Feeling Horrible at Times

Today started out like most other days. I woke up at the fire station. I got ready to start the day. I went to the dayroom and did the dishes, made coffee, and got the newspaper. I was watching some TV. While watching a TV show, Tom and Jerry, a young guy who has been on the department about a year and a half walked out and said “we are not watching cartoons.” He then took the changer from me and turned it to the news.

It just makes me so mad being in the situation where I have been on the fire department for nearly 10 years, but because I was a reserve it means nothing to anyone. So as far as they are concerned I am a lowly, lowly, worthless guy. I just want to say something but I have to play the game. But it is a game I think is stupid. It is like high school all over again. I like the job, but I don’t always like the side effects of having it. There are some ways I would rather be a reserve. At least there I meant something to the guys I worked with there. I actually felt like I sometimes had a voice and could speak up.

I have found some of the guys I work with are so anti-reserve it is sad to me. I have seen one guy who refused to shake the hand of any of the new reserves who were trying to introduce themselves. I think that is a bunch of crap. Most of the full-timers do not count reserves when talking about responses and number of firefighters who will be coming to the scene during a response. It makes me feel like they have zero appreciation for the reserves and the work they do. I make it a point to thank the reserves for their help after every call. I want them to know I appreciate them.

So I am a little bit in a bad mood to start off with, as can be seen above. Then I got to the Sheriff’s Office. They had decided to start the class at eight o’clock today instead of nine, but it was never totally understood by everyone. So many of the guys got there around eight-thirty. I got there at eight-thirty because of work. I lead the group to the basement of the jail. I then went to the report writing room to see if our instructor was there. He started to chew me out for being late. It was in front of some of the other cops and my classmates who were there at eight. I told him I worked until eight and I got there when I could. He then said that he knew. That also didn’t help how I was feeling.

We went to the basement and he torn into the others a little bit. When they left the room one guy said that someone should have found out for sure if we were supposed to be there at eight. Someone else said “the president”. I knew I should have. Everyone else knew I should have. I failed. That also made me feel worse.

I did my first scene and I worked with a guy who is a very nice guy, but he tends to be very naive. His performance in the scene wasn’t the greatest and it hindered us overall. We ended up doing what we needed to, in other words we made the arrest, but it took way too long and there were some officer safety issues that he had.

I went back into the room with everyone else and I was not happy. I sat there without talking for a little while. Finally I started to feel a little better and then moved along.

But when we went to lunch I had no desire to eat with everyone else. Jessie and I went to Rosauers. As it turned out everyone else had gone there. I put my cup of pop on a table by itself. One of the guys in the class said I could sit at the table with him and one other guy. I thought about it for a second and then I went and got my pop and joined them.

After lunch I went to do my next scene. I did okay, but there was some miscommunication about where we were. It was outside the jail, but they didn’t mean to have the scene to have a jail near it. I wasn’t told that. So in my mind we were near the jail and I acted as such. That caused me to go down a path they didn’t think we should be going down.

I then did my next scene and I didn’t do that great, but I didn’t get killed either so it could have gone worse.

While in the room after my two scene’s I was starting to get my partner from the first scene a hard time. I have been doing that since two Saturday’s ago. I have been unhappy with him since two weeks ago. He called me by my first name, which I had never introduced myself to him as. I have always been Scotty to him, but for some reason he didn’t call me that. It just set me off. So he has been going through my wrath.

It is very unfair of me. He is a very nice guy, and I shouldn’t be doing that. After today I felt pretty bad. I really was laying into him. I was jokingly, but not nicely jokingly, telling him he shouldn’t be a cop. That he should quit. That he shouldn’t be there. I was very horrible to him, really.

I think today’s bad mood really set me down a path with him I shouldn’t have gone. When we were done for the day I was thinking I shouldn’t have said what I did. It really made me look like a big jerk. I don’t think he knows for sure. I believe he thinks I am totally joking with him, but it wasn’t even close to being nice. I need to pull him aside and let him know it was not a nice thing and that I am sorry.

I just need to head to bed and get this day over with. I am working at the fire station again tomorrow and I hope things will be different.