Rewards

[firedoc5]

What kind of rewards have you received? I'm not talking about awards or commendations. But little things that are perks. Like when eating out when on duty, especially at Denny's or Shoney's, and get called out before we finished eating, we'd come back and they would give a new meal with no extra charge. The Denny's in town we went to quite often. There were times like 03:00, just get off a MVA on the Interstate or something, we'd strip off our bunker gear at the front door and sit around in shorts and socked feet sipping coffee or eating breakfast. They didn't mind. Off duty we would go out to a few different places that knew us and get two pitchers of beer for the price of one. Or get a large steak when we ordered a small. Given extra french fries, or free appetizers. Little things like that.

[Britpara]

In the UK, Dominos pizzas give all uniformed emergency workers 50% discount. McDonalds give us everything they have left at closing time, and sometimes that is a LARGE amount free.

Most food shops will call you to the front of the queue to get served if you are in uniform.

The local Indian restaurants will give you free drinks with your takeaway meal.

We generally get free coffee and tea at most large food chain outlets.

[Richard B the EMT]

They did that at the rest stops on the New York Thruway, giving discounts, to uniformed military, FD, LEO, and EMS personnel, in the weeks following the 9-11 attack.

There is also a burger joint in Nassau County, supposedly a chain, but never seen or heard of it outside that community, or even others in the same community, offers a discount to FFs, EMS and LEOs who present ID. Because I don't know if they can get into trouble for it, I am not going to ID the place by name or town.

[JakeEMTP]

Starbucks beside the hospital will give us gratis regular coffee ( do they have such an animal?) if we are in uniform. Sometimes they forget and charge us, but that's ok. I never mention it. Usually, one of us will put a dollar in their tip jar on the way out.

[firedoc5]

One thing I can say about some McDonald's that when there was a large incident they would send out about 100 burgers, either free or at a super low price. It was depending on what manager was working. And if they did charge one of the Captains would pay out of his own pocket. God forbid if the Chief was asked to pay, whether he paid or the city. He could be a real d!ck at times. :?

[Richard B the EMT]

I have issues with the Starbucks organization.

1) On 9-11, several teams from the Midwood (Brooklyn, NY) Ambulance Service, a non 9-1-1 system provider, paid out of their own pockets for water bottles from Starbucks near the World Trade Center, for use in rinsing out the eyes of survivors of the collapses. They were charged EXTRA!

2) Instead of an apology and reimbursal, the area Starbucks manager turned it into a media event, to the effect of "how good" Starbucks was to reimburse the Midwood crews, in a media bite, as he presented Al Rapasarda, President of the Midwood Ambulance Service, with the reimbursal check. (I used to work there, for Al's father)

3) Several persons were endangered in the Summer of 2007 NYC Steam-Pipe Explosion, as they had no "safe harbor" to get to from outside, or would have been trapped in the store if something else had happened, as, following 9-11, Starbucks initiated a policy of, if any incidents happened in the street outside any of the Manhattan Starbucks, the coffee shop crews were to lock the doors. Nobody in, nobody out!

Therefore, I have initiated a one person boycott of any Starbucks products. I am not organized, but if you want to join, come on along, plus, it will save you the ridiculous price they charge, anyway.

[GBFDEMS174]

well, we get 30 to 50 percent off at a few places when we go out to eat there. I especially take advantage of it when we get a multiple amount of alarm activations at thoes places.

[firedoc5]

We would occasionally get pizzas from Dominoes or Pizza Hut. When someone would call in a prank and it couldn't be delivered or they couldn't pay for it. It would usually be some kind of weird order like anchovie and onion or something. I got to where I'd eat any kind of pizza except for anchovies. I had an uncle in LA that would eat those hairy little fishes out of the jar. I just couldn't do it. :-&

[Richard B the EMT]

For those who take the Los Angeles/Hawaii version of Pizza, with pineapple, how could you mess up a pizza pie so horribly? I'll take a slice of pineapple on various styles of pork or ham, but it ain't natural on pizza!