Ok. After some deliberation, I've decided to post here and get some feedback from everyone on here.
I'm a member of a volunteer department for going on almost 2.5 years. Experience with previous departments also.
I've run into a little friction with the department here lately regarding driving the engines and so forth.
I have had our state required course 4 times that I can recall within the last 3 years. I have also had pump ops several times and, while rusty, I can pump a truck if needed. My department, mainly some of the officers, have problems with people who aren't officers driving the engines, either emergency or non emergency.
I have repeatedly asked to be put through the drivers course for our engines, the tanker is a different beast and I'm not ready for that yet, and have been repeatedly denied.
I've been told 3 times since last November that we were going to have a round of drivers training and that I'd be able to drive the engines if the need arised.
The most recent time I asked to drive was for our July 4th parade which is Saturday. Most of our drivers are tied up doing something else, so I asked to drive one of our engines the 1/4 mile length of the parade.
Well, one officer said yeah that it was fine and another told me that all trucks had drivers except for the brush truck that I always drive.
I do have permission to drive the brush trucks. I have never been written up for speeding in the brush trucks, either emergency or non emergency, and have never been written up for speeding or breaking any SOP's when running emergency in my pov.
My main problem with this is, they recently let another guy who got put on after me who had absolutely no experience with engines or fire departments in general (and is also under the legal age to drive a fire truck in Ky), drive our 2nd newest engine 15-20 miles into the neighboring county by himself for a firefighters funeral.
And when I bring this up, the topic suddenly changes and it gets brushed off.
Am I right to be upset at this fact or am I blowing this out of proportion?
I hate to have to resort to getting rude or angry with someone but it's something that's kinda beginning to get under my skin.
We had a possible structure fire a few months ago and I was the only one to show up (I made several phone calls and no one was in town and 1 person went en route pov since they were 5 miles from the scene). I asked them what was I supposed to do in that case and the answer I pretty much got was sit at the station until someone showed up and if no one did then another department would have to handle it (we have an automatic 3 department knockout for structures).
Please tell me what your opinions are regarding the whole situation.
I'm a member of a volunteer department for going on almost 2.5 years. Experience with previous departments also.
I've run into a little friction with the department here lately regarding driving the engines and so forth.
I have had our state required course 4 times that I can recall within the last 3 years. I have also had pump ops several times and, while rusty, I can pump a truck if needed. My department, mainly some of the officers, have problems with people who aren't officers driving the engines, either emergency or non emergency.
I have repeatedly asked to be put through the drivers course for our engines, the tanker is a different beast and I'm not ready for that yet, and have been repeatedly denied.
I've been told 3 times since last November that we were going to have a round of drivers training and that I'd be able to drive the engines if the need arised.
The most recent time I asked to drive was for our July 4th parade which is Saturday. Most of our drivers are tied up doing something else, so I asked to drive one of our engines the 1/4 mile length of the parade.
Well, one officer said yeah that it was fine and another told me that all trucks had drivers except for the brush truck that I always drive.
I do have permission to drive the brush trucks. I have never been written up for speeding in the brush trucks, either emergency or non emergency, and have never been written up for speeding or breaking any SOP's when running emergency in my pov.
My main problem with this is, they recently let another guy who got put on after me who had absolutely no experience with engines or fire departments in general (and is also under the legal age to drive a fire truck in Ky), drive our 2nd newest engine 15-20 miles into the neighboring county by himself for a firefighters funeral.
And when I bring this up, the topic suddenly changes and it gets brushed off.
Am I right to be upset at this fact or am I blowing this out of proportion?
I hate to have to resort to getting rude or angry with someone but it's something that's kinda beginning to get under my skin.
We had a possible structure fire a few months ago and I was the only one to show up (I made several phone calls and no one was in town and 1 person went en route pov since they were 5 miles from the scene). I asked them what was I supposed to do in that case and the answer I pretty much got was sit at the station until someone showed up and if no one did then another department would have to handle it (we have an automatic 3 department knockout for structures).
Please tell me what your opinions are regarding the whole situation.