You know you're a Probie...

[Michelle Latham]

You know you're a Probie:

- When your officers keep shaking their heads and saying, "Rookies!" whever you are around.
- You are baffled by ICS
- You set the backboard down on the icey ground and it takes off downhill like a sled
- Your Chief is the one who stops the backboard and carries it back uphill
- "White Helmets" terrify you
- You only trip over the firehose when the Chief is watching
- You acctually have to ask, "What is the Nader-thingy??"
- You get totally lost in the hospital and the cleaning lady has to show you the way to the ambulance bay
- You constatnly roll up hose with the female coupling on the inside.
- Your Chief always catches you rolling up the hose with the female coupling on the inside.
- You pull the air-horn cable in the Engine because you wanted to "see what it did."
- You call all fire aparatus "Fire trucks."
- No matter how hard you try, you just CAN'T find the 4X4's in the ambulance.
- When you spike an IV bag you manage to soak yourself down
- When the tones go off you get so freaked out that you put your SCBA on upside-down
- Your name is "Hey you!" "Get out of the way!" or "Hurry up!"
- You get on scene and fall out of the engine
- Tones go off and you put your nomex hood on backwards
- You follow the crusty veteran firefighters like a shadow
- Just as you are about to enter a fire your officer grabs you, tucks your nomex hood into your coat, velcros your neck-band, slaps your visor down and rolls his eyes as you slink over to the nozzle
- You ask about one million questions whenever you are in the station
- You're the one who walks by the Chief holding the pike pole like a lance
- You get geared up in a flash and manage to get a seat on the engine just in time to realize you forgot your helmet
- Your officer asks you to grab the Hurst spreaders at an MVA scene and when you turn
around you knock the State Trooper off his feet with your SCBA bottle
- You say, "Oh no!" in the back of the ambulance and your patient hears you
- Your lead-medic hears you say "Oh no!" and has to calm the patient down
- You get stuck on a ladder and your officer has to rescue you
- It takes you five minutes to figure out how to put a Dutchman in your hose load
- You go to wash the rig after a winter run and the scrub brush freezes to the metal
- The first time you wear an SCBA you stalk your training officer while saying, "Luke...I am your Father..."
- You charge the hosebed at least twice
- You give the rescue snowmachine some gas and promptly run it into the tanker
- You zip your glove into the airway bag
- You drag Rescue Randy out of the building and his pants are around his ankles
- Your medical jumpsuit jingles and clanks when you walk because you have so much stuff in the pockets "just in case you need it on a scene..."
- When you crawl inside a smokey building you run into everything with your head - including your partner's butt!
- The patient stares at you and says, "You must be new..."
- As you exit the building your Engineer grabs you by the scruff and gives you a lesson about water hammer
- You pull the gurney out of the ambulance and a wheel falls off
- The spanner wrenches freeze to your gloves and the Chief has to pry them free
- You resemble a scurrying cockroach when the tones wake you up at night
- You run into a doctor with the gurney
- You drop the hydrant wrench in the snow
- Your officer says, "Catch the plug!" and you give him a blank stare
- You shut your partner in the hospital's automatic doors (and live to tell about it)
- You totally forget to lock the deckgun down and you tell the Engineer to charge it
- Something knocks you on your butt and you look up in time to see the deckgun flying through the air like a rocket
- The Chief sees it too...
- You raid the hospital's glove supply because they have those nifty purple gloves
- Chief tells you to search the second floor of the training building and he finds you on the third floor ten minutes later
- You always hear the phrase: "Why did you do that?" or "Exactly WHAT are you doing?"
- You take a bathroom break and lose your place on the fire station couch but you don't say a darn thing about it!
- You can acctually identify with anything on this list!!!

[FireLt1951]

Welcome the world of firefighting.

[TC1875PVFD]

When the tones go off you gear up and turn around to find out it was only a pager test and the rest of the dept. is laughing

[CV639]

When you hear the nightly pager test, break your parents dinner dishes while youre running out, and as you arrive @ the station find out it was only a pager test!

[Michelle Latham]

Hahahaha! That's great!

[FFShooty]

You know you're a probie....when, while on duty at Headquarters, your sent to Station 1 for the Sky Hook, where the Officer promptly sends you to Station 2 for the same item before being told it's back at Headquarters.

Your an EMS Probie when your sent to another Station to pick up the filopian tubes that were borrowed from your unit.

[mjohn6621]

Michelle, great list! I wish our probies had more of a sense of humor like yours!

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This message brought to you by the makers of "Sludge", the breakfast food that makes you wish it was lunchtime.

[570eck]

I love it! This one needs to get posted down the station.

[Ford45]

-When the Batt. Chief tells you to get a hand light and you pull a hand line.

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Matt
Newtown Fire Association
Station 45

[SWPetty]

Michelle,

Our Juniors/Probies love you now :-)

[Nate Marshall]

How about when the BC sends you to get a water hammer and you go and ask the engineer and hes laughs so hard he cant figure out his pump calcs anymore.

[nsfirechap]

-You can't go to bed in the bunkroom without your bed being short sheeted or collapsing.
- You are told to check the spark plugs on the engine(a dieasal of course).
- You are sent to the mechanic for a bucket of "prop wash"
- You say "Sir" to everyone else in the firehouse
and lots more else that I care "NOT TO REMEMBER"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Firediver]

You know you're a probie when you wear only blue t-shirts wherever you go, day or night, just so people know your with the fire dept. )

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Craig Walker

stay low....stay safe....BUT GET YOU SOME!!!!

[8thDistrictKid]

Me propably being the only Probie here, i realate with honestly about a half dozen of these. Luckily, i havn't broken anything or ****ed anyone off to bad yet. And firediver, we only wear the shirts to get girls

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"You go..... we go"
Shawn
8th Utilities District
Manchester CT

[Co11FireChic]

It WAS funny...Then I decided that I had done too many of these things recently. Now I just feel... I feel...Well...Like a probie. *smacks self in forehead and hides face in embarassment*


[This message has been edited by Co11FireChic (edited 05-13-2001).]

[lumpy649]

Don't forget the red light oil, or being sent out to get blue landing zone flares (which are a hazardous material that the probie doesn't know about until a friendly man in a uniform with flashing lights points it out and writes a fake ticket for "Hazardous materials transport without proper vehicle placarding" and slaps the cuffs on- all a scam with a cop friend). These didn't happen to me, but I fell for the stack-tip quarter game on my first night in-house...

[Calvertvolunteer]

They got me with the stack tipped quarter game, and then ran my wet clothes up the flagpole. Several weeks later, I was sent to the other side of the county for a "water hammer" that was "left on a scene"

You are a probie when you have the cleanest gear in the station

[Michelle Latham]

This is great!!!!! I read all of your "You might be a Probie..." inputs and I laughed so hard I cried!
Keep 'em coming!
-Michelle the Proverbial Probie

[jizumper-5]

Don't forget the ladder/hose stretcher or the dehydrated water....

I just like to see what people come back with.

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Keep Safe!

[e53NSB]

- Go get the left handed Axe
- You pull your bunker pants up with your suspenders in your Butt.
- never really can figure out a stortz connection.
- righty-tighty-----lefty-loosey