Loss of Camaraderie

The participants who become disillusioned with their post-service employment as a result of a lack of camaraderie describe trust amongst colleagues as an issue. The loss of camaraderie and an inability to replicate it in post-service employment is a key element in job satisfaction for the participants. When directly questioned about belonging to a team, both during service and post-service, the answers were consistent across all participants. No post-service employment described by the participants achieved the same level of team camaraderie. Participants generally considered this to be a flaw in the new employment environment and in their new colleagues and it strengthened their feeling of loss. ‘It is just not the same’ was the consensus amongst the participants. Walter explained  

You’ve got a lot of guys that have had … experiences…but … it doesn’t come across because it’s not as, you’re not so like living with these guys, albeit you know four days on, four days off, but you’re not constantly in each other’s world. And that becomes your world. And with this now I do fly in, fly out now, you know I see my guys you know for the seven days I’m at work but it’s not, you know we don’t socialise after work, we don’t socialise once we fly off, everyone, and now I’ve been to a couple of different sites now and it’s been the same and it’s the same across all the crews, you know you don’t sort of hear the guys talk about oh we all went and did this or we all went and did that whereas with the fire brigade you sort of caught up, that culture was there so.   

For some participants, they were able to acknowledge that they did not expect it to be the same, but it was still a shock at how strange it felt to no longer have those team members at your back. When directly asked, some participants confirmed that their new job role needed teamwork, but the level of commitment to the team and the subsequent camaraderie was not present. Raymond explained  

I’ve always been exposed to a certain level of education for everybody, because you’ve got to meet that minimum standard and you’ve got sort of really highly motivated people as well that want to do something and that they want to be there… Whereas when you’re working in mining, it’s oh I got a job through uncle Bill or uncle Bob or whoever and I’m just here because I like the money. And you know the other thing was like they would go and get drunk every day after work where I would go to the gym and I was like an outsider because why are you, why are you lifting weights when you could be lifting a beer can.  

This is a clear indication that the lack of camaraderie in post-service employment is often because training in those employment environments does not focus on creating social cohesion in a group that has a collective goal (King, 2006). Donald stated  

I miss working with people that you pretty much know that you can either trust them or you can’t, there’s sort of quite a defined line there where in the public sector you can’t really trust anybody because they’ve all got their own agendas.  

The participants need to adapt to the needs of the new organisations and understand that their roles are different. This is a difficult part of transition for these individuals and requires a level of ‘unlearning’ of previous beliefs and habits. The participants must disconnect their expectations from those they held when with their service organisation. 

An examination of their connection to their service organisation was conducted to help understand how the participants’ experiences when in service influenced their attitude to post-service employment. The participant stories reveal that the training they underwent with their service organisation contributed to this connection. Coming from organisations where basic training required them to bond together in groups where they proved themselves almost daily and where membership required a constant display of those skills and, most importantly, backing each other up, anything less than this is disconcerting (Godfrey et al., 2012; King, 2006). Through strict repetitive activities and social isolation, the training reinforces a group mentality and encourages individuals to rely upon each other each day (King, 2006). The participant narrations indicate that, over time, that constant reliance upon each other, the focus on group goals, the membership in a team, and the sense of being more than the civilians they have sworn to protect, help and defend creates a unique sense of camaraderie that is laced with duty and loyalty. Barry explained ‘how close and how strong those bonds would become and, you know, through the things that I’ve been subjected to and seen, no, I didn’t, realise how deep the roots would go, for sure’. The fact that not only do they believe in and rely on someone else when it comes to personal safety but that others believe in and rely on them for their safety seems to create a new level of interaction and belonging. Barry confirmed ‘…but again, I think it was this whole sense of belonging’. Further, that the activities that support this tight knit group behaviour are often exclusive to their service organisation heightens the camaraderie, further excludes civilians, even excluding friends and family, and tightens loyalties even further. From the descriptions of the participants, the co-reliance increases even further when traumatic experiences start to occur and become part of the shared realities for the group. Paul shared that ‘when you face dangers and challenges with other people, you develop a relationship and people call it mutual respect, they call it lots of things, but you develop a relationship’. He elaborated 

we took on a place one day and I wandered inside and I couldn’t see anybody and the next thing…[a guy] with a nail in a baseball bat came out swinging. And I sort of duck and get out of this bloke’s way going oh this is not good. And the next thing I remember is him staring over my shoulder and throwing the bat away because [name removed] had come around the corner and pulled out his weapon and pointed it straight at him and said straight off kill you. Someone prepared to do something.   

