It seems every time my husband(LT) and I are going to a family gathering we hear are tones go off everytime were on our way or fixing to sit down to eat. How does your family members react? Just remember as a volunteer its 24/7 365. My hats off to our family members. What are some of your holiday experiences?
I'm a volunteer in the fire service going on 44 years and it's pretty much the same around holidays. It seems we are more prone to calls around holiday's due to the increase in travelers on the roads and the general party spirit of the times.
One of the other factors is quite a few of the volunteers go away also for the holidays. This leaves our number of responders at a minimum. Although in our company we try not to have the same volunteers go away all the time. We kind of spread it around.
Back when I did the volunteer thing, it was family comes first. That was along time ago though, now that there are much fewer volunteers, what does your department say. we only had to make 20% of the calls to stay in good standing.
We're on a 20% run rule as well. Generally for the most part my radio stays on as much as possible. There's been times I've left the family at the table, and they understand. There's been times I've hung back and just listened to the radio traffic. I've never picked and chose what calls I want to go on, but Shane kinda summed it up. It really depends on the call, you'll never be able to justify to me having 14 people go to a small grass fire on the interstate and anything more than 6-8 people on a car wreck (no jaws needed) is just a little excessive. Our sheriffs dept just LOVES having POVs everywhere /end sarcasm
We did have a guy one year on Thanksgiving decide to fry turkeys inside his utility room one year, there was smoke pouring everywhere out of his house.
My family understands what I do and they dont mind if I go on a call during a family function. At the same time I do sometimes shut my pager off and have a good family dinner or whatever we have planned.
I completely understand!! On our dept. my husband and I are the "ol' faithfuls" as well and since he's Capt., he just doesn't feel right turning the pager off. Let everyone know in advance that you may have to leave, and if it's something that the dept. can handle without you, then don't go. But I know that's not always an option, so you just have to go. Some of our family is on the dept. and very understanding, others just don't get why we are so dedicated to something we don't get paid to do ( we are volunteers). Mostly, when I'm not in the rush to go somewhere, I try to tell them why we do what we do and how would they feel if firefighter's didn't show up to their house if it were on fire because they were at a family BBQ or something. Now, if it's something really important, funeral, wedding etc., I let our dept. know ahead of time that we are only available in dire emergencies (the whole town catches fire .. which has happened! etc.) then we might see if the call is still going on after the event and try to make it to help. It's just one of those things, not everyone understands. If it's something truly important, we just don't go. Im the type of mom that if it's my kids bday party, someone else is gonna have to go (unless its major like I said) because I want to be there for those moments.
We don't put numbers on but we keep up with it and when it comes down to getting new things or newer our more active people get it. We are rebuilding under a new chief so that takes time. Things are going in the right direction though.