Second Duty Crew

"You're name is [], right?"

This came from the officer, Ernst, with whom I had spent my entire Thursday the week before. He got my name right, which, I guess, is better than not getting it right, but the idea that we could have spent that much time together without him being sure of my name kinda fucked with me a bit.

Surly Quartermaster Keith was in the command room with him, so I almost wondered if it was Ernst's way of keeping me in check. It's pretty clear that Keith actively engages in keeping people at arms length. I generally find this to be an acceptable practice, because then I get to choose who I talk to, and that's invaluable. What I can't figure out is if he does it because he; a.) doesn't want to expend the energy to make a new aquaintance (acceptable), b.) has a general dislike for people (acceptable) c.) requires some sort of proof that a person isn't a douche prior to investing time in them (acceptable) d.) covering up for severe social inadequacies (unacceptable - but allows for much more humor and referencable anecdotes). I'm going to just ignore him for now - I've got all my gear, my need to endear myself to him has dwindled considerably.

Who cares - Keith is so fucking 23 posts ago.

Training was a hair better this week. Ernst was still mentioning - at 60 minute intervals - that he'd prefer to relax, but overall he did a pretty good job of explaining how things worked.

At the beginning of the night, I asked him what we were going to do. He, of course, slipped the requisite "prefer to relax" statement in, but then motioned to me that it was open-mike night, and I had the opportunity to choose training. This policy, is of course, flawed in that at some point, I'm not going to know what I don't know, but for now - well, I'm going to make the most of it.

I relayed to him what I wanted to do: gear up, hook the truck up to a hydrant, run the water, go to the crosslay (two hoses lie directly behind the cab, perpendicular to it [hence the term 'crosslay'], one points to the driver side, one the passenger or 'officer' side) and pull it. I then wanted to run the crosslay to where the practice door was, sit it down, call for water, put on my mask, turn on my SCBA, and then charge inside all guns a'blazin'. (This is effectively stringing together several things I'd learned over the past month or so).

The idea of charging (turning on the water) a hose was asinine to Ernst. He would allow me to pull the crosslay, but no hookup to the hydrant, and certainly no water. Water is stupid. Water makes hoses heavy, and hard to put back on the truck. Water slows down everything. Hockey was on in an hour.

I went through the drill with moderate success on the first try, and was somewhat proficient on the 2nd try. Using the crosslay involves pulling and shouldering 100 feet of hose in a stack - not overly difficult, but it takes a few attempts before the concept is fully grasped. I was the only one doing the drill, which was fine, but I have to admit that Jordan taking pictures lent some credence to my claim about her being somewhat, ahem, ill-suited for action. Ernst, on the other hand, gave me some tips on masking up and getting my SCBA working in rapid order - so the redemption of his credibility is taking baby-steps in the right direction.

This whole scene, however, reminded me a bit of my youth. It took me back a few decades to two-a-days in August. I was a center on the varsity football team (see how I snuck 'varsity' in there? Whatever, like there was any question).

We were practicing long snaps, which are particularly difficult, and fraught with peril because they are generally executed in bad situations. The coach showed us every aspect of the longsnap, but never longsnapped himself. We later found out that he never snapped it because he didn't want to fuck it up. If he were to fuck it up, which would have been quite probable, then we would have laughed, or at least spoken of it in hushed tones of amusement. That would not have been conducive to his coaching style, which was pretty fucking authoritarian.

During the drill, as I was given every conceivable verbal instruction on how to do things, it occurred to me that nobody once touched a thing until it came time to rack the hose. Ostensibly, I guess this would be due to their wanting me to do it solo, but I suspect that that conveniently coincided with them also not having to showcase their own inability to do it properly. Much like my football coach, they didn't want concrete evidence of their own ineptitude. Tidy, nay?

Third duty crew is tomorrow... I sure hope we pick a good restaurant.