Christmas is right around the corner. If this year brings the same “what are we supposed to call the holiday” confusion as last year, let me make a suggestion: Quit whining about the big retailers renaming “Christmas” to “Holiday” and get over it. These companies are in business to sell you stuff, and they’ll eliminate anything they perceive as getting in the way of the bottom line.
In today’s world, nothing is more divisive than all things religious and spiritual. The only thing that would cause these retailers to once again refer to the celebration of Jesus’ birthday as Christmas is if you mackerel snappers quit buying stuff from them, in favor of spending your money at Jesus-friendly stores. The real rub here is the “Holiday” stores sell their Chinese-made goods cheaper than the “Christmas” stores sell their Rangoon-made gift bobbles.?The whole thing makes me want to go get an abortion.
As many of you may have gathered, the topic of this month’s article is the politically correct homogenization overtaking us. The vast majority of people simply want to live and let live. This runs counter to the people we are bombarded with each and every minute of every hour in the media. To be heard in today’s world, one must be a zealot, a criminal or an idiot. It doesn’t matter which side of an issue you take, as long as it is fundamentally fanatical and in direct opposition to the group of lunatics living on the polar opposite side. As a result, much of center mass of our civilization is forced to hide behind the skirt of political correctness in an attempt to avoid drawing the wrath of the xenophobes currently in charge.
The driving force of many bosses, managers, high-ranking clerks and community leaders has become, “How will the public react?” But how do you define “the public”?
All too often, the public is mistaken as the vocal and overrepresented minority of lunatics who have nothing better to do with their lives than run in an ever-diminishing circle and react. An excellent example: the reoccurring issue in my own community about nursing mothers. Every three or four years, some hypersensitive person becomes enraged when they see a baby with a mouthful of nipple, and the rest of us get to read about it in the paper and listen to the evening newsreaders talk about the societal ramifications of lactating mothers. Politicians are pulled into these types of issues like a drunk driver is drawn to oncoming headlights. Before you know it, we are legislating for or against the simple biological need of motherhood.
This becomes criminally ridiculous when you consider that somewhere in this solar system is a comet the size of Alaska that has the Earth’s name on it. When it hits our fluffy blue planet at 30 miles-per-second, nursing mothers and most other mammals will become roach chow. Let me go on record as being offended by planet-hitting comets.
All in the Family
Before I go much further with this, I’m going to have to relate it back to the fire service. The magazine has been very insistent about this, so in keeping with the theme of this fine trade journal-“Read it today, file an injunction against it tomorrow”-I will turn the mirror of internal reflection on myself and the rest of the fire service.
Fire department families are just like your regular everyday families-some are nurturing and healthy, while others are dysfunctional and caustic. We also reflect the quilt of American society. Members of fire families have formed clubs, organizations, associations and other splinter groups that toss back the vanillaization of our “craft and trade.” The Christians, Italians, Jews, Amish, volunteers, Mexicans, lesbians, gays, women, cowboys, Irish, skirt-wearing bagpipers, hunters, power-boaters and card players are just a few of the groups that have formed alliances to pursue their common pastimes and advance whatever agenda they feel needs advancing. Many of these groups formed in an effort to protect themselves from some other part of their fire department family.
Within the last six months, I spoke with an intelligent, capable, high-ranking member of a good-sized fire department. His department just finished the company officer promotional exam, and a large number of women ended up at the top of the list. He lamented: “I can see promoting one or two of them, but not 40 percent of the new officers over the next few years.” What makes this story really come to life is this individual belongs to his own splinter group, and as few as 20 years ago it would have been very difficult for him to be promoted due to his ethnicity. Ain’t life just crazy? I suppose intolerance is a family-learned trait that doesn’t discriminate based on skin color, gender or sexual preference.
Most of us go out of our way to get along with others. The reason for this is pretty simple-you’ve got to go along to get along. When we allow people their differences, they allow us ours. This is the glue that holds society together. In the close-knit quarters of fire departments, the leeway we allow one another becomes the ultimate factor in how good a place it is to work.
Fire departments that strive to make everyone the same end up with very large volumes of rules and regulations that pertain to personal conduct. These same places almost always come equipped with large personnel divisions that are kept busy with investigations, enforcement and dealing with the avalanche of lawsuits that stems from trying to make everyone the same. I am not advocating total anarchy, merely suggesting that the few rules we do maintain be developed around what we do for a living, with some of the U.S. Constitution thrown in for good measure. A rule that says we will come to a complete stop at a negative right-away makes a lot of sense. We are a public safety response agency and shouldn’t kill the motoring public as part of our standard response. On the other hand, 100 pages of rules that apply to uniforms and personal grooming standards would be considered a tad bit obsessive by most mental health clinicians.
