The Narrowing
Facing backwards like a real firefighter, I ask Captain 2 Brandon, “So, where do you see yourself in ten years?”. It was a small joke and he said something about normally being asked about five years into the future, or something like that. I’m not really sure of his exact response because the doors on Engine 31 were slamming shut at the time.
Engine 33 was already heading to a boat awning on fire when the second call resulting from the storm came in. Call #1 happened while Chiefs 1 and 2, and FFs Danielle, Mitch and me were interviewing Captain 2 Brandon about being Captain 1 in the conference room. FF / Operator Alan was standing by in the muster room to be interviewed next for the same position. The call about a boat awning (or anything outside) on fire struck me as curious, given the torrent of rain sweeping across Columbia County.
A crew who was not participating in the interviews was formed to head off to the burning awning, and we continued with the interview. But we are not so big of a department that we can have a crew in action on one call, and take seven people out of the staffing equation for a second call, and get there quickly. So, with Call #2, the interviewers and interviewees stopped interviewing and headed out into the storm. Alan at the wheel, Chief 2 in the Officer’s seat, Sarge, Mitch, Cpt. 2 Brandon and me in back.
I was in back sitting backwards like a real firefighter not just because the zen calm of not seeing what you’re about to face until you are first to jump out the door is one of the lowkey cool parts of wearing a black helmet, but because I’m too tall. The back of 31 ain’t big. So there’s nowhere for my legs to go if I’m in one of the forward-facing seats (Truck 32, same). Thus, the small joke opportunity was Cpt. Brandon and I were face to face and I just pretended the interview had moved from the conference room to the back of Engine 31.
The call wasn’t much; mostly standing in the rain next to cows while waiting for the power company to arrive and deal with the arcing powerline. First, the sagging line was setting fire to some pine trees. Then the line dropped and was humming the deadly hum and crackle of electricity meeting water along the ground while burning understory. The rain kept the fire from spreading, so we were just there to monitor it, keep people away and be ready to act if the fire started into the forest. Idle man chat commenced.
Idle man chat is a staple of the fire service while waiting on scene for something out of our control. Problem being, I am terrible at it. Always have been, and it don’t get any easier for a city kid standing in the middle of some (ever gorgeous) Wisconsin field / farm / forest combo. My truck-purchasing / hunting / meat-smoking body of conversation material is pitifully small, to say the least. So I typically end up saying … well … the least.
I did go on a short urban-planning tirade about street width. To little effect.
Anyway, sometime after Chief 2 ran past the traffic radar sign to kill some time and see how fast he was (7 mph) the power dude making $500 an hour on overtime (guessing) arrived and shut down the line. The sparks and deadly ground hum stopped. The rain picked up and the fire went out and the cows went inside. Back to the station we went; six wet dogs with the windows rolled down. One of them with an inexplicable narrow street fetish.
Back to the conference room, and much more in my conversational element. Having interviewed a thousand plus public employee candidates over a three decade public service career, I’m well-practiced at keeping the discussion light and moving along at an efficient pace but every now and then daggering in with a piercing follow-up, friendfully presented. A couple hundred employees thusly hired over the span of years and only two (three?) of them subsequently flaming out because they went behaviorally sideways is a pretty fair record.
Nobody’s perfect, which is what you’re really trying to get to in an interview. Why this? How that? Where have you been and with who? What have you learned? What have you created? Where are you going, and do we want to go with you?
Both Brandon and Alan do well in the interviews, to no one’s surprise. Both smart, earnest, contemplative young men with an evident public servant’s heart, PDFD is lucky to have them, and even more lucky to have them take the extra step of volunteering to lead. We have some closed session discussion and then I make a couple motions which garner seconds and unanimous votes of the Personnel Committee. That’ll all become evident in the days ahead.
What was more evident, standing in the rain with the cows and the arcing powerline and the idle man chat interrupting what could otherwise be framed as a competition between two members for one spot, is how lucky we all are to be with PDFD at this moment in time. Two guys ostensibly competing for something with three guys determining who gets the something, and it could not have been any more supportive* and good-natured.
PDFD is a damn fine crew, as concerned with caring for each other as they are the citizens we serve.
Real firefighters all, no matter which way they sit.
* well ... somebody could have said, “you're right Craig, a twenty-one foot wide street is more than adequate”
