Was hazing a bad thing?

[MedicAR]

I'm looking for a way to fix this problem, not just vent about it. So any suggestions are more than welcome.

My management team is what I call "touchy feely" in that there is no hazing anymore. I'm not talking about pranks or anything like that, but just basic entry-level tasks and such. The rookies are responsible for the lowly tasks and take a lot of grief when they screw up. It's how I was trained and it worked. It weeded out the ones that lacked the proper attitude. It removed the "solo artists" and made everyone a team member. It ejected the incompetent fools that never should have gotten an interview. And all involved were better for it! Now we have damage to one of our rigs about every two weeks. No one can read a map book. Even worse, no one knows what scene safety is anymore. It's a matter of time until someone is seriously hurt or killed due to a lack of responsibility on the part of our entire organization.

I know that the Gen Xers are part of this, with different work ethics and different value systems, but we're a public service. We need to be better than the rest of the working world.

There's a lot more that I would like to see change, but I'll start here and see what happens.

[spenac]

The problem with hazing was to many did not know where to draw the line. People got hurt even died. I do agree the newbie needs to earn their spot. Do the dishes. Clean the ambulance. Unstock/reStock the ambulance so they know it inside out. Learn the maps. Throw the trash. Get strapped on the cot and feel smooth ride and then drive the way so many young ones do and feel how rough it is for patient and crew.

To many hazings though have nothing about EMS and really are of no benefit. I think you are speaking of the earning spot rather than hazing.

[MedicAR]

You're probably right, hazing may be the wrong word. But you did hit the nail on the head with your examples. so many of our new employees have no idea what they're doing and we tend to get sideways with management if we try to correct it at all, much less the way it used to be done.

[Dustdevil]

You're probably right, hazing may be the wrong word.

Can you give us some examples of exactly what you are talking about? From your previous posts, I think you are probably on to a good thing, but I would agree that anything resembling actual hazing -- including practical jokes and horseplay -- is a big no no, and grounds for immediate dismissal in any organisation worth working for.

[MedicAR]

Can you give us some examples of exactly what you are talking about?

Absolutely. The new guy does the dishes, takes out the trash, shines the chrome from bumper to bumper (even between the lug nuts....heck, especially between the lug nuts), doesn't sit in a recliner for the first year, watches a few public demonstrations then participates in them, restocks everything, checks expirables, etc.

Then there was my favorite. Your partner gets a big thermos of coffee, a small styrofoam cup and mop. Then you go for a ride. The cup is filled within about 3/4" of the top, set in the floor of the patient compartment, and the rookie drives. If they spill the coffee, they mop it up, fill the cup again and start over. It helped them learn the area, learn the rough spots in the road and especially helped them learn to drive smooth. No joke. It took me at least two hours and three times as many thermoses of coffee, but I got it.

No horseplay. It was a part of the training. It seemed sadistic at the time, but now I really understand the how and why behind it all. It was called "hazing" but now I realize it was more what Spenac said, "earning their spot."

[AnthonyM83]

The rookies are responsible for the lowly tasks and take a lot of grief when they screw up. It's how I was trained and it worked. It weeded out the ones that lacked the proper attitude. It removed the "solo artists" and made everyone a team member. It ejected the incompetent fools that never should have gotten an interview. And all involved were better for it! Now we have damage to one of our rigs about every two weeks. No one can read a map book. Even worse, no one knows what scene safety is anymore. It's a matter of time until someone is seriously hurt or killed due to a lack of responsibility on the part of our entire organization.

I'm not sure how lowly tasks and getting grief when screwing up would lead to all that. Could you be more specific? If people can't read a map book, come up with a map reading test or scenario program for new people to pass. Make it difficult, so that they actually have to go home and practice. Present it to management or to training officers.

For cowboy attitude, maybe forcing new guys to be paired up with old guys for awhile?

[MedicAR]

I'm not sure how lowly tasks and getting grief when screwing up would lead to all that. Could you be more specific? If people can't read a map book, come up with a map reading test or scenario program for new people to pass. Make it difficult, so that they actually have to go home and practice. Present it to management or to training officers.

For cowboy attitude, maybe forcing new guys to be paired up with old guys for awhile?

Your solution is as plain and simple as it gets. It's logical and obvious. And as ridiculous as it sounds, that seems to be the exact reason my management won't implement it. We have a training officer in name only. Our dispatch captain puts on the maps class for new employees and takes pride in making the class nigh-impossible to comprehend. It doesn't work on reasonable or intellegent folk, but those folk no longer apply to my organization. There is no real testing or scenario based achievement except to be released to work on the street. When that situation comes up, everyone fails the first time around because it's the "Kobyashi Maru" scenario (Star Trek fans will get it) where there is no right answer. It's just ridiculous and frustrating. Seasoned, intellegent, creative medics won't make it, because if they manage to pull it off, the shooter (it's a shooting/OB/traumatic injury scanario) returns and kills a member of the crew because the "scene wasn't safe."

Are we alone? Are all services this screwed up?

[AnthonyM83]

Those kinds of scenarios seem like a waste of time. They're fun to put on, but what's the actually professional and educational purpose of it?

Even though your training officers are just that by name, the new guys probably don't know that. Would it be possible for you guys to put on your own thing for the new hires? "In-house."

Hazing doesn't seem like the way to go, though...Maybe giving them crap for acting like they do, but not actually punishing them...though I guess I can see what you're saying...make them pay until they start acting right (and stop doing those damn "Picard Maneuvers" (reference right back at you)... That's replacing a bad mindset with a different bad mindset, though.

[Medic26]

Then there was my favorite. Your partner gets a big thermos of coffee, a small styrofoam cup and mop. Then you go for a ride. The cup is filled within about 3/4" of the top, set in the floor of the patient compartment, and the rookie drives. If they spill the coffee, they mop it up, fill the cup again and start over. It helped them learn the area, learn the rough spots in the road and especially helped them learn to drive smooth. No joke. It took me at least two hours and three times as many thermoses of coffee, but I got it.

I really like this technique. Maybe we will try it.

On the hazing thing, our newbies still get alot of #$*%. Nobody says anything as long as you stay between the lines of acceptance.

[fiznat]

I understand the skills-based "hazing," if you can even really call it that, but I'm not really a fan of forcing newbies to do all of the scut work and whatnot. I don't understand how it teaches people to "be a part of the team" by making one newbie do all of the work nobody else wants to do. Is that teamwork?

When given the opportunity, I try to lead by example. If I want the newbie to clean between the lugnuts, he will do it correctly because he saw me do it myself last time.

Personally I feel like this kinda hazing is more about asserting the superiority and rank of those already established rather than helping a new person become an effective member of the team. That may be just me though.