The chief was sitting at the lunch table, staring into his coffee cup and complaining. He was very upset that his boss, the city manager, had treated him a little roughly at a recent meeting.

He was, in the vernacular, "steamed" at his boss. His disappointment poured out in a stream of complaints: His boss hadn't been very nice to him. He was embarrassed in front of his peers. He wasn't ready for the questions he was being asked.

What went wrong? He'd been chief for only about a month, so what happened to his so-called "honeymoon"? The answer to that is simple: It was never really there to be enjoyed. Some people have been led to believe that just because they've heard of it, it must exist. It doesn't, and it never has. Some chiefs have just been lucky that they didn't have to face the real world until they'd had some breathing room.

Being chief means being responsible, and being responsible means being accountable. When you're accountable, you're the first person to answer the tough questions. The moment you take the chief's job, you're responsible, you're accountable, and you're the one who has to face the music when someone changes the tune.

While talking to this chief about his frustration, I discovered that his discouragement stemmed from learning that there were a lot of things no one had told him about the job. He took the chief's job because he wanted to be one, but he was somewhat confused as to what the chief was supposed to be doing. He had been blinded by the glare of the gold, and that can happen to anyone.

The purpose of this column is to discuss that phenomenon. The main point that needs to be considered by anyone who aspires to the chief's position is whether the job you want is the job you'll get. The position is one thing; the job you must perform is another. It's absolutely essential that the two jibe to avoid conflict. But how do you determine if that's the case?

Let's discuss the process used to select chiefs. There's a job announcement, an application and a series of examinations, but during the hiring process many of these stages misrepresent the actual job.

In earlier columns, I've written about how job announcements are frequently full of superlatives about performance. They look like they're trying to recruit Super Chief. I've learned that the more rhetoric in the job announcement, the more there is to watch out for. If the announcement is written in solid terms, like "Operate the department within budgetary constraints," then the expectations are usually well grounded.

It's not that the people who write these job fliers are devious, it's just that they're trying to create a sense of great opportunity to attract the very best candidates. What they fail to realize is that the people they test are looking for something that might not be there when they get the job.

The second thing to study is who's involved in the selection process. Obviously, you may not know who they are when you interview or are tested by them, but as soon as the process is complete, go back and research them. What you're looking for is a fit between yourself and their philosophies and performance.

In short, if you discover that your preferences, style and skills are very similar to theirs, and you get a good sense of comfort, then the possibility of compatibility is there. On the other hand, if the things these people have done or stand for are different from your own values, watch out. If they're really different from you and you score well, beware. It could mean that the job announcement isn't what they're really looking for.

Most organizations choose people to sit on the screening board who are similar to the kind of person they want to hire. Unfortunately, sometimes boards will deliberately invite candidates who aren't what they're looking for to camouflage the fact that they already have a person in mind. But if the fair-haired candidate turns them down, guess what? Someone else is offered the job that's not what it seems to be.

Next, you should study the questions that candidates are asked. There are two types: the generic "What do you know about the fire business?" and the "What if ...?" The former can be used to rate you on your knowledge. The second is often used to determine whether you've done your homework, as well as if you're the type of person they want.

The moment you start getting "What if ...?" questions, you must be prepared to answer with 100% honesty. Failure to do so is a double-edged sword. If you give a good answer to the scenario based on your knowledge of what the selection board wants to hear without actually supporting the solution, then you shouldn't be surprised to conflict with their expectations when you get the job. Let me give an example or two.

One candidate I know gave an excellent discourse on consolidation in response to a question regarding that concept. Once he got the job, he was appalled to hear the city manager tell him that he wanted to see the department consolidated with a neighboring department within five years. The new chief had expected five stress-free years to improve his retirement benefits. Instead he left within 18 months.

Another person told me about responding to a "What if ...?" question regarding the use of volunteers. He knew full well that the department didn't have any at this time, so he gave an eloquent discourse on how they could be used. Immediately after his appointment, he was asked to cut staff and restore the volunteers who had been removed by his predecessor. To say that there was conflict would be an understatement.

The key is to listen to the question and make an immediate assessment: Is the question rhetorical or real? If it's real, then you'd better answer it in the context of the actual job. It's actually in your best interest to ask whether the question bears on the department's own issues or problems before responding, because it's your reputation that's going to pay the price for misunderstanding.

I was interviewed for a job myself once where I actually told an interview panel that there was no way I would support the course of action they were suggesting. The chairman of the oral board repeated the question and asked me how I would answer if I knew that my being hired depended on my answer.

I repeated my reasons for opposing the concept, and sure enough, I didn't get the job. The guy who did was asked to implement the program. I won't make a value judgment as to whether I was right and he was wrong, but I do commonly state that I wouldn't have been comfortable implementing the program. If you're honest with yourself on just how far you're willing to go to win an appointment, you'll stay out of trouble.

Once you've been approved by the board, the next step in the process is the hiring interview. This is a good time to make sure you really want the job for the right reasons. You should use the time between oral boards and your final interview to obtain intelligence on both the department and the hiring authority.

With any fire department there are three things you should look for: land mines, trip wires and the enemy within. I define land mines as any issue that's ready to blow up but has been covered up. For example, "What if ...?" questions are often land mines in disguise. They could be issues the preceding administration has failed to resolve, or they could be ones that you'll be expected to handle.

