Of all the most ridiculous articles I have ever read. I didn't know it was in the job discription that we must entertain desk jockey news reporters who 'spy' on fire trucks from her window. Well, since your grossly misinformed, firefighters do take an annual physical evaluating medical and physical capacity. All firefighters went thru rigorous training and I will go through hell with any one of my co-workers as we do regularly. If your intentionally committing arson just to f...
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!['This individual posted a open question to his page. He has since tightened the security and removed his middle name hoping you won't find him; assuming he got plenty of replies already. In case he didn't get the response he understood, here is ours:
Your taxes pay for highly trained & qualified individuals to respond to situations that you can't handle. We must be physically & mentally prepared for whatever comes our way. I assume @[103405016381415:274:Las Vegas Fire & Rescue Department] doesn't have equipment in their firehouse, they have to go to a local gym. The City of NY doesn't provide us with a membership so we must find our own equipment for the firehouse. I assume if you were a mentally competent taxpayer, you'd approve this 100% being that these individuals are the one's coming to help you. And, no, we don't get a break to do anything including working out. So try doing your workout, being able to be interrupted to throw on 100lbs of gear and crawl into a fire with no break in between.
No, the city doesn't pay for our food. Once again, your a human being just like us, you eat Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner, so do we. The local Fairway Supermarket my firehouse shops at know's where we always have to ditch our shopping cart because we were interrupted to respond while shopping. And, of course, the meals getting interrupted; put the chicken on the grill but gotta take it off 1/2 cooked hoping to be able to salvage it when you return, or the burnt fries in the oven because we forgot to turn it off when we ran out the door.
Collecting money in boots- is raising money for a charity a bad thing? In NYC, you don't see us on the streets with boots; traffic is bad enough as is. There are 10,000+ firefighters in NYC. Every year every firehouse pays into MDA. Sometimes t-shirts are made and purchased for good causes, most recently a Staten Island firehouse made up an FDNY Autism Awareness t-shirt to make money for research. Once again, that comes out of our pocket to donate.
We only work half the time... Well, we actually have longer work weeks than regular jobs. We work 24 hours, which comes to 48 hour work week, 8 hours more than a regular work week. After working a 24 hour shift in my firehouse, one of the busiest in NYC, it takes 24 hours to recoup, mentally & physically. I'm not sure who told you we sleep, have you ever tried to sleep knowing that you need to jump at a seconds notice & always bring your 'A' game? Ever wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, stumble around, barely able to see? Well, if you stumble around in a firehouse 1/2 awake, you fall down a pole hole. If you forget your equipment in the firehouse, you can't perform your duties & someone may die. So, no, we don't sleep, we rest between alarms, always ready for the next.
Being a firefighter is the most rewarding job there is, it is also the most stressful at times. We have to adapt to this strange way of life. Life isn't the same, we don't wake up 5 days a week for a 9-5 job. We can't establish a routine. We are always on the go, ready to adapt to change. Our body gets an adrenaline rush numerous times per tour that we must compensate for. Mentally we need to slow down even though our heart is racing, The driver needs to get us there safe, even though the dispatcher is telling us people are hanging out of windows or a baby is still inside the burning home. If only the city did supply chefs to cook our food while we are out, but we learned to deal with putting it on hold because we were called to turn your water off because you clogged the toilet but didn't know how to stop the water. If you think that last one is a joke, it's not. Everyone calls firefighters for help, no matter what it is. We double up as locksmiths or plumbers, just so you can save a buck and avoid calling the real masters of the trade. Firemen are human beings just doing the job required. You won't understand until you did it.
The city gives us minimal allowance for basic necessities such as paper towels or toilet paper, nothing to do with food. In NYC, we call it a firehouse, not a station, that's because it is our home away from home. Plates, cups, food, beverages, tv, couches, even the cable bill comes out of our own pockets. Your tax dollars stops on the fire trucks and equipment. When your home during the holidays because your job has to give you off, we are still here. You will never get an answering machine when you call 911. I don't think you want to do our job.... but maybe next time instead of asking social media, why don't you man-up and ask them riding that fire truck personally.'](https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/p110x80/11873507_884664791611068_999558101044157065_n.jpg?oh=2de2d888d1069e52cce5eb2305aca11e&oe=566A9A75)
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