Is It an Emergency? It’s Usually Not. | Trust Me, It Can Wait.
In every industry I’ve worked in—municipal government, finance, healthcare, and home services—people love to use the word “emergency.”
But here’s the thing:
Most of the time, it’s not.
Not a true emergency.
Not even close.
What I Learned from Real Emergencies
Early in my career, I was the Aquatic Safety Coordinator for three municipal pools. I trained lifeguards, ran drills, and responded when things went wrong.
You know how we handled emergencies there?
We didn’t talk about them.
We handled them.
Three whistle blasts.
Guard jumps in.
Someone’s life gets saved.
No one emailed me. No one called it in.
Real emergencies were obvious, immediate, and action-driven.
That experience shaped how I define urgency—and how frustrated I get when someone calls an incorrect daily report an “emergency.”
Every Industry Has Its Version
In finance, I’d get pinged about an “emergency” outtrade—someone bought 1,000 AAPL calls, but the counterparty said they were puts.
✅ Important.
❌ Emergency.At SHIELD Illinois, we once misplaced specimens for the entire Illinois state legislature.
✅ Urgent.
❌ Emergency.
(Don’t worry, we found them.)In operations, I’ve been pulled into “emergencies” because someone couldn’t log into a tablet or didn’t like the color of a dashboard metric.
That’s not an emergency.
That’s Tuesday.
Define It or Lose It
I’m not saying only life-threatening situations count as emergencies.
But I am saying that you have to define what an emergency actually is—or the word becomes meaningless.
At SHIELD, we built an escalation framework that defined:
- What qualifies as an emergency
- Who gets notified
- How quickly the issue must be acknowledged
- When and how it escalates
Some tickets triggered a phone call.
Others followed a structured path with triage and resolution targets.
Most importantly: we took the word back.
You Don’t Get to Declare an Emergency
We even built a literal “Emergency” button into our support form.
But—and this is important—if someone misused it too often, we took it away.
Not out of punishment.
Out of necessity.
Because when everything is an emergency, nothing is.
Escalation needs structure.
So does urgency.
Otherwise you burn out your best people and let the loudest voice win.
Emergencies Are a Leadership Problem
If you’re constantly getting interrupted for “emergencies” that aren’t…
That’s not a frontline issue.
That’s a leadership one.
You have two choices:
- Keep reacting
- Redefine the rules
Create a shared understanding of priority levels.
Document your escalation path.
And give your team the confidence that important doesn’t mean instant.
If your company treats every fire drill like a five-alarm blaze,
Don’t be surprised when the real fire catches you off guard.