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Yeah that falls under "But it's not a big deal! I even washed clothes afterwards and I didn't SEE anything on them!"
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Nov 1, 2011 00:44
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I don't mind using the washer for my bunker gear but it never goes in the dryer, always just let it air dry after. Hell I'm not even going to toss my current bunker gear in the washer anymore, drat reflective stuff started peeling off after I washed it, suppose to get new gear anyways soon and the asst. chief didn't seem to care just asked me if I tossed it in the dryer, told him nope don't know why it started coming flaking off, he didn't know either. Oh well, only thing I hate about getting new bunker gear is it's going to be stiff as hell until it's broken in.
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Nov 4, 2011 15:00
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invision posted:Girlfriend washed my bunker gear in my washer/dryer at home because "it looked dirty" and "was kind of disgusting". If I can "walk into a burning house and get sprayed with water, how is that any different?" and she doesn't understand "why I'm so upset with her right now". Your washer doesn't have an agitator does it? It weakens and destroys the material of bunker gear.
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Nov 4, 2011 18:11
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Any CA firefighter goons here? I'm really interested in starting a career in firefighting and would love to talk to a goon about the process. I'm 28, work as an ER tech, and in excellent shape but I know how competitive it is right now and some advice would be greatly appreciated.
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Nov 5, 2011 18:56
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Agrocrag posted:Any CA firefighter goons here? I'm really interested in starting a career in firefighting and would love to talk to a goon about the process. I'm 28, work as an ER tech, and in excellent shape but I know how competitive it is right now and some advice would be greatly appreciated. Not from CA but the best thing I can say to do is start calling around to your city fire departments and ask them what the requirements are etc. as I'm sure they'd be more than glad to give you all the info you need. You could also check out the CAL FIRE website http://www.fire.ca.gov/ as they might be hiring and they also have "seasonal" jobs if your into brush/forest fires but they also help out on other calls too. Just got wind that our Minitor IV's very well might be replaced very soon with the new V's. Not sure why but I believe we've been having a pretty bad turn over rate with the IV's having to be sent back in for repair. Also dispatch finally got our department setup for text alerts for calls, very nice indeed and I get the text pretty much almost the same time my pager starts going off. I still like having my little setup that sends me a recording of the tone out but getting the texts is a very nice backup/alternative in case my computer is down or something. Been pretty quiet lately, mostly med calls and false alarms but with it getting colder, it's only a matter of time. Lots of people use chimneys around here and don't get them cleaned out which means chimney fires, fun fun.
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Nov 6, 2011 17:08
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kicktd posted:Not from CA but the best thing I can say to do is start calling around to your city fire departments and ask them what the requirements are etc. as I'm sure they'd be more than glad to give you all the info you need. You could also check out the CAL FIRE website http://www.fire.ca.gov/ as they might be hiring and they also have "seasonal" jobs if your into brush/forest fires but they also help out on other calls too. We've managed to make it through 2 cold fronts this year without having a structure fire. Hope it lasts... (but I definitely just jinxed it.)
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Nov 6, 2011 20:06
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Agrocrag posted:Any CA firefighter goons here? I'm really interested in starting a career in firefighting and would love to talk to a goon about the process. I'm 28, work as an ER tech, and in excellent shape but I know how competitive it is right now and some advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm a CA FF/Paramedic. What do you want to know?
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Nov 7, 2011 06:33
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invision posted:We've managed to make it through 2 cold fronts this year without having a structure fire. Hope it lasts... We have another cold spell coming this Friday, just happens that's the evening that 90% of our department will be doing a class of their choice for the whole weekend at the local Fire College. So fingers crossed nothing major happens during Friday/Saturday/Sunday. You know what's not fun? Being toned out at 12am for a med call "trauma", expecting the worst because it's at a manufacturing plant and it turning out to be nothing more than someone who pinched their finger and got a slight cut, not even deep enough for 1 single stitch really all that was needed was a freaking band-aid, but hey let's call 911 anyways  .