Land mines are no big deal if you know they're there. They can be defused and rendered harmless, but you don't find them by stomping around with your feet. It's perfectly acceptable to locate a land mine and discuss it openly in the hiring process.

Trip wires are different. They're events that are sometimes placed in the path of the new chief by the organization during the transition process. On the surface, trip wires can seem like land mines because they both result in explosions. However, trip wires are usually set by individuals from the bottom up, whereas land mines are planted from the top down. You shouldn't learn about trip wires by stumbling into them as if you're blind. Instead, you should do your homework about the department by visiting the firehouse and listening to what's being said.

Through my network, I once heard about a trip wire that was being set for me. Because I was being hired from the outside, a group of personnel within the department had planned on handing in their resignations as soon as I was sworn in. I decided to attend one of their meetings unannounced, and talked to them for about 10 minutes before anyone realized who I was.

Eventually, someone asked me for my name. When I told them who I was, you could have heard a pin drop. Stealing a line from an old movie about Patton, I jokingly told them I'd come down to let them see if I was as big a - let's say "jerk" - as they thought I was. I was appointed about two weeks later. None of them resigned.

Trip wires are set because of concerns and anxieties about a new chief's style, attitude, perspectives or even reputation. They arise from a lack of understanding about what to expect during transition. If you trip on the wire, any number of things can happen, ranging from misunderstandings to full-scale trauma.

When I was in the military, we were trained to deal with trip wires with a simple, two-part rule: Never cut a tight wire, never pull a loose one. In other words, a tense trip wire needs to be treated carefully, and an informal one can be eliminated with good communications.

The last thing to examine is the enemy within. In simplest terms, this refers to the one or two people who have the most to lose because you've been hired. Once again, find out who they are as early in the process as you can, because they can become either your greatest allies or your worst nightmares.

I suggest you examine this before the job interview, so you can discuss it during the process. Don't ever hesitate to ask if the "enemy within" is competing for the same job, and moreover, don't even hesitate to ask for an assessment of what's going to happen if you're successful and they aren't. What do you have to lose? If you aren't selected, you've lost nothing. If you are, then forewarned is forearmed.

When it comes to checking out the hiring authority, the person who's ultimately going to offer you the job, your homework includes checking out track records, timing and expectations.

Track records are just what they sound like, a reflection of past performance. I would never accept a job working for any organization without having a complete work-up of the person I was going to be working for. I'm talking not just about the past few months, but about the persons's track record back to the point where he or she began to have an effect on policies and practices.

A person's past experiences and reputation are an excellent indication of future behavior, because people don't really change all that much. As a candidate, it's very useful for you to research the person who's doing the hiring before the final interview, because it can suggest things you might want to discuss before accepting a job offer.

Timing is an assessment of the stability of the person making the selection. At what stage in that person's tenure are you being asked to join the team? Is the person beginning to put her team together on the front end of her administration? Is the person stable and replacing a member of a relatively firm organization, or is it the end of a period of turnover and political conflict?

This assessment consists of looking not at the department, but at the entire authority having jurisidiction. This may not be fair to state, but many people who are in the business of hiring others don't want candidates to know about these issues. You need to find it out on your own. Read the newspaper and talk to other department heads to get a sense of what you can expect.

I've known several chiefs who took new jobs and were then shocked to find out that their boss was let go shortly thereafter. While that's not always a mortal wound to a fire chief's job security, it certainly adds to the anxiety.

Expectations are what you want to know up front. What do you expect, and what does the boss expect? If you've done your homework, this part of the interview process can get really interesting. This is the time for candor and compromise. If you know what's on the horizon, you can often negotiate a different way of getting there.

From my own experience, I was told that if I took a job, I would have control over a specific decision after I had come on board. After I had accepted, another person in the city made the decision and called to tell me that I wouldn't have to worry about it when I arrived.

I called up the hiring authority and asked what had happened. I was told that the point was moot, because I wouldn't be there for 30 days and the decision needed to be made now. I then advised them that I wasn't going to accept the appointment. The personnel officer was shocked.

Within an hour I received a phone call from the man who had interviewed me, asking me what I was doing. I told him we'd had a deal. I felt that it was part of our mutually agreed-on conditions of employment. Within another hour, I was told that the decision had been reversed and would wait for my arrival. If I hadn't had that original conversation before I accepted the job, I wouldn't have had a very strong position to defend.

Once you've used the hiring interview to your advantage, the last technique is what I call incubation. After you've tested for a job and gone through the evaluation phase, there's a great deal of pressure to decide to accept the new job. To the degree you can get a break, take it. Don't ever feel that any job is worth jumping in without looking at the landing spot. Granted, you can't contemplate things forever. But if there's even a few hours to gather your wits, use them.

As I noted earlier, there will always be problems assuming the command of any department. In and of themselves, they're never reasons to reject the job. The reason a fire chief is needed in the first place is to be the person who makes the tough decisions. No one in his or her right mind would suggest that's an easy task, so why be so careful when accepting a job? To make sure you're as well equipped to survive as you are to jump in.

Accepting a new job is a time for introspection. It's a time for visiting your strengths and your weaknesses. It's a time for determining whether you're the best person for that job at that time. Choose well, and the gold badge will never turn into brass.