07/08/2026
Found this on Facebook
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That’s Not My Job
Recently, I was listening to Andy Frisella talk about high-trust societies and the culture that supports them. It genuinely got me thinking about the current state of the fire service and where we need to improve.
I constantly have discussions about generational gaps, behavior, accountability, and culture. If you Google “America’s Bravest,” you’ll find page after page about firefighters. A few years ago, Chief Mo Davis of the Houston Fire Department went viral during a press conference when he said that a firefighter is one of the only people on earth, other than a mother herself, that a mother with a dying baby will hand her child over to without hesitation.
Think about that for a second.
Why is that?
The answer seems obvious to most of us. Firefighters are held to a higher standard. Morally. Ethically. Professionally. Citizens believe we are honest, trustworthy, and integrity-driven people who will always do the right thing.
That’s why when a firefighter gets arrested for a DWI or faces allegations of misconduct, it’s front-page news. The headlines don’t just say “man arrested.” They say “firefighter arrested.”
Even the media understands that the title of firefighter comes with a level of honor and trust that most professions never experience.
Now, before someone says it, yes, we’re all human. We all make mistakes. We all go through trauma, hardship, divorce, grief, financial struggles, and personal battles.
But at what point does a mistake stop being a mistake and start becoming a mindset?
At what point do bad decisions become accepted behavior?
And at what point do we start hiding behind the firefighter label instead of living up to it?
When I was young in the fire service, we were taught to look out for our communities.
We stopped to help stranded motorists.
We changed flat tires.
We carried groceries.
We took leftover food from the station to shelters instead of throwing it away.
We picked up trash around our stations because we understood we represented something bigger than ourselves.
Today, many departments (including some I’ve worked for) discourage those same actions.
Why?
Because we might get sued.
Help a stranded motorist? Can’t do that.
Take food to a homeless shelter? Better check with legal first.
Go above and beyond for a citizen? That liability waiver might be a problem.
The list goes on and on.
The very things that built trust with our communities are often the things we’re told not to do anymore.
When we talk about high-trust societies, what does that actually mean?
Look at countries like Japan. A video recently went viral showing Japanese soccer fans cleaning their section of a stadium after a World Cup match.
Most Americans looked at it and thought, “That’s what janitors are for.”
But that’s the difference.
In a high-trust culture, people don’t ask whose job it is.
They simply do what needs to be done.
Now let’s bring that idea back to the firehouse.
We constantly say the station is our home away from home.
We call it a FIREHOUSE, not an office.
Yet throughout my career, I’ve watched firefighters who have to be told to wash dishes.
Told to take out the trash.
Told to refill the apparatus.
Told to top off the water tank.
Told to clean up after themselves.
If this is truly your home away from home, why would anyone need to tell you?
At your own house, do you wait for someone to issue an order before taking out the garbage?
Of course not.
In healthy cultures, the work gets done because people feel responsible for the outcome.
They don’t need supervision.
They don’t need reminders.
They don’t need motivation.
They simply understand that if they made the mess, they clean it up.
If something needs to be done, they handle it.
And that’s where the line in the sand appears.
We proudly talk about how our communities trust us with everything including their lives.
Yet too often, inside our own organizations, we struggle with basic responsibility and accountability.
A momentary lapse in judgment during a period of grief or trauma is one thing.
Spending twenty or thirty years carrying an attitude of “That’s not my job” is something entirely different.
That’s cultural rot.
And cultural rot spreads.
Public trust in institutions is declining across society. If the fire service wants to remain the profession that citizens trust above all others, then we have to be different.
We have to put citizens first.
We have to make better decisions.
We have to stop letting lawyers, policies, and paperwork become excuses for doing less than we’re capable of doing.
Most importantly, we have to remember that trust isn’t earned through grand gestures.
It’s earned through the small things.
The dishes.
The trash.
The apparatus.
The extra effort for a citizen.
The willingness to help when nobody is watching.
The attitude that says, “If I don’t do it, nobody else will.”
For a profession tasked with solving everyone else’s problems, including the police department’s problems on occasion, “That’s not my job” is no longer an acceptable answer.
The fire service doesn’t need more people asking whose responsibility it is.
The fire service needs more people willing to take responsibility.
Follow the TAC Outlaw Code.
Make the citizens proud.
And when something needs to be done, just do it.
Thirdalarmcowboys.com
This isn’t just talk. If your department is ready to make firefighters better. Inquire today about the TAC Channel Lecture.
Hands-on firefighter training, leadership and engine company operations. HB 2604 and TIFMAS Grant for Texas FD.