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Nov 7, 2011 18:34
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How To Not Burn Down Your House, Lesson 1: Don't be a disgusting pig. Clean up at some point.
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Nov 12, 2011 17:00
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kicktd posted:We have another cold spell coming this Friday, just happens that's the evening that 90% of our department will be doing a class of their choice for the whole weekend at the local Fire College. So fingers crossed nothing major happens during Friday/Saturday/Sunday. You are new at this, aren't you. I had this discussion with my wife this afternoon, about how 'helping people' is actually a very small part of firefighting. Most of our runs are because people are either too dumb or too lazy to take care of things themselves. It does feel good when we actually make a difference in someone's life. We had a guy come by the station a while back that we worked a cardiac arrest on after he was electrocuted, but those instances are very rare. On the other hand, it pays the bills so I can't complain. I'm looking for a new department and one local place has openings. Their application has a paragraph where you have to write why you want to work there and it will actually require some thought in order to answer the question without being sarcastic or fake.
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Nov 13, 2011 00:41
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Hah. On that topic, we had a kitchen fire this morning. Lady "just couldn't figure out" how to use her 20+ year old empty fire extinguisher. She called it in, dispatcher told her to leave the house, she refused, then stood ACROSS THE loving KITCHEN throwing handfuls of flour across the room at the fire. A sherrif's deputy was right down the road, and managed the get her out of the house and use his fire extinguisher to get it out. Also the hood above her stove vented straight into the attic. e: Oh god and this one... We've had a horrible wildfire season down here, so we're in a burn ban. We all know that people love exaggerating when talking to dispatch, so we get toned for a "Huge fire" that "looks like he's burning a pile of tires!" literally two houses down from me. So I walk over, see that the guy is burning leaves in a barrel with a screen over it, radio it in, and start to walk off. Out comes the angry houseowner, wanting to know who I am. Me:"I'm with the fire department, someone called you in and made it sound worse than it was. No worries, though, you're good to go." Him:"DIS SOME RACIST rear end BOOSHIT. ITS CAUSE IM BLACK AINT IT? MAN gently caress DIS YOU WHITE PEOPLE BURN ALL THA drat TIME AN IM JUS TRYINA CLEAN SOME poo poo UP. BUNCH OF RACIST MOTHERFUCKERS!" cue him yelling at me for like 5 minutes. The gently caress man? invision fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Nov 13, 2011 |
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Nov 13, 2011 00:54
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invision posted:Hah. On that topic, we had a kitchen fire this morning. Lady "just couldn't figure out" how to use her 20+ year old empty fire extinguisher. She called it in, dispatcher told her to leave the house, she refused, then stood ACROSS THE loving KITCHEN throwing handfuls of flour across the room at the fire. A sherrif's deputy was right down the road, and managed the get her out of the house and use his fire extinguisher to get it out. Y'know...sometimes I wonder if we're hurting the species by being so effective. That's literally as bad as throwing gas on a fire. Kashew fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Nov 13, 2011 |
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Nov 13, 2011 01:15
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invision posted:
At that point I would have called someone back to put it out and then the cops. Here if someone calls even for a smoke scare it has to be put out. If we tell you your cool then thank us and move on. Treating people like poo poo trying to be cool to you is Bullshit.
