mrsmall

This is the kind of thing that Cosgrojo was talking about when he talked about "pigeon holing" yourself. Step back and take in the big picture. It seems like you are getting tunnel-visioned on "the" one fire department you are bent on working for, when it sounds like that department sucks. It's cheap and lazy and let's wankers do the job for free so they don't have to hire more professionals. That isn't the only fire department on earth. As Mike mentioned, most professional departments (Floridia notwithstanding, for some bizarre reason) don't give a rat's arse about the "fire standards" you volunteered part-time to get. They will send you to THEIR acadamy, no matter what your background is. And they aren't much more likely to hire you with "fire standards" than they are the next guy who just spent four years working in a grocery store. And they're probably LESS likely to hire you than the guy who just spent four years in college.

Spread your wings. Nothing wrong with being a fireman. It's a good gig. But take it seriously as a career, not just your next job. Do a thorough job market research. Talk to all the other fire departments in your area and see what their hiring standards are. See what their pay is. See what other benefits they offer. Find out if they are a professional, career minded organisation that you can lock into for a long-term future, or if they are just another "job" site, like the department you seem to be so focused upon.

There are enough unhappy people in fire and EMS as it is. Don't be another one. Start off on the right foot.

thanks for the advice, i suppose maybe I should just take a step back and try not to rush through something at least without thinking it through a little more

(and I do live in FL lol, although relocating is a good possibility)

Thanks for the advice guys... Taking out a student loan has crossed my mind a few times, but I'm not sure if thats what I want to do...

In highschool this is the last career I thought I would pursue, medical? fire? yeah right lol.. I was geared to engineering! Didn't take long to figure out I didn't want to do that...

I picked up like 20 career pamplets at my community college and EMS and Fire are the only ones that I seemed interested in.

I was making more money waiting tables but much happier now...

And I still don't think i'm being clear enough, I want to work for the Fire department. However, our FD only hires people with EMT-B and Firefighter II certification. After being hired you have 2 years to become a medic or you lose your job. They pay for the schooling. Our system is 100% ALS. I don't plan on working for both FD and EMS for the duration of my career. I suppose the reason I am trying to rush through my certifications is because I don't want to fall behind... We have a lot of new EMT/Firefighter coming in all of the time.. But maybe thats just me being young and scared lol...

Do you think cost is the reason for our county not having stations? We have like 50 ambulances, and a large county.. But the only thing that would bug me is that if we can't afford stations, why can the fire department afford to have many many stations?

2 days a month volly while I work full time for my county's ambulance company... If I want to work for my counties fire department anyway, how will I not be earning my spot? Either way I want to get my Medic and Fire standards.. Fire college is 4 months, they provide no time for you to work, so all of my bills will be paid out of pocket. If my ambulance company will pay for my medic that would be great, other wise I'll have to save for a year or two before I can go to medic school. Are you saying I should just save up all the money I need for a few years, then go to school full time, get my medic, get my fire standards, then try and get a job at the fire department?

Can you explain a little more about what you are talking about. I can't quite figure it out.

Even with a fixed station, it's still just you and your partner, so you're not interacting with any other crews there. You interact with other crews more in a mobile system because you probably all meet at the same point to change shifts. In the systems where you are allowed to freely roam within your district (as opposed to this assigned street-corner nonsense), you can meet up with other crews at your borders. And in a pure SSM system, you are constantly interacting with other crews as you switch shifts, districts, and cover each other's territories. Not to mention that you are sent to more areas of the city than in a fixed system, so you interact with more crews and hospital staffs than you would if you were in the same neighbourhood station every shift.

Don't get me wrong. I am not an SSM proponent by any stretch. I'd like to see Jack Stout strung up and slowly tortured. But I have to disagree that SSM isolates you from other crews. In my experience, I was a lot more aquainted with other crews in a big city SSM system than in a big city fixed station system.

with our system the shift changes are all day and all night, so you really don't see any other crews, the only time you may meet up with someone is at the ED

So cost is your primary concern over quality of education?

You seriously can't afford a community college education? :?

It took me a year and a half to save the money to do EMT-B, program cost: $1,500 with books and supplies EVOC etc.. But I've spent about $3500 total because I've had to pay bills with saved money due to work loss. i'm only 20 years old and I cannot apply for financial aid by my self until i'm 24. I don't get aid with parents because of my father's income... If I don't find someone to pay for my paramedic I can forget it for a few years. Community college or not, thats a lot of money for someone just getting out on their own. My plan is to volunteer with the fire dept. get my fire standards, and then they will pay for any education I want as long as I'm full time. The medic program here is also fire department friendly (any shift you work allows you to still attend class)

I'm very new to EMS, my county has a private non-profit ambulance company. We do not have stations where the EMS can sit and wait for a call, the ambulance have posts where they have to park their ambulance and wait, usually at like a gas station.. Is this how other EMS systems are? I find overnight it gets very sleepy especially when your post is out in the woods.

I just put up $1,200 for tuition, supplies, uniform, testing.. I will be putting up another $98 for my EVOC and i'm not sure how much my final testing will cost.. this is for EMT-B

However, our local ambulance company here gives you a sign on bonus of I think $500, so I really feel like i'm only paying $700 for school tuition. They also reimburst you for any schooling you do while employed by them. I'm hoping thats how I'll pay for medic classes.

Hello, I just began EMT classes and have a serious question. I am slightly color blind. In the first chapter of our book they explained that good color vision is needed...

I believe i'm what you call Protanomaly color blind, where red is slightly weaker for me to see... although I still can see red... example of difficulty is blue and purple look similar if there is only a little bit of red used in the mix.

Anyway, my question is.. will I be able to compensate for this? Or are the color variations that I need to see so slight that I will miss them?