Stormy Weather

For the past few weeks, well maybe months have had a lot pressure on me from several fronts.  That in self is not special, but the compound effect is starting to have an effect on me physically.  My sleep pattern is now one of about 6 hours, then suddenly wide awake and the brain going 90mph.  Then later in the day, I run out of gas, most days could use a nap.  Many days I find myself stopping the truck and sleeping along side the road or in a rest area for 20-30 minutes. That will usually get me through the rest of the day, but then I found myself complete spent by 6PM and ready for bed, but if I go then, I will be awake by 1 or 2 in the morning.  So I try and stay up till 10 so that I can at least sleep till 6.  This morning it was 5AM when I awoke, did a couple of small things on the computer for work, will make this post and start the day.  Have to make several calls this morning, not sure how one will go as the needed information has still not come to me, guess I will call the guy from FEMA and see what he says.  Have several customers to see up north today and will take my wife with me, as this will be the only day we will have to spend together this week.  Have training three nights this week, and my training officer is out of town, so that leaves me to do the job. Hopefully I can get my deputy chief involved but not sure I am the best person to train him on the equipment.  Lately, he has been avoiding some of the more potentially stress things and I wonder if he has some fear about doing them now since he had a heart attack a couple of years ago.   He is not doing much to endear himself with some of the other members either, as it seems that when it comes to pack cleaning and hose repacking, he seems to find something else to do.  Sometimes I think he thinks that doing that is not part of what his job is now that he is the deputy chief.  You know, Chiefs don't do that stuff.   Well guess what, in some departments they may not, but in our little paid on call department, NO ONE is exempt from dirty work.  On calls we all get the same pay. Sent letters to three potential new members inviting them to join the department.  Only one responded.  The other two didn't answer the letter or my phone calls.   I guess I didn't need them as I already have several who level of interest is just barely above no interest at all.  We will be doing drivers training this week end and have several firefighters who have still not signed up for the competency course.  I think if they don't get that done this week, I will notify them that they  are not to drive a department vehicle until they have completed the course.  It takes about 6 hours of work to set the course up and assemble all of the equipment to do it.  Than the instructors have to take two full days of their time to be there. That is a major expense that we incur, to just have several people blow off,  I think not.  For many departments, this is something that either they do yearly, or not at all.  We do the course every other year, and cover the classroom the other year. I think with the several people that I have who are always not getting things done, and who seem to never find the station for a call, I might just tell them maybe they need a different way to serve their community.  I spent far too much time dealing with too few people that make this job trying.  As for the day job, have a lot to do with that right now.  Need to take a test I haven't even studied for, and that needs to be done by the end of the month.  We do it on line so I can do it anytime I want, just don't want to.  Also need to read a book about customer service.  I was someone would right a book about how to be a good customer.  It seems that while only a few of mine fit this group, it is a very loud, demanding, and also not very well managed group.  They for the most part are as a group, very self centered, greedy, arrogant, and at times push the envelope of what is ethical and legal.  People are a tool to be used, and unless you are on their level, your needs and wants, and life in general have not matter to them, and as such, should not effect them, so deal with it.   I really like these people,  NOT.
On the family side, daughter-in-law just lost her brother to a accident, her whole family took it real hard.  He was like an older brother to several of my grandchildren, so it had a wide impact on the whole family.  Youngest daughter is due any day to have her baby.  This will be the first of three in the next 5 months.   All three will be C-sections, as all three have problems.   She is not telling us what it will be, as she and her husband have not even learned it.  My granddaughter and I were coming home one day from a friends house and we made up names for the baby.  She wanted old fashion names, so we settled on for a girl. Pocahontas Sacajawea, and for the boy  CrazyHorse SittingBull.   Not much older than that.   Two grandsons start the high school football journey this week, well one will, the other has to set for 4 weeks because he has a commitment to his 4H project that his mother will not let him out of.   I agree with the mother, my problem is with the coach, to set him one week, okay, but half the season for being obedient to a parent.  That is a little extreme.  I need to check this out before I go off the deep end, but it sounds like a bunch of adults suppose to Be's are acting very child like.  I think the schools, and the fair people need to be locked in a room, and told to solve this problem or you will die there.  I think each group is in a power struggle because what they are doing is soooo important in their eyes.   Particularly, football.  I have seen to many coaches who think they are GOD, and we all should fall down and worship the might football.  I seriously question if any coach really cares all that much with character building, and development of their students.   It is about me, my record, my goals, my my my.   Having had 6 children who played 9 different sports and all earned letters, I only came across two (2) coaches that I really think care more about the kids, than they did about how the team did or how they looked or what there record was.   I know of several that were definitely the other way.  Looking back, off all the sports they were in, two standout.  One for good ( High School Wrestling) and one that had a very negative effect (High School Football).  That doesn't even take into count the cost of one in terms of injures and the financial cost that our family had to pay because of them.

With a lot on my plate in the next few weeks, and I didn't mention an up coming missions conference that I am in no way prepared for, and my committee has not given me any feed back from earlier communications, I keep thinking that I should just take my wife and run away.  Not tell anyone, just leave and let the whole mess just collapse into a heap.  Well I am ready to start work, unfortunately, most people are not ready to start at 6:20AM.   They don't start until 9-10.  Well maybe it is not too early to call a few, after all they will be awake after the answer the phone.

Maybe time to pack it in

Have had a very frustrating couple of weeks,  had a garage and house fire that we only turned one more than half the department for.  Not sure where the rest of the people were, but we were really short handed for a while.  Than we had a couple of minor calls, again almost no one showed.  The top of the cake so to speak was an activated fire alarm on the lake shore that show only four guys answer.  I drove the tanker alone.  Got just the mini and the tanker out on the call.  Our lack of response to these a long with a four person response on a major accident on the freeway has got me thinking along several lines.  One, we may need to have mutual aid respond to all our calls until we get more available people.  This would be a major change and one I am not sure would be well received by almost no one.  My first responsibility is to the residents, and if that is the only way to insure an adequate response, then that is what we need to do, regardless of the embarrassment it causes us as a department.  I have asked repeatedly for ideas to improve this from my officers and so far have gotten the same number as I have lifetime home runs,  Zero.  At this point it is not feasible to have a paid crew on during the day because of lack of call volume and cost.  Today we had a call and I was about half way between the call and the station.  Went back to the station, and responded with a truck and two other firefighters.  If it had been last week Wednesday, 2/3 of that crew would have not be available.  If it had been ten minutes later today, I would have been first on scene, but we would have had not truck for a while.  Don't know what to do about it.  It is causing a loss of sleep, I am short tempered with people, and have to bite my lip to keep from cutting loose on a few of them.   I came home this evening after having dinner with some high school friends, and made a mental list of what I wouldn't have to do if I quit the fire department.   It would free up three nights a month, no more planning things around meetings.  No more county officer's meeting, which by in large are a waste of time, so much talk so little action.  I would have two nights a week free because I wouldn't be teaching in the academy this fall and winter.  It would give me about three hours on Saturday and a couple of Sunday afternoon to do other things rather than sit and fill out grant applications, insurance review papers, budget planning and where to move money to funds that are over budget, and all sorts of other things that no one ever told me about.   I have reached the point that some of these things are just going to no get done, or on second thought I will hand them to my deputy chief and let him do them, than again if he handles them like he has handled the SOP for vehicle extraction and the station cleaning  assignment, they will never get done.   Right now, I think I should go to bed as my level of burn is slowly raising   Night all.