[FireDawg]

Has anyone else ever been in classes or recruit school with that one girl who some how manages to do nothing and still gets credit for the class?
My current situation, I have been a firefighter for 4 years and recently changed departments so im in recruit school right now.

The department I work for now is a merged department (with in the last 5 years). The girl im speaking of is a paramedic who has no interest in beign a firefighter but wants to be a paramedic for the fire department. So she has to go through fire school which will start for her in about 5 weeks and she doesn't even participate in PT and shows now regret for her lack of participation. She is constantly "flirting" with all the guys in our class. I am sick of watching her skate through recruit class, standing around watching everyone else excerise and chain smoking on every break.

The really bad news is she wants to be stationed and the same station as me, I DO NOT want to end up on a fire scene with this girl who can't even walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded.

Can anyone relate....how do I handle this or do I just ignore it.

[Kelly]

Is this a career department? Most, including my department, would never let this type of behavior occur. If the instructors do not take care of the problem maybe someone in the class who has influence over the female should step up and encourage her to participate and explain the dangers of her actions. Don't worry at some point her laziness and unwillingness to participate will catch up to her and people will not want her in their firehouses or on their apparatus. Don't let her influence how you do your job. Good luck.

[FireDawg]

Yes this is a career dept. and they are desprate for paramedics, so they tend to be a little easier on them when it comes to the physical stuff. I did try to talk to her, because I knew her before she came to the FD. I told her how important the physical conditioning is in fire school. Her reply was " If I am shown how to do something it will be fine" I told her that technique is only half the battle. She had no response. Im hoping to see an improvement in her participation this week. I guess all I can do is try to encourage her to participate.
Thanks for your reply

[Kelly]

We need more medics on shift so that we can have extras, but that does not mean that they get special treatment in recruit school. Everybody here goes through the same process and the same recruit class because as of now medics are on the engines and fight fire. It sounds like she is not there for the right reasons, flirting is not acceptable in class or on the job and hopefully her other classmates will get tired of her not pulling her weight. Eventually it should catch up with her and hopefully, if you end up at the same house as her, I've never heard of a probie getting to request a house assignment, your officer will take care of the problem if it is not already taken care of.

[Sarah Silence]

Ah, I feel ya. There's a very...silly...young lady in one of my classes whose daddy is a chief somewhere. She's skating through it because everyone knows her dad.


Bums me out.

[firething]

I'm looking for a silver lining to your cloud. If she has zero interest in the firefighting and the rest of you prefer firefighting to EMS, can she at least stay on the ambulance all the time, thereby relieving others of an obligation to rotate onto it? I like medical runs, but if someone offered to take all the EMS runs, leaving me on the pipe all the time, that would be a-ok with me.

I hear you though. Loads like the woman you describe make me furious. I wouldn't want my life to depend on someone (male OR female) who displays that much lack of interest in the job.

[FireDawg]

OH she will be on the medic all the time which is good for the other medics but the down side is the county where I work is very busy and if there is a fire your immediate the medic goes. As the EMT, I will be the one on the truck with her at a fire, where most likely we won't being do much more that humping hose or rehab but in the off chance we are needed for some actual fire operations, one of two things will happen: I will be doing it all on my own or command will know her and not assign us to any "difficult" tasks. It is so frustrating to work so hard to be good at what I do then see a girl like this come through and set the womens movement back 30 years, by allowing her self to be handed everything instead of working for it.
---->sigh

[passthenozzleplease]

Boy did I ever have that situation. The girl was the daughter of an officer who was highly respected, but all she did was flirt and talk about how drunk she could get on weekends. She is the reason women are not always welcome in the fire service and epitomizes every last stereotype I can think of.

Luckily, I only went to rookie school with her and will never fight fire with her. However, I have family on her department and I have worried about their safety working alongside someone who is not only incompetent, but a real danger to herself and others. We are talking about a girl who by the end of rookie school still didn't know how to flat load hose.

My best friend, a male firefighter, finally told me that I could waste all the energy in the world being bitter toward her and hoping the worst for her, or I could just focus on myself and how I can be a better firefighter. He said if she was truly as bad as I made her out to be, it would all catch up with her once she went to work. I have found that to be true so far and I hope it is the same with your situation. Sometimes we have to trust our officers enough to know who is fit to work on a scene and who isn't. If it were up to me this girl would have been shown the door. You may feel the same of the paramedic in your post. I guess all I can do is know that one of these days in the far-off future I will be an officer and I will be sensitive to this and similar issues when it comes to my own company and my own department.

Good luck and be safe!

[Marley]

I've seen this happen once. She was promoted and now sits at a desk where she can't hurt anyone. And indirectly, she made life hell for me.

/yeah, I'm bitter
_________________
Marley
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Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it up. --Henry Ford

[ltmalinski]

I have seen women do it, and of course, a lot of males. My question is, does she fulfill the requirements of the class? The instructor should be ensuring that she achieve the minimum, but it sounds like she doesn't do much of anything but be a princess. If you have only one main instructor, talk to her/him. There should be some professional integrity there.
I agree that she probably will not be used as a firefighter, but she will have the same certification you worked so hard for on her resume, not to mention that she just might have to 'pack-out' some day and get someone else hurt. You never know where the department is going to be in five or ten years. She just might be rotated into fire shifts.

Ain't it the way, we fight so hard to be onsidered equal, and half the time it's other women sabotaging our efforts?

[FireDawg]

It is becoming increasingly frustrating from me, and you nailed it when you said "she gets the same certification on her resume as I do and I actually had to work for it. NO, she doesn't do what is required for the class. When she is there and not at the doctor...she can't do any thing that requires her to lift, bendover, crawl ect....She appearently has and "inverted C-spine" and "degenerative disc disease". But she is saying that she was injuried during PT so it is an on the job injury. Which means she can be excused from any physical activity at work.
But the real icing on the cake for me is that she can't run 10 feet with out stopping and she chain smokes all day long.
Thanks for all your comments, although I wish this wasn't such a common occurrence.