Latest / Firefighter Nation Podcast / Chaos, Conferences, and Contaminated Coffee: Inside the Fire Service with the Quick Knock
Transcript
- Nat Kapustin: In in that we trust in in that we trust. Here we go. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Quick Knock. I am one of your co hosts, Stephanie White. That is Chris Scott, living proof that despite being in the fire service and running all kinds of interesting calls, you still don't have to have an interesting personality. That that's that's terrible. I I you know what? I don't even have anything I don't even have anything for that. Yeah. I'm Chris Scott and yeah, let's get this episode started so we can get it. So that we can get it over with. That's really what we're trying to do here. What's what story we got, Steph? Do you do you th are are you on a verbal vacation as long along with whatever physical vacation you're on? I mean, that was weeks. Ver verbal vacation. We're out of the Pacific Northwest and I'm actually doing work over here with look st co-star right here, Michael Goldstein over there of the CAN report. So Gasletov, we are we are working, actually working. So I'm mentally exhausted. We were up late, we're up early. yeah. Wha what what do we have on the on the docket today? 'Cause there there's some interesting ones. You can either do one of two things. You can either borrow a little bit of his humor or you can borrow a little bit of his work ethic. But whatever this is that's going on, it's just absolutely ridiculous. All right, do you even have You want him over here so that he can say nice things to you all episodes? Do you even have a quick dock for today? No, because you're you are an editor in chief of Firefighter Nation. You would think that you read the news at some point. I told you I'm here For the beauty, for the face. You're here to bring the stories. I have the news, but you don't have a quick knock. We do a Nat Nat back me up, Nat, Nat. Do we not do a quick knock every single episode? We each do what? Nat. Just not yes. I completely forgot that we do a Literally We do we do a quick knock. Well look, we'll do a guest. How about a guest a quick knock? Do you have a do you have a hot do have a hot take, Michael? Spot. Mike, do you have a hot take? Because Chris doesn't. Michael's hot take is remember what your show is called. The entire name of the show. That's what his hot take was. Said remember, remember what your show is called. He's eating. He can't save me. my god. All right, give me give me your quick knock first. My quick knock is is is find people that are reliable. That's that's my quick knock. That's my advice. Madam, I was here on time and my audio worked, unlike you. Unlike you, I was here on time and my audio worked. I was here on time, my audio didn't work. So I controlled the factors that I can control. I can't control technology or the weather, or apparently your desire to do work. That's like showing up to work out of uniform. You show up out of work, then you're not ready to work. You're you're late. And that's that's what's happening here. One of us came prepared with a quick knock, so you can like chat GPT girls real quick under the table while I say mine. Is is that okay? I'll come off the dome. I'll come off the dome. Alright, what's your quick knock? Don't read it in robotic chat GPT. my quick knock, I actually thought about it before we decided on our news stories for the day and it plays into it. My quick knock though is stop covering for the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood. I am so sick and tired of Being in situations where multiple people have come forward and said that, hey, this person did this thing wrong, this bad thing, and I'm not talking about did something wrong on a call. I'm saying did a bad life thing is is not treating those around them appropriately. And people saying, yeah, but he's such a good dude. Listen, if you've got two, three people saying, Hey, this person has exhibited this behavior towards me consistently. Then maybe maybe he's not a good guy. Just because you're a firefighter doesn't mean you're a good person. Stop covering for that. If somebody says somebody, if multiple people say, Hey, this person has has done this consistently, you know what? Maybe we should stop covering for the Brotherhood. no, completely agree. Did you did you lose your signal 'cause you walked away to find somebody more interesting than you? Is that what just happened? I'm outside. I'm how am I losing signal? I'm outside. my god. Christopher, our producer said even because you act like a little kid, you're on recess, is what our producer said. Yeah. Yeah. She didn't say hanging out outside drinking coffee like those of us who are adults. She said recess. Tell me when I'm not frozen. That's it, recess is over. Hey ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Quick Knock. It's a solo show with me, your host, Stephanie White. my goodness. Hold tight. It it's the best you've ever physically looked, if that makes you feel any better. Well, thanks, Steph. I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, we can barely see you. I'm trying to relocate back to where we were. So what was that about showing up showing up prepared? Yeah. I can't I'm not fucking Elon Musk. Do you think I can just fucking figure out the goddamn internet? No, I cannot. I don't know. I can't t teleport internet into this phone. Are you listening to this Nat? Are you hearing this, Nat? Didn't didn't he give me shit for my microphone being too Yeah, but you control that. You control that. You know, remember the old A and E special? Where they'd have like FBI informants telling part of the story on the first forty eight, that's what you look like with the blurred out