In such situations, they have common activities, common goals, exclusive skills, and shared trauma to link them. The camaraderie required to keep the collective goal at the centre of all activities and to support each other as individuals becomes part of a unique experience that the participants describe as having not experienced before, nor in any subsequent employment. 

This is a strong camaraderie that is based in operational activity more than social interaction and therefore it diminishes greatly when the individual separates from the service organisation. For the individuals who come from this team environment where camaraderie is at the centre of operations, it is difficult for them to adapt to the loss of this in their post-service environment. They seek membership in similar groups and are surprised when the depth of camaraderie is not the same. The lack of camaraderie in post-service employment is often because the job content does not require it to the same extent, nor does the training reach a level of intensity that creates it, and therefore the individuals become perplexed by their new colleagues’ lack of commitment to their job roles. Their view of a lack of camaraderie is skewed when compared to the views of others in civilian employment. This impacts heavily on their job satisfaction as they come to terms with individuals working for their own purposes. When they enter post-service employment that does not discourage individuals working for their own benefits, they become confused as to how they fit into that model and fail to understand how the job can be done properly in such an environment. Kim explained ‘I feel really detached from it if anything. And, I have no sort of personal investment in it really. And, I know that sounds terrible but it’s the truth’. This thinking is then confirmed by the lack of a collective goal(s) in post-service employment. That is not to say that organisations do not have goals which their employees are working towards, but often the goal seeking is done individually. Without life threatening confrontation, and intense physical activities that require immediate reaction as a team, the way a collective goal is achieved is very different outside of service organisations. The participants report that in their service roles, they are drilled constantly to work as a team towards an outcome (King, 2006). Activities that are repeated constantly enough that the individual starts doing as opposed to being (Woodward & Jenkings, 2011). This shifts their identity from an individual focus to one of the collective. When entering post-service employment, the shift to setting individual goals in order to achieve a collective goal is a considerable change for this group. It fuels the feeling of not properly belonging to a team and impacts their job satisfaction. 

The participants’ understanding of camaraderie was that someone else always ‘had their back’. This presented in different forms, such as they knew how others would act at a job without speaking, no one else understands as much, and they could always rely on their teammates. This is not replicated in their post-service employment. Lisa explained  

Yeah it’s definitely not the same…And I know for a fact there were two policewomen, ex AFP coppers that I was working with and they would not carry guns. See as far as I’m concerned they shouldn’t be working for the organisation because how does that help me out on the road, what if I need them to come help me? 

The development of camaraderie inside these service organisations is largely linked to membership of a team with a collective goal and the roles they all play inside this group. But for the participants their descriptions are not this simple. References to moments when they could function together in a job-related task with limited communication supports the work of Woodward and Jenkings (2011) who stress, from a military perspective, that the repeated activities undertaken in training and thereafter during the job render the individual to a state of doing rather than being. So, while the participants view this as an indication of solid camaraderie, it is the honed skills of individuals undertaking their set tasks in a workplace. In part, those skills demand attention to their team members and practices that ensure they protect and support each other against trauma. Participants do not always see it this way, instead responding to the human interaction with others. 

It is here that there seems to be some blurring of the understanding that camaraderie is not friendship. When they leave the service, they have expectations that the camaraderie will continue and are genuinely surprised when it does not. Paul said about his new job colleagues  

…and I thought…you don’t, and I use the word brotherhood, you don’t see yourself as part of a collective do you? Don’t feel like part of a single unitary operation that has had a specific objective to which you all make your own special specific contribution, no you don’t see yourselves, you see yourselves as individuals, many of which were pursuing career goals and this platform for you.  

The experienced camaraderie was a stable environment upon which the individuals came to rely amidst repeated traumas, behaviours, and social isolation. They fail to comprehend that the camaraderie was built out of their membership in the group, and when that membership is revoked, so too is the camaraderie. Their sense of belonging is heightened, and they know that no one else is going to understand them, both as individuals and as group members, as much as those with whom they shared this camaraderie. Walter describes  

Yeah I think it’s your shared experiences and relation, you can relate to that…you know what I mean… like if I talk to you know someone that I don’t know, accountant or you know a solicitor or something like that, it’s not a relatable job, but if you’re talking to someone with an emergency services background, then all of a sudden it doesn’t take long for the stories to come out…   

While the participants seem to be aware of their reliance on others, and it may be concluded that they have mistaken camaraderie for friendship, this is not the case. The participants express their need for camaraderie that is not particularly sought out or desired but is necessary all the same. In particular, the stories of the participants reveal that they fail to understand why they are not part of the group anymore. Especially, when the group was built around skills. Skills that they still possess. However, the fact that the skills are no longer utilised for the same activities, with the same group collective, weakens and eventually dissolves the camaraderie. 

