Limitations

Limitations. You've got to know your own....

Since I left Valhalla and came to the new place, I haven't seen much work. In fact, I haven't seen much of anything besides the inside of the station, the screen of my laptop, and textbooks for college classes. Needless to say, I'm getting rusty. It's been almost 9 months since I was truly responsible for knowing 'my' engine; I've been relegated to the back seat, for what seems like eternity. On the rare occasion that we do go train, it's more like a quiz than an informative or refresher session. I can't help but feel I'm expected to fail, and that I'm treated like I know nothing.

Don't get me wrong... I know it's my ultimate responsibility for knowing my job, my apparatus, and how I should be doing things. But, don't expect me to know intuitively how things are done here, when we NEVER practice them as a team. It took a good while for my crew back in Valhalla to 'gel', to work together seamlessly. And it took a lot of practice, which we did frequently. Here? Not so much. I'm supposed to just 'know' how the Captain wants it done, how the Engineer is going to operate the truck, which line to pull, what tool to grab, etc........ Train me, and I will excel. Don't, and I will languish. I know my limitation: I don't have the motivation to go do all this crap by myself, when I won't be doing it myself in the real world. If no-one else wants to go train, how do you expect ME to be the only motivated person? I can't practice OUR way of doing things by MYSELF, right?

Enough said.

What I started to write about, what gave me the idea for this post, is something my father-in-law did today. See, he's disabled, blind and stubborn, and lives with my Wife and me. He refuses to accept his limitations, and he's going to get himself killed. He's lucky, truly lucky, it didn't happen today...

We live on a generous piece of property, with lots of grass to mow. The grassy areas are divided by a stream, something just big enough to be hazardous if you're not careful. Not too deep, unless you're down by the dam and bridge, where it's around 8 feet on the downstream side of the waterfall. Yep, waterfall. It's a little bit of heaven in my own back yard.

So, how did Dad almost kill himself? He's got very limited eyesight, can't see distance reliably, and can't make out detail at all. He CANNOT drive a motor vehicle. That would be a major limitation, right? If you can't see details, like the edge of the stream, you shouldn't be driving a motor vehicle right next to it... Especially not a motor vehicle with two razor-sharp blades, turning at a high rpm... and even more so when that motor vehicle with said blades offers absolutely no protection from roll-overs or tipping, and the blades don't have an auto-shut-off feature.
For those of you reading ahead, yes, you got it... Dad drove the BRAND NEW lawn tractor off the edge and right into the stream. I haven't even had the chance to mow with it yet; my Wife keeps beating me to it, mowing while I'm stuck at work. The mower has been used TWO times before today. Not sure if it's going to be used after today...

Now, of course you're asking, why the hell was a disabled (can't walk without a walker), blind man riding a lawn tractor on the edge of a stream where he could fall in and drown? EXCELLENT question. I'd like to know too; I'm at work today, and the Wife is in another state aiding her mother, who just had a massive stroke. Hell, we even talked about NOT MOWING today, because it's rained constantly for the past week and the ground is still too wet...

So, I get the phone call this evening. Dad wants a credit card number... to pay the tow truck. What tow truck? The one he called BEFORE calling ME or his daughter, to tow the mower out of the stream. He waited until the wrecker had come and gone, the mower is back in the garage, and there's nothing I can do from here but fume... Dad tells me he went into the stream, and almost drowned. He had to crawl -yes CRAWL- back to the house to get the phone, change his clothes, call the tow truck, have the mower put back in the garage. Oh, and he lost one of his shoes. The ones that are specially-made for his feet, due to his medical conditions. I hope that it's still there in the water, since they're so heavy. It probably didn't wash away, yet. I guess tomorrow will tell how much damage is done, and if the mower's a loss. If it is, so be it. The old man is alive, not injured (or so he says), and the material loss is not as important.

The rant is leading somewhere, I promise. Dad knows very well that he cannot drive a motor vehicle, due to his limited eyesight. Yet he choses to ignore this fact, and push the issue. Today's incident very easily could have been a tragedy; Dad easily could have been trapped under the mower when it went in, and he is not strong enough to lift it. He would have drowned, or if not, would have suffered hypothermia and THEN drowned. And because of where we live, no one would have seen him until I get home from work tomorrow morning. All this because he doesn't want to admit that he can't see well enough to safely operate the lawn tractor.

