situation where the taxpayers are paying for less-than-capable people to be in a position to make life and death decisions. Decisions that will directly affect the well-being of those people who pay their salaries.
  

By way of disclosure, I am a retired 27 year veteran of the fire service. I went in as a ‘back-step’ man, and spent the last 10 years of my career as the Chief of the Department and I held every rank in between. I know of what I speak. Whenever we hired, we hired the best available candidates. Whenever we promoted, we promoted the best candidate. I could care less if someone is black, brown, yellow, red, or rainbow. All I care about is if they are the best qualified for the job. I strongly supported President Obama in his quest for office. Why? In my opinion he is the best-qualified man for the position. The taxpayers of any state, city, town, deserve no less. If you owned a business, would you promote someone who could not pass the established standard for a position? Would you promote someone less qualified or would you want to get the biggest bang for your buck. Oh yea….wait a minute…..I forget…big business does that every day (see below). The difference is those people are making widgets, and selling widgets. These people literally may hold your life in their hands some day, and you should think long and hard about whether or not that person is qualified to be making those decisions. There are too many dummies out there, that are elected as a mayor/councilperson/alderman/whatever, and immediately consider themselves experts on fire suppression, law enforcement, education, water distribution, and other, key public safety and infrastructure functions. They are not. They are simply looking to feed their political agendas. Politics should stay out of public safety.

Remember….wanna fuck-up a good plan? Put a politician in charge. They are some of the most INCOMPETENT people who walk the face of this good earth.

Go to: http://www.newhaven20.com/

Incompetent Drivers

There are three types of automobile drivers down here in Southern Florida:

TYPE 1: Never leaves the middle lane of RT95. Doesn't matter if he/she's only going 45mph. Same applies to multi-lane surface streets at a lesser speed. Once they pick their lane they never change regardless of their speed, unless of course, they see their turn which is always at the last second. Heaven forbid you find yourself on either side of them when they need to turn, because they don't look...they just turn. On rare occasion I HAVE seen them use a turn signal, but it does not matter if you are the poor sucker unable to get out of their way. They have their eyes on their goal, and they will make it come hell, high water, or some poor innocent.....They are generally driving big and/or expensive cars, and seem to have a sense of entitlement to the road, everyone else be damned. Then after nearly killing themselves and you, they give you that: “what’s the matter with you, don’t know enough to get out of my way?” look.

TYPE 2: Jimmy-Bob the NASCAR wannabe. 150MPH up (or down) RT95 bobbing and weaving and on occasion, trying to draft. Often seen in a pick-up truck that you need a step ladder to get into the cab. So high in fact, that if you put anything in the pick-up bed, it is never seen again, unless of course, you are talking about the empty beer cans and trash that blows about on flights up and down the highway. Sometimes drives a big SUV. (On another note, what is it with all the SUV's down here? It doesn't snow. I usually see them belly up on the roadside in the rain.....so what gives? That topic should be given its own thread...lol).

TYPE 3: "I learned to drive using a cart pulled by a small goat, back home". These types are generally Hispanic or black. This is not a racial bias, but strictly my observation as to who operates these errant vehicles. They drive as if they are using bumper cars. Case in point: I witnessed a +/- 1998 Toyota Corolla operated by what appeared to be a small Hispanic male broadside an older woman who was trying to exit a CVS onto Congress. The Toyota was traveling about 20mph, and it didn't appear to me he ever hit the brake, even though he had a clear line of vision for at least 100 feet. He did not try to evade her at all - just drove into the side of her car. His wife was with him, and they were both dressed very colorfully. His car bounced off the woman's (probably 5 year old) Lexus, and the look of surprise on his face was comical. Apparently, it did little mechanical damage to his car as he slowly backed up, pulled out into the next lane and drove off, at the aforementioned 20mph. In the process, he never checked behind him, and cut off another car, nearly causing a second collision. He continued slowly puttering up the road as far as I could see him, seemingly oblivious…….

I won't get into the older folks who should not be driving at all - you know the type...they are usually wearing those big sunglasses that look like they would be suitable for use while welding. Then there are the folks that get on the highway going south in the northbound lanes. How about those landscaping trucks with 8 employees standing up in the back while they go down the road. Do you think their insurance company (or OSHA) knows they're doing that?? lol.....I could go on and on but I shall restrain myself.