King (2006) explains that personal relationships are irrelevant to camaraderie in a military environment. The participants establish their camaraderie by undertaking the initial training, participating in the repeated activities that confirm their competency in that area, and then performing in the job repeatedly, coming to rely more and more upon those around them who share their group collective and understand their experiences. Sebastian confirmed this, 

stating you could go to a job in [location removed] and we’d all just mesh, no matter the personalities, we’d mesh because we’d done it so many times that everyone knew their role.   

In accordance with King (2006) this creates camaraderie, not friendship. All participants in this study understood the concept of camaraderie as it exists within their service organisation. Most of the participants were able to describe working with team members that they did not particularly like, but still supported as a team member, including ‘having their back’. Tom explained  

it’s very, very rarely that you work autonomously, it’s not that sort of environment. You have to, even if you don’t like the person you’re next to or working in a team with, you have to get on with them.   

As Skye previously described, confusion often arises when deployed for long periods of time with the rest of the team. On one hand they could not wait to be away from their crew, yet as soon as deployment finishes and they are back with family and friends, they find themselves seeking out their crew members. In contrast to King’s (2006) analysis there was a high level of emotion that surrounded the participants’ relationship with others that was based in a dual understanding that they may have their lives in each other’s hands. For the participants as individuals, this became more than just camaraderie but an investment in the health and wellbeing of each other, and the support needed to ensure not just a future in the job, but possibly a future at all. Although this may not extend to a personal relationship, nor are the usual parameters of a personal relationship required to be present to establish this camaraderie, it was personal to the individual participants. So, it is not difficult to understand why they miss this so desperately when it is gone. Nearly all participants described, in one way or another, the loss of camaraderie as one of the hardest realisations after they had left their service organisation. Harry describes ‘Didn’t sort of realise what you were going to miss until it was gone type thing’. The participants describe that one day they have all this and the next day it is gone.  

There was no distinction between the descriptions given by participants from the three service groups in relation to their feeling of loss after separation. They all spoke of the camaraderie as a crucial and appreciated side effect of their jobs, with only the emergency services participants extending that camaraderie to mateship. The emergency services participants, in particular the fire fighters, often referred to camaraderie as a shared trait with mateship. So, it is important to examine whether there is a blurring of definitions for this group between camaraderie and friendship. However, the detailed responses of the participants from the emergency services, including their descriptions of being isolated once they left and not being able to return to that employment easily, confirms the same behaviours of the organisation and individuals still serving as in the police and military. As such, it is more a use of terminology rather than any difference in the nature of camaraderie in the fire services. 

This is not to say that any of the participants did not refer to the friendships they had built whilst in the service organisation. Plenty had what they considered to be good friendships that were established whilst in service. However, there were several descriptions that indicated the friendship can become strained when one individual is no longer serving and the other is still in. Like any friendship, this possibly just stems from a change to what is held in common and changing shared interests. The female participants reported more successful post-service friendships than the men, but only descriptively. They did not describe any different behaviours post-service that would indicate a continued camaraderie for females post-service. Rather, relationships were more social media oriented and involved keeping in touch, remotely. 

Many police and emergency service participants could describe being able to return to the station they had served at and being welcomed by their former peers, but this was often mentioned as an afterthought and in some cases seemed strained. Neil mentioned ‘Yeah I can still walk into the stations here and be invited in for a cup of coffee and bit of a chin wag and those kind of things. So it’s like a big family really’. This confirms that there is no formal requirement from the organisation for former members to be isolated, it is just a practice. Matthew described attending a social function with former colleagues and his wife, and being surprised at the negative environment. His wife confirmed that he used to speak like that. He was genuinely surprised, explaining  

I found it interesting how negative the police were about everything and my wife used to say yeah but that was you and I used to say no way and she goes yeah it was you, it’s like that old, you know, frog in a pot, you know you don’t know that you’re dying until you actually die  

These small steps are indicators of a move from group camaraderie to individual behaviour as they start to work on their identity. It is here that we start to see indicators of a disconnect from the group identity toward individual identity that arises from a move away from group support toward self-reliance.