Behavior on Deployment (Large incidents, wildland fire, etc.)

[Eydawn]

I have a question for all of our good folks out here in EMTCity land. As many of y'all may know, I live in Colorado. The sky decided to wreck some rather nice parts of my state with fairly large amounts of water. I am on a local SAR team.

Here's my question... for resources that come in from other areas, do you feel that it is inappropriate, during down time, for those people to discuss their lives back home with local responders? The specific behavior in question was folks describing having to burn sick days to deploy as federal resources, with some of them with less-than-thrilled employers and having had the experience before of not getting paid for several months for previous disaster deployments by the Dear Old Fed. I found it to be normal discussion and banter. Someone else with whom I've had this discussion finds the idea of this kind of behavior to be intolerable, and states that if you're going to gripe about anything you're not cut out for search and rescue.

Assume, for this scenario, that we're referring to a multi-day mission and the folks in question were on a rest day/standby with literally nothing productive to do on this given day.

What are your personal experiences? Do you think this kind of chatter (things we can all relate to) is unprofessional given the context?

Wendy

CO EMT-B

RN-ADN

Edit: Capitalization mistake.

Edited October 2, 2013 by Eydawn

[scubanurse]

I think bitching about not getting paid right away is unprofessional. You don't know if the people you're talking to are there trying to save people's homes while their own home gets destroyed. So often the first responders in situations like these put the public first and their own homes last. Granted that is not always the case, but does occur. I think griping about little things like that when there are bigger things at play is unprofessional or just lacking decorum.

Just my $0.02

[Just Plain Ruff]

You know I spent some time in a very long class (8 days) that was EMS related about 3 years ago. I took the class during a vacation I had to take.

I was staying at a local fire house and I got to know the fire/ems guys really well.

I know my example here doesn't compare but I was pretty bored at night just sitting around a fire house that had 2 or three guys in it waiting for a call that might or might not come in. I was doing some ride time with them as well as just an observer.

I got to know them and they got to know me. I would not have dreamed that they would have had any issue with me telling them about my life in missouri when I was staying with them in another state. I got to know their families and they got to know mine(through me). I had some issues at home with the wife and kids and these guys I stayed with listened to me and were sort a couple of strong shoulders that I needed at that time.

I bitched about things to them and they listened. They bitched to me and I would have never even thought that someone would say "oh he's not cut out for this type of work" just because I was complaining about home or talking about home.

That's just silly. But to bitch about not getting paid especially when you knew what happened the last time you were deployed or helped out, the length of time it takes the government to pay anything out, you don't really have much right to complain about pay when you are working then and there. Once the deployment is over then you can complain.

I am sure that Dwayne will show up in this and give his perspective of both the PNG and remote medic work and his work at the gulf.

Edited October 2, 2013 by Captain ToHellWithItAll