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Nov 14, 2011 19:53
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Crazy Dutchman posted:You are new at this, aren't you. I had this discussion with my wife this afternoon, about how 'helping people' is actually a very small part of firefighting. Most of our runs are because people are either too dumb or too lazy to take care of things themselves. Yup, been on a little over 7 months now in an all volunteer department. I knew people were "dumb" but didn't know they were this dumb on some of the silliest things we get called out on. I've had the discussion with the wife now a few times on "why" I do it, she's finally just gotten use to the pager going off at odd hours of the night and just going right back to sleep, although for a couple of months she threatened to throw "that drat pager" out the window or against the wall a few times haha. invision posted:Oh god and this one... We've had a horrible wildfire season down here, so we're in a burn ban. Was listening the other day and one department actually called the forestry service over the radio for advice about someone burning leaves in their yard without a burning permit even though they were standing out there watching it and had a hose on and ready just in case. Forestry service dude was like well...they don't need a burning permit for that and if they are going to take responsibility and are watching it nothing we can do about, just let them burn the leaves. Fire department comes back and goes "OK, but we are going to put out this little pile that's about 20 feet from the house.  "kicktd fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Nov 16, 2011 |
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Nov 16, 2011 21:28
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Had an interesting call today. Guy went out to their little out building/storage area that's near the house, hears a hissing sound and sees a "blue tank" and books it out and calls 911 reporting it as an unknown gas leak inside a building. Sheriff is already on scene when I get there and just as the rest of everyone gets in the sheriff tells us we can disregard, we go take a look anyways since we're already there. Turns out the guy heard the compressor on his water pump running. Woman was complaining that the neighbor is out to get her or something. Talking about them putting sugar in her gas tank etc. needless to say I booked it out of there as fast as I could.
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Nov 19, 2011 01:54
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New radio charger both charges and drains batteries. It's really a surprise as to what's going to happen when you put the radio on it.
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Nov 19, 2011 02:52
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kicktd posted:Yup, been on a little over 7 months now in an all volunteer department. I knew people were "dumb" but didn't know they were this dumb on some of the silliest things we get called out on. I've seen dumb things that I wouldn't have believed had I not witnessed it personally.
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Nov 19, 2011 02:54
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invision posted:New radio charger both charges and drains batteries. It's really a surprise as to what's going to happen when you put the radio on it. Couple of us were talking about those the other day, suppose to help "save" the battery but at the same time you're kinda SOL if you need to use it not too longer after it goes in the charger unless it's a quick charge sort of deal.
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Nov 19, 2011 04:13
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No, I mean it goes Charge -> Drain -> Dead and doesn't re-charge.
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Nov 19, 2011 04:20
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Oops yeah that's a bad thing. Time to send it back and get a new one, can only imagine what that's doing to the battery itself.
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Nov 19, 2011 05:50
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Today is "Burn down your house while throwing that frozen turkey in a deep fryer day", for those of you on call/working today be safe out there and Happy Thanks giving!
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Nov 24, 2011 13:26
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We managed 0 kitchen/thanksgiving related fires. We had mutual aid for a tanker fire the next town over. I didn't go, but one of the other departments EMT's was hit by an 18 wheeler and lost her arm. Please be safe directing traffic, guys. It's literally one of the most dangerous parts of the job. Only thing we've had was a space heat on the front porch of a trailer house. Burned the vinyl siding off of the house and ran underneath it. Me, being the smallest and the first to pack out, got the awesome job of crawling underneath the trailer house in a space about a foot and a half tall. It also had about 3 inches of water/mud underneath it. poo poo got all inside my bunker gear and was pretty miserable.
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Nov 26, 2011 02:13
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Yeah directing traffic or being on the scene of an MVC is one of the most dangerous parts of our job, forget about going into a burning building, we're trained for that. We're not trained for some nut job behind the wheel of a vehicle not paying attention or not caring and blasting through a scene. Thanksgiving related we only had 1 fire, out building caught on fire. From what I heard something to do with them placing their hot oil from cooking in there or something and cold water/ice hit it. Yeah, not a nice combo there considering all the combustible stuff that was stored in the shed. We were 2nd station due (was in another stations district) but we had both our engines on scene and fire out before their first engine showed up, oh yeah and their station wasn't but about 2 miles away.