Funny thing is, most people say the drivers up north are terrible. I spent most of my life up there, and they're a breeze compared to the mess down here.

By the way......who he hell designed all these parking lots down here? There must be a "Florida Technical School of Parking Lot Design"...that draws in late night television viewers and slackers, because they all seem to have paid good money to learn how to design a convoluted mess....but again, another topic....

What would you do if........

What would you do if……..
You work about 10 hours a week and are making $8.50 per hour in a high-volume retail pharmaceutical outlet. You get your annual review, with all good marks….a few suggestions for improvement, but nothing major. Overall, your score is 3.75 out of 5, which is a solid score. The person delivering your review is one of three making in the neighborhood of $100k/year, and while they have the technical skills and education to do their particular job, they have no skills in managing, coaching, or evaluating employees. One other bit of info – it was just in the newspaper 2 days earlier, that the CEO of your company had to take a pay cut this year, and will ONLY make $11.9 million. Boo-hoo.
This employee looks you square in the eye, and says with a straight face; “we (the company) can only give you a 1% raise this year. It is all we can afford”. A 1% raise for you is 8.5 cents an hour. Maybe they will be a little generous, and round it up to an even 9 cents an hour. At 10 hours a week, it will mean another 90 cents in your pocket BEFORE TAXES! We won’t get into the fact that the review delivery is about 3 weeks late, and the message that sends in and of itself. The question is; what would you do? How would you react?

Personally, I would find it to be an insult. My response would be to look her in the eye, and ask how she was able to deliver that message with a straight face. Secondly, I would tell her that; “the company is obviously in dire straights, and needs this money more than I do, so please inform the CEO that I am forgoing my raise this year”.
I would rather have someone look me square in the eye, and say; “I am sorry, but the economy has hit us hard, and we are not giving raises this year. We simply cannot afford it”. That, I could understand. That, I could live with. That would make me a team player. I would say, OK…let’s suck it up and hope for better. To offer up a 1% raise is a slap in the face. Now, having said that, I understand the economy of scale and all that BS. I understand that if you have 300 employees, and each of them receives a 90 cent a week raise, that amounts to $270 a week X’s 52 weeks a year, yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s still an insult, when the company has a bunch of incompetent assholes, in positions of responsibility, making too many thousands of dollars, every year. People who come up with bone headed ideas, because they are not close enough to the day-to-day operations of the business, to make qualified decisions. People who waste thousands of dollars in time and effort, trying to get their bone-headed ideas into practice. People who are rewarded for these idiotic ideas. People who are rewarded, for making terrible business decisions. People with no leadership skills, no management skills, no morals, no ethics. CVS is not the only company in question here. Look at the rewards the executives at AIG received. They are exactly the types I speak of. The fat cats who were rewarded for ruining the business. Our businesses today are rampant with this sort of incompetence and greed. They make their thousands on the backs of those that work for an honest pay, no matter how meager. I have no quarrel with the salaries of those who are true leaders, and managers. Those who take responsibility for their actions, including their good and bad decisions, are deserving of everything they make. My beef is with the nitwits, and shit-for-brains that work the system with a line of bullshit, and put more time and thought into working the politics of the situation then they do into coming up with new practices and ways of doing business.

