Episode 041 - Two Phones (The Wives Part 2)

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Often, the longer you are with an organization, the more your responsibilities increase. Get enough responsibility and this means you are now carrying a personal and work phone. And you’re required to be available by phone, text, and email 24/7, which basically means your spouse and family are also available.

This episode with our wives covers a lot of ground. We get their opinions on whether we see ourselves as we are, or do we see ourselves as we want to be? We talk at length about how work impacts the home in ways that only our spouses might perceive. Not just stress or bad calls that we bring home with us, but how our decisions at work affect them. Did you ask your spouse before you put in for that promotion? For that new station assignment? Have you considered how it will affect him/her?

Episode 039 - Optimism, Pessimism, and Reality

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Do you consider yourself a glass half-full or half-empty person? What would others say about you?

In this episode we discuss the nature of optimism versus pessimism. We debate whether the fire service is an inherently optimistic occupation. Or is a pessimistic view of the world an unavoidable by-product of the line of work we do and the suffering we see? Can you be optimistic and still face the realities of a situation? How seductive is the allure of pessimism, and how hard it is to maintain optimism?

Episode 038 - Off the Hook with Mike Chester

For this episode, Mike Chester calls in with a question for the group. Chester asked, “What do you tell a good, and I mean good, Fireman/EMT who is so jaded with the departmental politics that it affects their passion for the job?” We all probably know someone on the job who fits that description, and each of the group has a suggestion for Chester on how to approach this particular problem. (In keeping with Combustible tradition we avoid offering anything that might resemble a clear-cut solution.)

Episode 037 - Off The Hook with Captain Rick Meyers

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For this episode, Captain Rick Meyers (Ret.) calls in with a question for the group. Rick was actually one of our first guests back when we started the podcast, and that episode (Episode 004) is very worth a listen. Rick’s question was: “What departments have tool assignments and riding positions in their policies and procedures?” We tackle that question and give it some heavy consideration, as well as a bunch of other things Rick wants to talk about.

Episode 036 - Am I A Good Firefighter? (What Makes A Good Firefighter Part 2)

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This episode wasn’t intended to be an episode, but sometimes we have private discussions and the “record” button gets pushed. This was the conversation that followed our previous episode, “What Makes A Good Firefighter.” When we ended that episode, we couldn’t stop talking about the subject. If you haven’t listened to that episode yet, we suggest you start there.

Where in the previous episode we debated what makes a good firefighter, we now turn the magnifying glass and assess what we think about ourselves as firefighters. What follows is perhaps the most honest conversation we’ve put out yet. We admit some really uncomfortable stuff, but that’s what this whole thing is about, right? Combustible was started because we wanted to capture those honest discussions we have around the station kitchen table. This episode is the closest we’ve gotten to that goal so far. Let us know what you think.

Episode 035 - What Makes A Good Firefighter?

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It seems like a pretty simple question. If you were to ask the public what makes a good firefighter, they probably wouldn’t hesitate to tell you. But asking a group of firefighters is quite a bit more problematic.

On this episode, we explore what each of us thinks a good firefighter is. We get Lt. Danny Dwyer’s perspective and debate whether you can teach someone to be courageous. Then things get really interesting in what is one of our most contentious and lively debates. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Episode 034 - Listener Responses: It All Comes Down To...

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We’ve recently started asking weekly fill-in-the-blank questions on our Facebook page, and the first question generated a lot of great responses. In this episode we talk about our listener responses to the question, “It all comes down to _____.” Sitting in for Hatch is one of those listeners, Payton Owens, who helps us discuss and theorize about what our listeners meant.

Episode 033 - Fast Track Or The Wrong Track?

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Fast Tracking…Lateral Transfer…Whatever you want to call it…The idea of bringing persons into your organization who are already trained (and possibly experienced) can be pretty enticing. It eliminates the insecurity of putting someone through a lengthy academy (which you have no guarantee they will graduate.) It’s vastly cheaper than spending $50,000 per recruit to hire and certify a firefighter (one metro-Atlanta department’s estimate), and it takes a fraction of the time. So it’s a hands-down win, right? Not so fast.

The whole idea of fast tracking is predicated on the certification component. It gets considerably more messy when we start to consider the different types of certifications for firefighters that are out there, and to what extent we are willing to trust a piece of paper to tell us about a person’s abilities before we put them on a truck or by our side in a burning building.

For this episode, we explore the complexities of fast tracking: How do you verify skills that the holder of a certification supposedly has? To what extent do you go? Why do we accept some certifications at face value but not others? What are the legal and moral obligations of fast tracking someone? Is there an acceptable level of risk and uncertainty involved in fast track programs?

As per usual, we have more questions than answers, but we hope our discussion prompts discussion wherever you are. Please follow us on Facebook, leave us your comments there or on this page, and you can always email us at info@combustiblethepodcast.com. Thanks for listening.

Episode 032 - Connor's A Peach

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Most of us probably have someone that we call a “mentor,” but that’s a really vague label for something that we probably haven’t thought enough about. If someone else considers you a mentor, are you living up to that person’s expectations of that relationship? Are you even aware that they consider you a mentor? And are you really mentoring, or are you coaching?

For this episode, we use a TedTalk (that Bill prepared as a class assignment) as a jumping off point for a discussion on mentoring and coaching. Most of us don’t have experience with formal mentoring programs, so we end up making it up as we go. Bill did that and got it all wrong. What if we’re all doing it wrong?