Antifragile Emergency Managers: Notes From the Garage
Learning from Errors: The stream’s constant adjustments are like making small, frequent errors, which, according to Taleb’s philosophy, enable continuous improvement and prevent a single catastrophic failure. The stream continues to flow to the sea, smoothing the rocks as it goes, improving its path.
Above the Fold
There is a part of me that enjoys chaos just a little too much. I think that is why I was a good paramedic. I can find calm in the storm.
Now, before you panic and call HR, let me clarify. Not in a “let’s test the evacuation siren during a staff meeting” kind of way. More in the way one might squint at a national crisis and say, You know what’s odd? We spend a lot of money pretending this wasn’t going to happen. Chaos, after enough years in emergency management, stops feeling like a monster and starts feeling like an old neighbor who never knocks and always borrows your tools.
We talk constantly about resilience. It has become one of those words we sprinkle into meetings like parsley on an overcooked steak. Bounce back. Return to normal. Stabilize operations. But I have always wondered, who decided normal was something worth returning to? Normal is where printers jam, plans gather dust, and people assume someone else is handling it. Normal is suspicious. Normal is fragile with a good public relations strategy.