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Nov 26, 2011 16:04
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So early this morning (by early I mean about 1:30am) to give mutual aid to a county we border with on a fully involved house fire, get there and I'm with the engine that's on standby and we're staged down the road a good bit from the fire scene in case our district got another call we could clear up and respond, talk about the strongest smell of SULFUR in the air I've ever smelt. The smell like was like what you smell after a major fireworks display. I'm thinking possible meth lab, opinions on what could have caused the smell like that other than possible meth lab?
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Dec 11, 2011 20:29
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kicktd posted:So early this morning (by early I mean about 1:30am) to give mutual aid to a county we border with on a fully involved house fire, get there and I'm with the engine that's on standby and we're staged down the road a good bit from the fire scene in case our district got another call we could clear up and respond, talk about the strongest smell of SULFUR in the air I've ever smelt. The smell like was like what you smell after a major fireworks display. I'm thinking possible meth lab, opinions on what could have caused the smell like that other than possible meth lab? There's an active volcano under the house?
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Dec 11, 2011 21:43
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Some how I wouldn't for a second doubt that option if it was true.
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Dec 12, 2011 00:04
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Really sulfur-y water being used to fight the fire? Maybe the well they were pulling the water from was filtered to hell before being potable. Doubtful that's the case though.
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Dec 12, 2011 03:43
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If I could get a bunker coat that actually fits and isn't made for fatties that would be GREAT. Also I've somehow managed to collect about 3 sets of wildland gear, 2 pairs of gloves, 3 hoods, and two pairs of suspenders. Whoops. e:I really appreciate how no one posts in here for a really long time, then all of a sudden there's 20 new posts.
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Dec 12, 2011 03:48
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invision posted:If I could get a bunker coat that actually fits and isn't made for fatties that would be GREAT. Be glad it's too big and not too small. I went through the first half of FF1 with an inadequate jacket and it sucked. My instructor(who was also our FD's old chief) lent me one of his spares until I got a new one issued by the FD.
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Dec 12, 2011 06:31
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invision posted:e:I really appreciate how no one posts in here for a really long time, then all of a sudden there's 20 new posts. It's no surprise this thread mirrors the fire service: Nothing happens for forever and a day, and then the next thing you know there's 8 calls including a structure fire and a water main break over a 3 hour period during Monday Night Drill.
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Dec 13, 2011 08:18
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No kidding. We had no calls for over a week and now we're running 2-3 calls a day which for our little district is "a lot". I blame it on the "full moon effect".
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Dec 13, 2011 20:37
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NYC finally made up it's mind and announced today that it will be using the standard CPAT for it's upcoming firefighter exam process. I find this amusing because I took the CPAT when I was in the middle of medic school, not exercising, and eating poorly, and I passed. My time was nothing to be proud of but I finished and that's all that matters. Compared to the requirements for their medical clearance or the academy the CPAT is a joke, but I'm assuming the immense pressure to be fair and show no bias/discrimination is what prompted them to pick that.
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Dec 15, 2011 03:30
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senor punk posted:NYC finally made up it's mind and announced today that it will be using the standard CPAT for it's upcoming firefighter exam process. I find this amusing because I took the CPAT when I was in the middle of medic school, not exercising, and eating poorly, and I passed. My time was nothing to be proud of but I finished and that's all that matters. Compared to the requirements for their medical clearance or the academy the CPAT is a joke, but I'm assuming the immense pressure to be fair and show no bias/discrimination is what prompted them to pick that. CPAT is a joke. Any idea how many they are picking up?
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Dec 15, 2011 06:26
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Dim, Tired, and Elderly posted:CPAT is a joke. Any idea how many they are picking up? People? It's hard to say. They likely will need to hire 600 or more in the first year just to make up for all the lost time they've had and get back to a proper head count, from there it's just going to be based on retirements and the assumption that the mayor won't try to close firehouses.