face. Hold on. I'm gonna get on their I'm gonna get on their Wi Fi. I think he screwed this up on purpose so that he'd have time to come up with a quick knock since he didn't beforehand. One eternity later. Welcome, welcome back to the quick knock. we've had a 10-minute intercession as Chris Scott discovers something called Wi-Fi. It's something that you should connect to before attempting to do a podcast episode. Chris has therefore changed his location and discovered this magical thing called Wi-Fi. So, Chris. Did you in fact come up with quick knock as you were wandering around the entire Pacific Northwest? No, I was gonna respond to your quick knock, which was that I agreed with you before I went completely completely A role. Protect protecting the brotherhood. Yeah, it is a major issue not only in I would say I wanna add to it not only on the job. for job related things, but also I would add to it on the personal side, on the personal relations the personal activities. If if a dude is not a good dude in his real life, then we should be willing to either a call that stuff out or separate from those individuals and put put actual social pressure on them to be better men and or or women, but generally is generally is the case dudes not doing good things and there's not a lot of repercussions for that. So it allows them to continue those those activities. So I know you're talking more on the job side, but I completely agree with you because I think it applies also on the personal life side. So yeah, no, that was a great quick great quick knock. Where's the Chris agreed with Steph scoreboard, Nat? The scoreboard. And Nat has it pre built. So I'm I'm sure it's just like a button for her now where she can just tap it. She's yep. You're getting boring. All right, did you actually come up with one? I mean No, I don't Did you phone a friend? Did you chat GPT it? No, we didn't ha no, I have no quick knock, not off the top of my head. I I it what's funny is that I have a thousand of cards over here for the Pacific Northwest conference that have that have quick knocks. I'll do we'll do we'll do this one. The quick knock. I'm gonna go opposite of Chief here you go, here you go. You ready for this? This is what we're gonna do. Opposite of Chief Frank Leib. Chief Leib gave me the hot take of mask on the truck or mask off the truck. And he was one hundred percent adamant. He said, That even shouldn't he that shouldn't even be a question. You mask off the truck. I'll take a contrarian approach and say that. There are major departments that mask on the truck, very large, large metropolitan yeah, huge departments that mask on the truck and they fight fire every single day. I am not opposed to that. If we can make our mask up time zero, if we can cut those seconds down and there's no accidental fumbling of a Nomex, there's no missing of a strap, if we can get that one hundred percent locked down. And then there's a zero impact time for the time we step off the truck, we are absolutely ready to go. I don't necessarily have a problem with being masked up on the truck and and coming and coming off the truck, like I said, mask on. I I have probably a preference, but either it's one of two things. Either you need to be really fast masking up off the truck, which is usually the take, or just mask up on the truck when you get off. I'm fine with either or. And personally. And I know that some people are like, No, never on the truck. I don't I don't have that take. I think you can do I think you can absolutely do both. That's my that's my hot take. And that is pretty much not with the not the current view of the American fire service. So I'll go contrarian. That's my that's my take. I'll throw a little bit of middle of the road in there. I did middle of the road. You can't do middle Stephanie White, you cannot do middle of the road. I did middle of the road. You agreed with me. You agreed with me on the last one, which is boring, so I'll at least split the difference. Okay. Here we go. I think it depends on the person. So at five foot seven, I am on the the shorter side of the fire service, right? Therefore, looking at different things, I'm going to be looking up. If you're a taller person, it might be easier for you. Coming off that rig, you can see everything, it's gonna be an easier three sixty. Personally, off the truck. I just I need to be able to see everything. What am I walking into? What are hazards? Rare people. That's just me. But I also think I'm coming at it from a shorter point of view. Literally. I think you're just kissing up to Frank Lieb. That's what I think you're doing. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. No, it's I'm definitely going to agree with Frank Lieb on that, but I also wanted to fight with you and I couldn't fight with you on it, so I just went split the difference. You've been fighting with me for the last fifteen minutes of this recorded podcast. Well, that's because you're ill prepared and pixelated. So anyway. Alright, news stories. Ready for story time? News stories. Ready for story time. This is a by the way, this is I just want to point out this is a terrible story time episode. But you know, anyway, quit go. It's because we're both traveling. Although you're somewhere way, way more exotic than me. Shout out to Ohio. No offense to Ohio, but it's definitely not as as pretty. Is the is the walkabout that we got as you ran around looking for signal and then you realize the Wi-Fi is tied to the building. But anyway, all right. So Speaking of Ohio, here in Ohio, a township board fired its fire chief amid allegations involving political activity and insubordination. so fire chief was in uniform, appeared in in political ads, and then got very surprised that they got fired