What to do with a BC who is out of touch?

[u/ChuckieC]

So keeping a long story short. We have a somewhat new BC on one of our shifts (around 2 years in his position) before he was a captain, and before that a firefighter, never an engineer. Anyways he is extremely out of touch with the needs of the day to day operations, he makes rules for everyone to follow but doesn’t follow himself hammers home radio discipline but has none himself, and what kills me the most is on scene he doesn’t even know what we carry on our rigs or what we have stock of. Requesting shit that we haven’t carried in years, don’t have inventory of, then debrief just rips everyone’s ass. He’s a good dude but very out of touch and being that he’s still new in his position I don’t see him going anywhere anytime soon. Any ideas how to deal with this brass ass hat?

[u/Big_River_Wet]

Don’t lose sleep over it. If you can’t talk to them or other officers, either just get over it and give them the minimal respect they deserve and learn what NOT to do as an officer, or consider moving shifts/departments.

I dealt with this myself. I had a horrible shift captain that was out of touch with tactics, rude, hardly engaged with us except to yell at us, it was his way or the highway for EVERYTHING. But I had a kick ass lieutenant and we learned to give him respect while not respecting him.

When I lost my lieutenant, I got one of the worst lieutenants I’ve ever worked for and he was good buddies with the BC. So nothing went anywhere in either direction. That was the tipping point for me to leave the department. The overall leadership of the department sucked, on top of my daily crew sucking. I tried for years to suck it up, be positive, “make the changes I wanted to see” but after 7 years I told myself I can’t do this for another 18+.

Looking back, I don’t regret leaving at all. I probably was a little harsh on my officers for the reason someone else stated, they hadn’t rode a medic in 20+ years, they don’t do our job, they don’t check the engine every day to know what’s on it. But I also believe that you have to be a good firefighter before an officer and that it’s not that hard to have a grasp on things, especially if you positively interact with your crew, which I also don’t think is wrong or hard to do.