Limitations exist, and we MUST learn to exist within them. Failing to do so will eventually be fatal. Whether it's your life, or the life of one of your crew. Is that really worth it? I don't think so. Know yourself, know your own limitations, and know the limitations of your crewmembers. Our safety depends on it.

Stay safe, take care of each other, and take care of the job. In that order.

The case of the Complacent Complainants...

A who-dunnit indeed. First, an explanation for absence, though it's my blog so I really shouldn't have to.

Being the perpetual student, I resumed my education by pursuing a Master's Degree in Occupational Safety and Health. What the HELL was I thinking? It's hard to be motivated to write a blog post when you're writing a thousand-plus words a week on topics like machine guarding, OSHA compliance, safety interlocks, etcetera etcetera etcetera. Yeah, yeah, I can hear you now... "no excuse" you say, and you're right. However, there it is. My excuse has been entered. Accept it or not, that's on you.

Still here? Good, now let's move on to something of substance.

Today's training was vehicle extrication, something near and dear to me. I guess the destructive nature of it, combined with the desire to help, just gets me revved. We started early, got out to the training grounds right away after roll-call and truck checks. Laid out the tools, fired up the pumps, and... the O-cutters on the driver's side of the rescue are missing the front handle! WTF, why is this tool still on the truck? What will the Worker's Comp investigator say when one of the firefighters gets hurt using this tool? "Claim not payable" due to preventable conditions; basically, you should have known better than to use it in the first place, being that it's broken.

Then I come to find out, yesterday's shift USED the tool, in that condition, to do their drill. Again, WTF??? We immediately took the cutters off the truck, replaced them with cutters off our second-due engine, and did the training. How hard was that? Not hard, probably about as difficult as making a pot of coffee. No, check that, it was way easier than making a pot of coffee, given the variables involved there. Dark roast, strong, weak, espresso, decaf, too much grounds, too little grounds, taking a cup while it's still brewing... Station wars have started over lesser things than coffee. But, I digress- it was a non-event to take the tool out of service, so what was the issue for yesterday's crew? God forbid they actually had to run an extrication call last night, and needed that very tool to save a life? How do you justify such complacency? What's the thought process involved in saying, "This tool is missing a critical piece of its basic design. I think I'll leave it in service on the front-line rescue truck."???

So, the title is the case of the Complacent Complainants. It just so happens, the crew that failed to do the right thing, is the crew that seems to complain about 'Everything'. Dishes get left in the dishwasher at shift change? They're bitching to the Captains. Fridge doesn't get cleaned out on Monday? They're bitching to the Captains. Truck left dirty after a long night of chasing alarms? You got it, they're bitching to the Captains. OH, but wait, they would NEVER do that themselves, right? WRONG, they are we, and we are they... that is, they make the same mistakes, errors, omissions; leave the same dishes, forget to empty the trash, don't wash the truck off... and guess who didn't clean out the fridge this past Monday? Not my shift, I can assure you of that.

OK, I've just wasted how much of your life, rambling about whatever... What's my point, right? It's this: If you're going to do something, do it. Recognize the safety hazards that should be blatantly obvious, and correct them IMMEDIATELY. Not 'next shift', or 'in the morning', those will always get pushed off and forgotten. Just freakin' do it. And don't be surprised when another crewmember gets in your shit for complaining about the little things, if you're going to be too complacent to take care of what actually matters. The job comes first, all the other stuff after.

 If we can't do our jobs, what good are we? Just more government workers, fulfilling the stereotype.... What ammunition do we have to avoid layoffs, as are affecting so many of our Brothers and Sisters across this Nation? It's pretty damn hard to justify your existence when you can't do what you're getting paid for, so make sure you've got all the tools all the time. And that they all work WHEN you need them, not after its too late. Don't complain about the little things, just correct them. Don't let your legacy in this job be the failure you could have prevented.

That's it. I've rambled enough, and hopefully there's at least one whole thought stuffed in all those words. I promise to TRY to post more regularly, as if that really means anything at all.

Stay safe, take care of each other and take care of the job. In that order.