Professional Incompetence

Professional incompetence…..it permeates our society, and it drives me “abso-fucking-lutely” crazy. How DO these people get these jobs? More importantly, how do they KEEP them?
You know what I’m talking about, we encounter it every day. The people who are in positions of responsibility, and do not have a clue. Retail is a breeding ground for these incompetent souls, but we find them in all aspects of our daily lives. Often, they are right out of college, and put in positions of responsibility with little or no practical experience. Others find themselves promoted beyond their capabilities, by some other incompetent boob. They slip through the cracks, becoming experts at shirking responsibility for their decisions. Often times protected by higher ups that are afraid their own poor judgment in promoting these idiots will be discovered. These incompetents are placed in positions of leadership, when they have none. They are placed in positions that require common sense, when they have none. They are placed in positions that require skills they do not have. They make decisions that affect our lives, and I am getting sick of it!
I’m going to pick on CVS a bit here because personally, I think they represent the evil empire, but that is just my opinion. They are supposedly a customer service based organization, but instead, seem to be bent on maximizing profits, customers be damned. Mistakes have been made a number of times with my prescribed medications, I have been shorted pills on occasion, and generally receive poor customer service at their pharmacies. I consider walking out of a pharmacy with the wrong medication, a fairly serious issue that may have a direct affect on my well being, so therefore, they have my attention. The fact is though; they by no means have a monopoly on professional incompetence. You can pretty much walk into any major retail operation and find incompetence anywhere, from the lowest compensated employees, all the way up the ladder to top echelon executives. CVS recently enacted some new rules regarding how customer service is handled in their pharmacies. For instance, in those pharmacies that have drive up service, they have instituted a rule that service must be initiated within 21 seconds for drive-up customers, regardless of what you may be working on. In other words, a tech could be reviewing something with me, and have to put my concerns or questions on hold, to go address a customer who was unwilling, or unable, to walk in the pharmacy and pick-up their medication. Even though I was there first, even though my issue could be an issue of some importance, the staff person needs to interrupt what we are doing, to address this drive-up customer. Who dreamt up this little customer service gem? This is not a condemnation of the employee, they are simply trying to perform as directed by management, but come on…..talk about creating opportunities for mistakes to be made. Even more absurd is the “21” seconds. What the hell is THAT all about? Not 20 seconds, not 22 seconds, but 21 seconds. It is obvious to me, having done a lot of customer service work, that this is something cooked up by someone who has never worked in a high volume, customer service environment. I would bet they also pulled the “21 seconds” thing out of some group of statistics that realistically, don’t amount to squat. Obviously, some mid-level corporate schmuck came up with this misguided attempt at instituting a customer service level, and dressed it all up nice and pretty, with some meaningless numbers. YOU CANNOT DROP ONE CUSTOMER MID-STREAM TO GO TAKE CARE OF ANOTHER. ONE AT A TIME PEOPLE, ONE AT A TIME.
Same retail operation…..same store in fact. A 26-year-old pharmacist straight out of college with no managerial experience, and no real work experience to speak of assumes a position of authority because the lead pharmacist provides no leadership. The younger pharmacist makes sure everyone knows that they are running things as the lead pharmacist will do whatever this person asks. The lead does nothing to refute this. A work atmosphere of favoritism and intimidation comes about, in what is an already stressful environment. Another day, a District Manager comes in and starts yelling about firing someone, in front of customers, because a coat was hung up in the wrong area. Nice impression. That's the way to gain loyalty and impress the customers. After making a scene, the DM next heads up the road to another store and begins to make a scene over perceived shortcomings at that location. In this store however, the lead pharmacist exhibits some leadership and escorts the DM out of the store, because it was their busiest time of the day, and no one had time for the antics. The DM was told to come back at a less busy time. The DM climbed aboard the corporate broom and flew off to the next victim.
My point in all of this, is that these are all people in positions of authority (whether actual or perceived) and do not have a clue as to what to do, or how to behave.
There are no leadership skills exhibited (except by one of the lead pharmacists), no managerial skills, and no customer service skills. There is understandably, a high turn-over of employees, especially the lower paid people ("I don’t make enough to put up with this crap"). Because there is a line of people who are willing to back-fill even the lower paying jobs, this employee turnover is not given much attention. Little thought is given to the costs of training replacements. Little thought is given to increased productivity generated by employees who are not ruled by intimidation, or demoralized because they are not on the ‘favored’ list.
Incompetence is evident in so many aspects of our lives, and we accept it. Many persons have no clue how to manage people and/or processes, yet are in charge of both. There is a school of thought out there, which says you do not have to know something intimately in order to manage it. Knowing how to get people to perform to the best of their ability, knowing how to get results, knowing when to push and when to back off, using common sense, thinking out of the box, keeping everyone focused on a common goal, these are not qualities that can be learned. Either people have them or they don’t. Just because someone knows a process inside out, does not mean they have the ability to manage the process. Don’t put people in charge of things when they do not have the skills to manage. Metrics do not always show what’s going on. There is an old saying:“Figures can lie because liars can figure”.