Come out and support Kyle Melton , one of our members as he leads the discussion about the responsibilities of preparing a probationary fire fighter.
Everyone wants to better their department, nut no one wants a probie.
How do you prepare your probie to be a productive member of your fire department? Do you have a department guideline on what he needs to do on probation? If so, is it sufficient? Probably not. Remember we don’t train to meet the lowest standard, so why would we train our probies that way? If you do the absolute minimum probie training required by your department and your probationary firefighter isn’t impressing your crew with his knowledge and abilities, well bad news. Its your fault. Your probie is a direct result of the investment your crew takes in him.
And that doesn’t only include training. No he isn’t one of the guys yet. But if you lock him in a room to study all shift and then wonder why he isn’t meshing with the crew, well maybe its because you aren’t treating him like a real person. Yes probation requires studying and commitment but also including them in crew activities such as playing a card game after dinner or allowing them to play a game of pickleball after so many hours of studying can help to keep their eyes on the prize. We say we want firefighters who are able think through problems but then we expect our probie to be a mindless zombie.
Yes some probies will be better than others, but it is our job to train them as best we can. That means learning about them, knowing their strengths and weaknesses, and pushing them to be better. No department is perfect and everyone complains about things they feel like their department does wrong. Well the easiest way to change your department’s culture is changing the mindset of its firefighters. And it’s a lot easier to mold a PFF into what you want than change the opinion of a 10 year slug.