Last week I wrote about IGM budgeting, otherwise known as I Got Mine budgeting. This week, it’s IGM supervision. A buddy of mine—a career firefighter we’ll call “Joe”—recently told me about his company officer. It seems that the city Joe works for is considering some changes to the way things are done in the fire department, and a majority of the firefighters are on board with the proposed changes. Joe’s company wanted to go to the council meeting to see what’s up, but his company officer said “No.” When pressed, the company officer said something to the effect of (and this is paraphrased), “I got mine, screw ya’ll.” The company officer didn’t want to upset the balance, so to speak. He liked things how they were, even if the proposed changes could have helped the rest of his company.

I think it’s up in the air whether the company officer has done something worthy of discipline (that depends on the city and department policy), but his crew has ZERO confidence in him. I understand that appropriate actions are being taken to address this issue. If I were a member of his crew, and the other crewmembers agreed, I would immediately ask the department to transfer the company officer to a desk job. And if I were his chief, I would reassign him to a desk job before being asked to do so by the crew.

Here’s what frustrates me: This company officer came up through the ranks of the department. But I’m still undecided about which is worse: That this individual is in the fire department to start with or that the leadership of the department promoted this guy ...