over it. The reason I wanted to bring that up is time and time again we see people getting in trouble for political activity on duty, or more often, Social media posts while on duty, and it always raises the question of freedom of speech always becomes the thing online. And it's an uncomfortable truth, and it's the same thing for our military cops, anybody who wears a uniform. Your freedom of speech exists as a person, but in those moments when you're wearing that uniform, when you're wearing that patch of somebody else's department. You are culpable to rules and regs. If you're gonna do stuff like that, know your rules and regs forward and backwards, your social media, everything, because your freedom of speech looks a little different when you're in uniform. You're no longer just pres representing Chris the dragon Scott, you're representing an entire department. So yes, know your rules forward and backwards because what you just said is actually not correct for for Louisiana as civil service. We are not allowed at all on duty. or off duty to participate in any kind of political activity as far as like endorsement of nobody is anywhere that I know. Yeah. So I I think there's some states I could be talking out of my ass here. There are some states that I think do allow you to do political activity off duty, but like we can't contribute to campaigns. Well you can't do off duty. No, not yeah, we can't even do it off duty. No. we c we cannot contribute to campaigns. We cannot show up at a at a political rally off duty. But like how does how does it work? Like we're very restricted. Even if you're A un even if you're a union member, I mean like that that's a weird one if it's somebody the union is endorsing. Yeah, I could I mean yeah, I can send you our our our policy, our civil service policy, but yeah, we cannot publicly support I cannot make a Facebook post that supports some the you know, whoever the next governor or city council member, any any type of political activity off duty at all. That's my state. For sure. It's been that way ever since I've been hired, and everybody knows that and understands that. So once again, when you said off duty, on duty, I want people that listen to this be careful, be careful with your state, because you may think off duty's okay. And for our state, off duty is not okay. So just be cautious of that. You actually taught me something new, you know? You're not as as dumb as the internets as you are. It it's because you have a huge ego and you think that you know everything and that that you didn't think learning was possible because you knew it all already. That's usually the case. I was just surprised that, you know, you actually were able to read something since you couldn't look up any news for this week. I just assumed your reader was broken. Alright, so that's our mature story. Then we get into some typical firehouse stuff. So that that Baltimore County paramedic finally got sentenced. I don't think we ever covered this, which is surprising. We didn't. It hap because it happened a minute ago when you finally got sentenced. So The young man in question was found guilty, so we can talk more about it now, versus just being alleged. he decided that he wanted to start a Ron Jeremy esque career, so he decided to urinate in the ice machine, saying that he wanted to make a slushy. he also left other body fluids all across the station. Use your imagination. And I I have to ask how nobody noticed that. just was everybody either A on a call or B in the bunk room? Because I don't know how somebody finds that kind of alone time in a firehouse, especially in the kitchen, because the kitchen is the hub of most fire stations. The kitchen of the day room. Like we're Where was everybody? I we actually I actually heard this on a van ride to the I think we were going we're heading to the ferry to cross the to cross into Seattle and one of the guys had brought it up and he said that the the guy that was doing the activities said that it was like he he's bla c blaming mental health. Like we need to take mental health more seriously. Like, yeah, dude, we do. But there's gonna be consequences to these actions. it cost the the I think the city actually spent like two hundred and sixty grand replacing all ice machines and all in at every station. It was the county. Yes. Yeah, so it it look, yeah, mental health is a problem, but you're still gonna have to be held accountable to to the things that you do. I it's a man, it takes all cons. You think that with every population, like you think firefighters, you know, that's a better breed of people, right? It's like, you know, more honorable and character and tru But if you put enough people in one room, it doesn't matter what type they are, there's a bell curve of insanity. And even with firefighters, you're gonna get some people that are absolutely off the rails. And clearly that was one of In case since I am on the health side of things, in case you you needed another healthy reason to only drink a black coffee, DNA evidence linked him to contaminated coffee creamer and a coworker's office keyboard. see, listen. The next time you're told you have to go do your online training or reports or something, you can just say you're worried that the keyboard might be contaminated. There's one for you to but he was handed a twenty five year prison sentence, which I I feel is very appropriate for that one. Yeah. That's a pretty solid one. He'll he'll probably get out twelve, thirteen years on good behavior, but even twelve thirteen locked up ought to teach a lesson. All right, what's the next one? This one's just as just as horrible, but go ahead. Continuing our our maturity streak. Firefighter defecates in a cardboard box at airport in What's