One more last working class hero

1.8. STANDING-BY
When firefighters are not attending emergency calls, they use the terms standing-by 57 or standing-down to describe their
working arrangements. Whilst standing-by firefighters prepare for their operational role and this can involve routine (but
important) duties, such as testing their equipment 58 , drilling 59 , technical lectures, 11D inspections 60 and FP. Normally the
amount of time spent on this work is prescribed in Brigade Orders. Some firestations will be organised ‘to the book’, but
this is rarely the case (see Chapters 3-5). Custom and practice provides that watch-commanders and firefighters will reach
an accommodation at watch level over working arrangements. There are at least three reasons for this. First, officers’
administration duties take up a lot of time. Second, firefighters are self-motivated about maintaining operational
readiness. Third, many firefighters consider routines for testing equipment, drilling and lectures are over prescribed (see
Chapter 5). Were watch-commanders to force issues in these areas, they would have to constantly oversee firefighters and
their ‘admin’ would not be done. As an example of the accommodation that can be reached on a watch, once important
duties are complete a watch-commander may suggest that the firefighters should, “check the appliances.” This simple
statement can provide a number of messages to firefighters. On some occasions, the appliances may actually need
attention, but equally, these duties may hardly be necessary and officers may be inventing a duty to prevent the devil from
making work for idle hands. Control then passes to the peer-group leaders who organise this apparently ambiguous
situation, spreading the work through the time-lapse between meals or other anticipated activities. The peer-group leaders
are normally the senior firefighters/hands. However, leadership at such times is conditional on the acceptance by the
watch of the senior hands status. Charismatic leadership is important at a firestation (in both the formal and informal
hierarchy), personality rather than rank can command respect, and often a younger peer group will emerge and be very
influential. This can occur because older hands have chosen to pass on some authority to the younger peer group in
exchange for an easier life 61 .
Dependent on the view of individual watch-commanders and their ability to implement those views, one outcome
is that the station work environment can be ‘relaxed’ (see Chapters 4 and 5). This is not to say that watch-commanders are
negligent. People who are primarily employed for their physical skills as firefighters, are often burdened by the
paperwork and have to spend more time at their desks than they might otherwise choose. This pushes the task of
managing firefighters to secondary importance: a task made easier if a ‘good’ officer can come to an accord with the peer
leaders on a firestation 62 . Friendship between watch-commanders and their firefighters can develop to such an extent that
official hierarchies may almost be suspended once the operational readiness of the station is ensured. Watch-commanders
may then be explicit and suggest that firefighters, “disappear” (keep out of the way). Firefighters will then take this
instruction as a signal to go to more secluded areas of the station and read or chat. In the event that a senior officer arrives
and disrupts this informal arrangement, then firefighters are unlikely to let their officer down; they will ensure they appear
to be working. Watches can then become almost little fiefdoms of resistance and it is possible that drill records and log
books may actually be falsified to make a station look like it is organised ‘to the book’ 63 . However, it is unlikely that
senior officers will arrive surreptitiously to check up on firefighters. In part, this will be because most senior officers were
party to such informal practice when they were watch-commanders and partly because it is difficult for a senior officer to
arrive unannounced at a station. Tradition requires that on arrival at a station a senior officer must go to the watchroom
and ring ‘one-bell’ to summon the duty-firefighter and the watch-commander, which warns firefighters that they must now
look busy. As traditions decline in the fire service so does this practice and it might be tempting for officers to sneak up
on a firestation. However, society has almost conspired to help firefighters. Vandalism and theft are now so common that
firestations are securely locked and senior officers would have great difficulty in gaining entry without actually knocking
on the door.
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57 Firefighters can also use the term ‘standing-by’ or ‘stand-by’ to describe a situation when they go to another station for the shift to cover a temporary
shortage.
58 Every piece of operational equipment has a standard test laid down in writing. This test will indicate how often the piece of equipment is tested and
how the test is done. When the test is complete the test card is filled in to substantiate this. Despite it being a requirement in BO’s for these tests to take
place there is no evidence that this always happens and records can be falsified to make it appear the test did take place.
59 ‘Drilling’ relates to training with the equipment on the appliance and this normally takes place in the station yard. Firefighters are in effect rehearsing
for a fire.
60 Section 1.1.D of the Fire Services Act (1947) allows for the fire service to visit industrial premises for the purpose of familiarising firefighters with the
buildings in case of fire. These visits will normally be carried out with the watch remaining available for calls (on the run) in a similar way to when they
carry out FP inspections. As a generalisation, it is possible to suggest that each watch at a station will visit premises with an expected high risk of fire, or
where difficult circumstances might be expected if the building caught fire. Hospitals, hotels and factories are particular examples. It is left to the
watch-commander to organise these visits and if the area had a docks, ships would also be visited. Some areas might be visited more often, because of
their popularity and will likely involve locations where children (and their mothers) might be found or attractive women might be working or at leisure.
61 Senior ‘hands’ might ‘disappear’ and avoid all the drills by going into the mess to help the cook (see Chapters 3-5).
62 It might be that this is a case of give and take: a workplace strategy by managers to gain conformity in wider areas (see Burawoy 1979; Salaman 1986).
However, I believe Salaman’s analysis is relevant, but does not account for the strong ties that exist between watch officers and firefighters. More likely
watch officers legitimise firefighters’ informal working arrangements, because officers too have interests at stake. Clearly officers’ life at work will be
easier if they do not upset firefighters, but more likely officers share values with firefighters, and until they move from the watch and break the tie with
those values, they are less likely to see firefighters’ actions, through the eyes of a senior officer whose rules firefighters break, as deviant or pathological.
63 Most brigades have a ‘drill record book’, which watch-commanders complete, to ensure that each member carries out the prescribed amount of drill
each week/month/year. ‘Log books’ are a record of the activities that a station undertakes in a day and normally completed by the duty firefighter. As
with ‘test records’ these records can be falsified to make it appear the watch have done things they may not have done (run by the book; see Chapters 3-
6).