Today’s story is about different communications styles in our work environment. I can’t tell this story without using the actual colorful language that you might hear around the fire ground. So I apologize if my language offends anyone. If you have tender ears, you might want to bypass this week’s story. For those of you still brave enough to listen, you’re sure to get a chuckle if not more. Even though the stories this week are humorous, as usual there is a bigger point to be made. And as often the case, the message has to do with communications on the fire ground. I will not be suggesting that the F Bomb is my preferred communications tool. But you’ll hear when I used it and got the desired outcome. Besides the instances in this week’s story, I have many more that I could use to illustrate the point.
Although this story takes place in New York City following the 9-11 attacks, it is not about the incident itself. If you want to hear about my experiences following the attack, I posted a story about 9-11 on September 12th 2019. Episode 13. That story is quite serious. This is not. And I do not want to disrespect anyone since the setting for today’s story is NYC following that horrible day. It just so happens to be my first exposure to New York City Cops and Firefighters. We were all tired, stressed and over worked. Sometimes you just get some funny results from that combination.
Huge thanks to those of you who are out on the firelines this summer. Your work keeps us, our loved ones and our property safe from wildfires. And also thanks for those of you non-firefighter listeners. You all make this effort worthwhile for me. Hope you enjoy this week’s story and as always, please share my website with your friends.
BobbieOnFire 
This episode was hilarious! A couple weeks ago on a hand crew severity assignment they had married up my 10-person with another districts who we had had previous conflicts with. One of the days during PT (I’m a slow runner and I was encouraging these two band new girls from the other district on their running since they had never really ran before) One of the guys from the other district was passing me and told me “Either keep up or get the fuck out of the way” to which I eloquently replied “Fuck off you Fucking Fuck” and his squad boss heard our little exchange. His squad boss had been one of the main reasons for the division on the crew and didn’t say anything(He and I have had a few years of having different leadership styles and not getting along). Further into the run, the guy who yelled at me was only encouraging the people on his crew and not talking to my crew at all. I was getting ready to blow up on this dude again so it was entirely surprising to me when his squad boss screamed at him “I know what you’re doing and you need to stop” His squad boss put him in his place and I think it was because I was about to unleash some more F bombs at him which I don’t really do.
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Way to go. Judicious use of the f-bomb. I wouldn’t say it was a precision strike. It was more like a carpet bombing. LOL
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Reblogged this on One Foot In the Office and commented:
Check out my friend’s audio blog. Bobbie retired after 40 years in fire and has been a great mentor to me. Her stories are fantastic.
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Not just NY firefighters that you have to hold your own with. There are many fire chiefs I have had to do the same thing with, minus the Fbombs.
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I thoroughly enjoyed your story. You and I have something in common; I too worked in NYC after the attack on the WTC. I was on that SW type 1 team who was flown to NY in the early hours of 9/12. I think it was 3-4 days into the assignment when we were asked if we could assist the FDNY. Our immediate response was yes, even though we weren’t sure what they needed. It turned out they needed help with coordination amongst the entities working at the pile, logistical support and documenting the search and recovery efforts. The team’s planning section moved to the Duane street firehouse and worked there for the duration of our assignment-about 34 days. They developed the first IAP the dept had ever seen, let alone used. I totally relate to adopting New York language style and the use of certain choice words. We all started talking that way but careful over using the F bomb. PS, glad that you used the term pile to refer to the devastation. In the early days of the recovery efforts I don’t remember anyone using ground zero, except, maybe the media.
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