BobbieOnFire

How we react to tough and challenging situations at work can determine our successes and failures. It’s not always easy to know how to respond to bullies and negative people who can have a direct impact upon our lives and careers. Sometimes we’re dealing with a boss who is the bully and sometimes we have […]

When first responders work long hours, are under pressure to protect lives and property, they can often become exhausted from the pressures of the job. This week I illustrate some examples of what that might look like. The examples I site are just a few and are not at all complete in any way. The […]

In the fire service I’ve often said that the worst thing that can happen to a well functioning crew with good attitude is having no fires or no emergency calls. Even though we always had lots of work to do around the station or out on projects, the attitude would sink into the toilet when […]

This week’s story takes place when I was a Captain on a Fire Department years ago. It was really just a routine medical call. But while responding and even treating the patient we really didn’t know it was just a routine call. There was mystery involved. Initially we had no clue what we were even […]

Back in 1996 I had recently quit my job as a Fire Captain at my Fire Department and had returned to school to get my Masters Degree. So I wasn’t currently working for a Fire Department or a Wildland Fire Agency. Instead I had been hired as a temporary firefighter for the summer and had […]

As I’ve often mentioned on this site, you never know what’s going to happen in the course of your day, week, career or even your life. Today’s story is about a time when I was minding my own business and thought I was going to have a nice evening having dinner with an old family […]

In life you never know if you might be called upon to help fix a bad situation. You might not have any expertise to resolve it, but you’re it! You’re all there is. In this week’s story I’ll relate an experience when I was a responsible for rescuing a young boy from an abandoned mine. […]

It’s Christmas this week and my story today is about how to accept a gift. It shouldn’t be that hard to accept a gift but I might have had a tough shell wrapped around my soft sweet center for all those years while I was working as a firefighter (maybe even still). I believe most […]

During our lives we’ll have many instances when we have the opportunity to listen to the little voice we hear coming from the back of our mind. We often want to make decisions based on clear facts. You know… Just the facts mam nothing but the facts. But in reality our decision making is a […]

This week’s story is interesting just on it’s surface, but there’s a whole lot more to it. The story really deals with how we deal with a supervisor. These interactions can be critical to our future profession. Over my working life I’ve often been asked how I gained my wildland fire qualifications so quickly. My […]

Back when technology wasn’t exactly at our fingertips in the fire engine or command truck, we used old fashioned maps to find our way to emergencies. Having a hard copy map in your hand was always comforting but there is lots of room for human error. And if you’ve listened to more than one of […]

Last week’s story was a bit more heavy than what I had originally intended for this site. So today I’m posting a story about what it’s like to be working on the holidays. Lots of folks have to work the holidays so I’m not trying to make this another “hero” story. If you’ve listened to […]

Last night I was having a drink and dinner with some friends of mine. We’re all 64+ year old women either retired, or getting close to retirement. Neither of my friends who I was enjoying the evening with are firefighters but they do enjoy the stories that you all listen to here. I don’t know […]

Over the years I’ve had some challenges to my leadership at fires. This story relates 3 separate instances one summer that have had a long term impact on me. I believe people are mostly good and mean to do well. But when folks are stressed and firefighters are often stressed at a fire, they may […]

When we see a multiple fire engines, police cars and ambulances at the scene of a minor accident, it’s easy to criticize. Since we don’t know what’s going on, we assume all those resources are unnecessary. The problem is we really don’t know and they don’t either until their arrive on scene to see what […]

This short story is about one of my favorite “knucklehead” firefighter buddies and how he pranked me while working a shift on my fire engine. It illustrates how we managed the stress of the job through silly jokes and pranks. I have so many good memories of these kind of firehouse antics and I think […]