Calvin Johnson Jr. posted:

So I took my firefighting entry exam earlier this week - one question has me kinda conflicted. I mean, I only need a 70 to pass so it shouldn't matter. It was just a lot of phrasing designed to throw you off. For example, they gave us a formula where you solve for a variable and then multiply it with the others. I put the "right" answer down according to the equation and then realized they were just asking for a single variable of it. I didn't get to review my exam before I turned it in so that has me nervous. Everyone is telling me not to worry but I can't help but wonder if I missed something else like that. One of the questions was a simple "if you turn this cog one way how many cogs turn counter-clockwise" but it was worded in a way to where it was sort of ambiguous if you included the original cog in your count. It'll be two weeks until I find out but I'm more nervous about this than when I took my NCLEX to get my RN.

Anyways, the question was something like, "You just finished putting out a fire in a home and see a fellow fireman put $50 from a drawer into his pocket, what do you do?" (It was worded to where it wasn't clear he was stealing.)

I think I overthought it, the answers were something like:

A. (Can't remember but definitely wrong.)
B. Tell the supervisor
C. Ask him what he is doing.
D. Say nothing.

I chose C because in this scenario it didn't clearly state he was stealing so it seemed irresponsible to go over his head without confronting him first. I figured I could make a better judgment on doing B if I performed C first. It's plausible he was removing it from the scene; it's not like I know the protocols yet. The more I think about it though, the correct answer they were looking for was to tell the supervisor? If I saw someone doing something sketchy, I would ask them before reporting them because that would still allow me to tell the supervisor afterwards if they were obviously stealing. It's one of those real world vs. 'in a vacuum' questions, I guess. I feel like you should always start conflict at the lowest level then escalate as necessary. Going over someone's head and accusing them of theft to their superior seems like the second level of ethical escalation in this scenario. It was worded in such a way that I couldn't tell if it was a trick question or not.

God, it's sad how much I'm overthinking this exam. I just hate that it will be two weeks before I get the results.