Before I start, I would just like to say that I have had the honour and privilege of working with some of the finest Managers and Supervisors out there. Both when I served in the Armed Forces & Metropolitan Police, and also during my short stint volunteering in the RNLI…
So this is not a general rant at Management, because I have some underlying issue with such Management. On the contrary. I have been a Manager myself, albeit in my own business (private sector) which I started up when I left the Met Police. And it doesn’t matter how big the organisation is, the qualities which make a good manager will always be the same.
Instead, this article is aimed squarely and directly at the individuals who have been prowling our Facebook page (Emergency Services Humour) for comments on our posts, which have been left by people who may be tempted to leave a remark regarding the s__t storm that the NHS is currently trying to cope with.
To think for just one minute, that you, the Managers concerned, genuinely believe that your time can be best-used trying to hunt down individuals who DARE to have an opinion is abhorrent.
You might think that we are making this up. Alas, we are not. ESH was contacted yesterday by someone working in the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust. This was their message:
Let us just take a minute, to process what is happening here: We have got a situation, where Management have decided to adopt a set of procedures which many feel could put patients lives at risk.
Maybe this is being done, because of pressure being put on them (the Managers) from their Political masters… Whatever their rationale, the effect is shocking.
We have now got highly trained medical professionals, who are speaking out against what they feel is a truly dangerous situation. And why shouldn’t they!? After all, we live in a democracy where we HAVE a VOICE and we are allowed to use it.
I am sure that if my relatives who had fought against oppression in WW1 (Battle of Ypres, Passchendaele, Belgium 1917) and in WW2 were still alive today, then if I told them that SOME Management in the 21st century Emergency Services were trying to SILENCE the voices of their staff, when such staff are simply speaking out about things which they feel are deeply worrying, then my relatives would be deeply saddened.
To think that they (I can only speak on behalf of my family) fought a war against tyranny & communism, only to find out decades later that the brave men and women in our emergency services, many of whom are ex-forces themselves, are being HUNTED DOWN by Managers for for speaking out, FOR TELLING THE TRUTH, is shameful.
There is no other non-expletive word for it. Just ‘shameful’.
How DARE you spend your time, paid for by the taxpayer, trying to gag the voices of your heroic staff, instead of trying to sort out the s__t storm which has been created. We all understand that it is not directly your fault that the NHS is under enormous stress.
But when you search deep within your own conscience, how do you come up with the conclusion that hunting down staff who DARE to tell the truth is somehow “ok’?
This is the sort of ‘management’ style that we expect to see in North Korea. NOT in this country!
If anyone dares to speak out against Kim Jong Un, then they are silenced. Thankfully, in this country, they who speak out are not (yet) met with violence. ‘Just’ the risk of losing their job, their livelihood and the roofs over their heads….
We have always said, that if we (Emergency Services Humour) share a story that is sent into us that is not correct, then let us know, and we will remove/correct/amend it.
We are not unreasonable people. Indeed, we have removed stories in the past when it was brought to our attention that the individuals sending them in were only doing so because they had an axe to grind.
But we have had no such contact as a result of ANY of the shocking stories which we have recently shared.
And guess what? WE WILL continue to share stories which are sent into us, because one of the things which REALLY pisses us off, is when members of our Emergency Services Family are being BULLIED INTO SILENCE.
You may say, that ‘Emergency Services Humour’ should be JUST about ‘humour’. Well, when Emergency Services Humour was started two years ago, it was to try and bring some morale into what can be a harrowing and incredibly stressful job.
So, anything that directly or indirectly affects the morale of our brothers and sisters who are still serving goes AGAINST our core mission of raising morale, and is thus ‘fair game’ by our reckoning.
The public have a RIGHT to know the truth.
Because it’s THEIR families and friends who may die as a result of some decisions which are being made.
And they who dedicate their lives to saving the lives of others, have the RIGHT to speak out when they see something that they feel is truly wrong.
So stop trying to tell you staff to ‘shut up’. And stop messaging us PRETENDING to be someone you are not, in order to try and find out who sends us our stories. We are not f__king stupid. And anyway, we delete all the messages which are sent into us, because we are OCD about not having a full inbox.
Instead, search deep within your souls, and realise that if you are not a part of the solution, then you really are a part of the problem…..
Written by one of the many Admins of Emergency Services Humour, who is also a regular contributor to our Digital (subscriber only) Magazine aptly named; ‘S__ts & Giggles’.
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