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Dec 15, 2011 07:21
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I HATE HATE HATE AFA's. We got toned out for one this morning, the text message from dispatch told US to to attempt to contact the holders of the business. I won't say what company it was but it's one that advertises a great new system for a very low price on TV, and mind you this wasn't a residential AFA, this was a commercial business. One of our members walked in the front door and they let him know what was going on (testing the sprinkler system, which I am sure they told certain company they would be doing), if only the alarm company would have oh I don't know CALLED THEM FIRST we wouldn't have had to waste time/fuel going out there for nothing. I'm starting to hate alarm companies and AFA's, I know they can save your house but 99% of the time it's false alarms.
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Dec 15, 2011 17:09
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kicktd posted:I HATE HATE HATE AFA's. We got toned out for one this morning, the text message from dispatch told US to to attempt to contact the holders of the business. I won't say what company it was but it's one that advertises a great new system for a very low price on TV, and mind you this wasn't a residential AFA, this was a commercial business. One of our members walked in the front door and they let him know what was going on (testing the sprinkler system, which I am sure they told certain company they would be doing), if only the alarm company would have oh I don't know CALLED THEM FIRST we wouldn't have had to waste time/fuel going out there for nothing. I'm starting to hate alarm companies and AFA's, I know they can save your house but 99% of the time it's false alarms. Get over it? Automatic fire alarms are not going away. Also, in my experience, the alarm company has to call 911 regardless of what the owner has said. We frequently get calls about an automatic alarm where the additional information is "alarm company talked to home owner and its reportedly burnt toast". Still gotta show up. Never know when someone is a total moron and thinks it's just their toast or is trying to burn their house down. Kashew fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Dec 15, 2011 |
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Dec 15, 2011 17:48
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Oh we still show up and have to do a report about it, but it's gotten a lot of the members not just in out fire department but all over the county so desensitized to these sort of calls where people are starting to get really hesitant on running them until a truck or an officer is on scene and confirms a fire. I can understand the calls where someone burnt some evil toast and it set it off, but something like a commercial company doing sprinkler testing, I would think they'd have notified the alarm company about what they were doing, but ya know nothing surprises me anymore.
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Dec 15, 2011 18:33
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Mind you this is a volunteer department, not a paid department. Was first on scene for a power line down call today, of course non of our members except officers have radios so we have NO way to communicate with either units responding or dispatch. We can call dispatches non-emergency line of course, which I did to advise them of the correct address and the current situation so they could advise the power company of the info. about 4-5 minutes later our trucks (1 engine, 1 brush) roll up with one of our Asst. Chiefs in it. Advised the Asst. Chief of the situation and that I had called and advised communications of the situation so they could advise the power company of the situation etc. and next thing I know the Asst. Chief is jumping my butt because I called communications to let them know of the situation. His reason was "If they are busy they don't need to be tied up with you calling them." now mind you I called the NON-EMERGENCY number which they are free the ignore if they are busy, and I have no other way to get in contact with either the people responding or communications via radio, as we don't have any issued to us "peons". Then I found out our VFD has no SOP's or SOG's in place because they threw them out and are suppose to be "reworking" them so all the officers are pretty much free at will to make up any rules they want on the spot . I've already had officers tell me different "guidelines/rules" on the same subject and each one contradicted what the other one said.So basically for the next calls we get when I get on scene I'm suppose to just stand there and twiddle my thumbs and look pretty. Sorry about that just had to rant a little and get this bullshit off my chest.
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Dec 17, 2011 20:28
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 I was gonna say something about y'all being hosed up, but I was directing traffic on Rt. 1 in the middle of the road today and I didn't have a radio either and definitely could have used one. But our SOP just got reworked, I guess.
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Dec 18, 2011 01:35
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It's one of the problems with having rotating leadership...everyone wants to write their own rules and tweak existing plans how they see fit. I'm used to the "no way to communicate", though. I used to live on campus at college and I would just drive to the building that an alarm was at and just wait outside for an engine to arrive by myself or with the few other members at my school. We used to call the station though, and notify them that we were there and would pass any info to them. Kashew fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Dec 18, 2011 |
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Dec 18, 2011 01:39
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