Kool-Aid Wars
As a culture, we spend an inordinate amount of our time and energy being offended by inconsequential BS. Recently, a kitty-related event occurred at a fire station. One of the shifts at the undisclosed fire station wanted lemonade stocked in the kitty. The kitty man acknowledged the request and agreed to purchase the refreshing lemon beverage on his next kitty-shopping safari. Over the next several shifts, the kitty man grew weary of the requesting shifts’ constant pleas of, “When are you going to get our lemonade?” So one morning he made a special trip to buy a big bucket of powdered lemonade drink mix. He was deeply disappointed to discover the store had recently sold out. When the kitty man explained this to the lemon-lover shift, it did not sit well with them. Their disparaging comments about his kitty-management skills were mean and unnecessary.
The next shift, our kitty man and his crew were shopping for that day’s two tasty meals when he remembered the lemonade. Searching the store shelves, he found Kool-Aid brand drink packets and threw a dozen of the lemon-flavored packets into the cart. When he got back to the station, he placed the Kool-Aid into the requesting shift’s kitty locker.
The next day, the lemonade lovers went to the station kitty locker (as opposed to their shift’s kitty locker) in search of a drink mix that would pucker their pieholes. Failing to find any lemonade, they voiced their frustration with the oncoming shift about the incompetence of their station kitty man. This caused a turn of events, because the lemonade-loving shift and their relief shift were generally at odds with one another over every single issue in the known universe. The off-going shift told the lemon lovers to, “#$@! off and get a life,” and then wished them a fabulous shift.
The next shift cycle, the kitty man reported to duty and was given a full accounting from the off-going shift. The kitty man replied, “They are morons. I bought them their damn lemonade over a week ago and put it in their shift kitty locker. I’ll take care of this right now.” The kitty man retrieved the small, brightly colored packets and taped them to the door of the lemon-lovers’ kitty locker. Another full rotation of the earth passed, and the lemon-lovers were back on duty. Sometime after relieving the kitty man’s shift, they found a dozen packages of lemonade-flavored Kool-Aid taped to their kitty locker. Instead of being overjoyed with the prospect of a shift filled with lemony goodness, they called their battalion chief to inquire about the feasibility of filing a formal complaint against the shift that normally relieves them. As luck would have it, many of the members of the lemonade shift belong to an ethnic group that has stereotypical ties to Kool-Aid products. The lemon-lover shift assumed the other shift was sending them a racially motivated jab. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
The indignant lemon-lovers escorted their battalion chief to the kitty locker so he could see the offensive act for himself. I really don’t know what private thoughts the BC had as he stared at a cabinet door with a dozen yellow packets of drink mix taped to it. Perhaps he was thinking to himself, “My God! The inhumanity of man against man,” or maybe it was more along the lines of, “You’ve got to be kidding me-these morons called me for this?”
Whatever it was, he kept it to himself, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He passed it up the chain to his boss. This resulted in a station get-together the next shift between the lemon round-up gang and the shift they were accusing of drink-mix racism.
The accused shift was completely unprepared for what awaited them. That morning they were greeted by an assortment of chiefs and a group of lemon-lovers loaded for bear. One of the attending chiefs began the proceedings: “We are here to determine what your intent was in taping packets of Kool-Aid to such-and-such’s kitty locker.” The oncoming shift shared the curious and confused facial expression of a dog being summoned by a dog whistle. Almost in unison they replied, “What in the hell are you talking about?” The lemon-lovers were full of moral outrage and they bellowed, “You knew what you were doing when you taped that to our kitty locker, and don’t try to deny that you are messing with us. This morning we found a watermelon in the refrigerator. Was that just an innocent accident also?”
Now most the people in the room were looking at one another like they had just seen an enchanted elf riding a flying giraffe. The accused shift was having none of it. One of them came forward and told the assembled throng, “You’re out of your minds. Most of us weren’t born in the big city. We weren’t privy to the fact that one ethnic group favors Kool-Aid more than another. We didn’t tape it to your locker, either. As far as the watermelon goes, keep your hands off of it. We bought it for dessert last shift but didn’t get around to eating it because we were too busy. You guys really need a hobby.”
During this matter-of-fact lecture, the kitty man magically appeared and asked, “What’s up with the meeting?” The lemon-lover spokesman cried, “These bastards taped Kool-Aid to our kitty locker and now they’re trying to deny it.”
The kitty man broke into laughter and said, “You guys are complete morons. I did that. You asked for lemonade and sniveled and whined and bitched every shift you had to go without it. I bought it and threw it in your locker over a week ago and you idiots couldn’t find it and cried even louder. I taped it up so you couldn’t miss it.” This effectively brought the inquisition to a screeching halt.
Once again, a kitty man had led them out of darkness.
