Citizen, customer, or victim?
Cortez Lawrence
Deputy Director
Public Safety Department
Auburn, Alabama
Congratulations on another excellent issue (May 1998). We always find much value in each issue, but I think we will have to laminate the “Annual Pump Testing,” by Terry Eckert (Apparatus: The Shops), as our folks will see this as an outstanding “how to” addition to their arsenal. “Creating a Command Culture Based on Trust: Lessons Learned at Mann Gulch,” by Michael F. Staley (One-Minute Motivator) ought to prompt every firefighter to read Norman Maclean`s book Young Men and Fire (University of Chicago Press, 1992). Interestingly enough, the NFA class on organization theory focuses a lot of attention on that book and in trying to decipher why organizations behave the way they do in emergency situations.
I am also prompted to write to add to the discussion Stephen Weber (“`Customer` is the correct term,” Letters to the Editor) initiated on John A. Reardon`s letter (“Citizen vs. customer,” Letters to the Editor, December 1997) debating the client/customer vs. citizen nomenclature. I`m not at all sure the terms are mutually exclusive. Recently, I had an opportunity to engage in this discussion with a National Fire Academy class I was leading, and Weber will be pleased to know that most of the people involved agreed with his points. The power of the “citizen” term cannot be overlooked, however, because it really leads to a different relationship. Customers in most connotations are concerned with services delivered, and we all must recognize the importance of that.
However, citizens might not be customers only; they are also the board of directors and the majority stockholders. There is a vastly different, more wide-ranged engagement when the responsibilities of citizenship are included. Citizens not only receive services; they pay for them U they constantly evaluate them, and they are ultimately responsible for the general policy decisions involving them. Citizenship imparts responsibility and authority beyond that of “customer.”
Both terms are important and useful to the discussion of what we do and how we do it. Each is appropriate in specific connotations, and neither is a “stumbling block” nor reflects a propensity to “hide in the building with the big red truck.” Recognizing the role and importance of citizen vs. customer should in no way affect service quantity or quality and does not follow the business practices Weber advocates.
