Normalizing Deviance

When do you stop questioning unsafe practices and without actually verbalizing it accept short cuts as the real world way to do it?  At what point in our OJT (on the job training) do we get the mental enema and stop thinking "this isn't right?"  Yeah, peer pressure, new guy, go along to get along.  But when it finally catches up with the crew watch out because the longer something has been avoided the more it seems to hurt when your number is up.

Stay safe, be safe, work safe.  Yeah the grammar sucks but it's easier to apologize to your English teacher than to a grieving family member. 

Yeah, that's me

I am stunned by the illiterate, uneducated, and mean spirited rants that I see personally and via comments on the internet.  Where is our civility?  That's where I come into the picture.

I have been a fireman for 30 plus years.  I don't know squat, but I have a long memory and a sense of being "The Last Responder" not a "First Responder."  No one calls us at zero dark thirty because we are the first number they came across.  They call us because in their protected little world they have reached the stone wall and there is no other alternative they can think of to remedy or mitigate their problem.  They need to be rescued.

When I arrive I will solve their problem because I've become an informed risk taker by watching and learning from people, printed media, and the internet.  Embracing all of them to prepare me to think straight through the problem to its conclusion.  I'm not getting a cramp from patting myself on the back, it's what is expected of me.  It's what is expected of us.

Fireman, firefighter ambulance driver, EMT paramedic, rescue guy, haz-mat.  I don't care what you call us, we are responsible for all of it.  Embrace it, learn it, and for crying out loud be safe doing it.