in the box? Why Right? Nothing? Yeah, I'm the jerk. What's in the box? The veteran firefighter that wore more than 30 years on the job is no longer employed by the St. Louis Fire Department flying an incident at Lambert International Airport. Security footage reportedly captured the firefighter deprecating into a cardboard box in an airport concessions area. The incident occurred in June, but his departure from the department was publicly confirmed this week. I I I don't know if as a former union rep I would have loved to have repped that one or not, because I would have just Part of me would have would have had a lot of questions that I might not have wanted to know the answers to. And part of me would have, listen, I would have been gone the full IBS route with that one, man. It's when you gotta go, you gotta go. You see, that's where I was gonna go with it. You know, like sometimes the body just can't control itself and you're right, I would have gone full IBS, like there was no way I can control it. It was now or never. That's what you know, that's the route I could tell you that I'm not gonna get into the specifics of this, but there is a story of a individual going to Boston who I know personally who literally Defecated himself on a plane. I don't, you know, I don't I know him personally, but I'm not gonna say who it is. And it was an un it was literally an uncontrollable Why are you telling his story? Jesus Well, because it because nobody knows who it is. Nobody knows who it is. And he knows who he is. I hope he doesn't listen to this episode. he will, and it's gonna be hilarious. he could not control it. And so maybe this is a similar situation. Like he's trying to pinch it off and he's like, I don't know where to go, I don't know where to go. And he's panicking and then, you know. Bothers me about this story and this conversation is I feel like you and I have done this before on an episode, and our producer Nat said no, which tells me that I have had so many emergency poop conversations with other firefighters that I don't even know when I've had them. Like what what that that bothers me. Apparently I have spent a lot of time talking about not just talking crap, but talking about crap. So 'cause not say no, we haven't brought this up. We we haven't, but I will say this is episode I think seven and it is it is an obscene amount of times that you have Yeah, poo-poo pee pee stories for firefighters. I I'm noticing a pattern. It seems to be a common thing. So we did in my department have have one similar scandal brought up that involved a driveway and somebody doing their their due diligence duty. but listen, I think we've all been on a call at some point or another where we've tapped the officer on the shoulder and said We literally have to go. And we have to go now. Because I have to go. I have not had it, but I've heard multiple people in my department that have said yes, during a house fire, they were like in the at a different apartment because it was like now or never. So this is not terribly uncommon. I'm gonna give the guy some grace unless he went and said, Yeah, look, I did it because I was just being, you know, whatever. I was vindictive or just being, you know, you know, unless it wasn't a an actual emergency. But Emergencies happened, so I don't know. Maybe give the guy some grace. I'll have to hear the story first. What's his excuse? I put on right now. I do want the details. Not, you know, before or after I've eaten, but I do want the details. It was a box. Was he gonna mail it somewhere? Was he gonna ship it to somebody? I got a lot of questions. I I do too. Here's the really tough part of this episode is normally I can look at our timer at the top and see, okay, we've been we've been chit chatting for so long on record, time to wrap up the episode. But because you wandered around the entire national forest in the state of Washington looking for Wi-Fi outside. I I don't know if you you thought because it's such a mystic place that the trees just radiated signal, but Not how Wi Fi works. And I I don't know. I don't know how long we've been talking because the timer says almost thirty minutes, but I don't know how much poor Nat's gonna get out of this episode. Did you were you having like a snow white moment where you thought the animals talked out there in the forest? And you were like, Maybe one of them is a quick knock for me. In the Puget Sound right there, there were s there were sea lions or seals. I don't know. One of the two. I'm not a zoologist, but they were very cute. They were playing. And so I wanted to go see what was up. You know, I wanted to show you guys and the signal dropped. That's not on me. I'll create internet. I I don't know what you wanted to tell you. I was outside. Natalie, good luck good lucking this episode. Like I know it's the shorter one of the shorter ones you edit, but this is gonna be a complete disaster. Yeah. Thank you for that, by the way. Shout out to Nat, because Nat Nat does some creative work. Nat does a lot with very little. And I mean on Chris Chris's end. I give Nat a lot. But can I get back to my job? This has been the quick knock travel edition. so shout out to Ohio, shout out to Washington for letting us enter your states. We don't know why. I'm gonna tell Rob Fisher that you held me up with this useless banter for thirty minutes and sure he'll appreciate it. Well shout out to the Brothers Helping Brother conference and to the conference you're at. We should probably go actually sit in classrooms and learn something because if you're watching this episode, you've realized that we have a lot to learn. No, nothing at all. Nothing at all. All right, thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. See you guys next time.