Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Bic pens and AI
16 Plays22 days ago
Welcome back! This week, after the rigamarole, Ron rants about Bic pens and their quality; Chris wants to know how we can better approach AI. As always, please like, subscribe, and share with your friends. Come join the discussions on the Discord Channel (https://discord.gg/TbxA7gcUky) and follow us on Twitter, @cltruitt22. Thanks and take care!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Mythic Giraffe Podcast
00:00:06
Chris
Welcome back to another episode the Mythic Giraffe Podcast. I'm Chris.
00:00:10
yo
And I'm Ron, enjoying
Humorous Work Anecdotes and Music Volume Issues
00:00:12
Chris
And was the music really quiet for you?
00:00:12
yo
our...
00:00:14
yo
It was very quiet for me.
00:00:15
Chris
Okay, thank God I'm not going. It's not a full stroke, just a mini stroke.
00:00:19
yo
You smell hot dogs.
00:00:21
Chris
No, I smell toast.
00:00:23
yo
No, okay, you're fine.
00:00:26
Chris
yeah I almost got written up about that.
00:00:28
yo
What?
00:00:29
Chris
Yes. A previous deputy chief who used to give a hard time about having a stroke.
00:00:31
yo
Because...
00:00:35
Chris
And there was another deputy chief, you can't pick on him like that.
Fire Department Award and Evaluation Processes
00:00:42
Chris
Yes, I can show me a handbook where it says I can't.
00:00:43
yo
i used to I used to write on the board ah three footprints on one side and a squiggly line and about said deputy chief.
00:00:54
Chris
Yeah.
00:00:55
yo
Tell me I can't make fun of that man.
00:00:57
Chris
Yeah.
00:00:58
yo
He spelled my name wrong in my promotional announcement. He deserves it. Sure, sure,
00:01:02
Chris
I still can't believe that. but But it it didn't just it wasn't just him.
00:01:09
yo
sure.
00:01:09
Chris
Yeah.
00:01:09
yo
sure sure
00:01:10
Chris
Yeah. So.
00:01:12
yo
It's okay, I've only worked in the fire department for 21 years. Why would they get my name right?
00:01:15
Chris
Yeah. ah Did you get your 20 year award?
00:01:18
yo
Yeah, I actually did get my 20-year award.
00:01:19
Chris
That's good.
00:01:20
yo
Yeah, it wasn't even late.
00:01:23
Chris
That's ah it's good. too
00:01:24
yo
I think the reason it wasn't...
00:01:24
Chris
and Did the senior guy on your shift get hit?
00:01:27
yo
He did, and the only reason that I got mine was because I pitched a fit so much about his.
00:01:28
Chris
I know.
00:01:33
yo
Because I thought it was ridiculous that he didn't have his on time.
00:01:36
Chris
Yeah. Well. I mean, he's also forgetful. They asked him how long he's worked there, and I don't know.
00:01:42
yo
That's fair, but it shouldn't be on him.
00:01:45
Chris
Yeah.
00:01:46
yo
When the person... who She doesn't work for us anymore, but when she made the excuse of, well, we don't have this planned out.
00:01:48
Chris
Yeah.
00:01:53
Chris
the Yeah.
00:01:53
yo
That's a pretty terrible excuse because you know exactly whenever people... It's not like we have 30 people hitting 20 years.
00:01:59
Chris
Right.
00:02:00
yo
And if we did...
00:02:00
Chris
If only there was a computer system you could log right into and say, oh, look.
00:02:01
yo
you
00:02:04
Chris
Look at when this employee started.
00:02:04
yo
Right.
00:02:07
yo
Yeah. I think... I want to have ah a new system where we only recognize five years. We do five, 10, 15, 20, 25. We don't recognize anything else because they don't matter.
00:02:17
Chris
yeah well that's what we used to do and the the city started this other thing ah
00:02:22
yo
i now I know, I know.
00:02:24
Chris
oh you've been here it's like it's like those crazy parents yeah it's like oh so-and-so's been here for 16 years it's like you know how old's your kid oh they're 33 months no they're not lady they're ah two and a half years or whatever
00:02:36
yo
Well, it's also our our city has a EPA program where I, if you're on probation, i have to give you an EPA within 30 days.
00:02:43
Chris
yeah yeah yep
00:02:44
yo
ah So technically, when you come to work for us, the first two weeks, you're not even with your shift. You're in the academy. So then by the time you get out of your academy, you're on your two weeks.
00:02:55
yo
You only work two days out of those two, three, maybe three, depending on how it lies, before you're supposed to get an EPA.
00:02:59
Chris
yeah yeah yeah yep yeah showed up to work uniform was clean had a spunky attitude
00:03:03
yo
What is that EPA supposed to say? Showed up to work? Good job?
00:03:13
yo
i so It's crazy.
00:03:16
Chris
Yeah.
00:03:18
yo
Yeah, it's weird.
00:03:20
Chris
I, yeah, I don't, I kind of get why they need these benchmarks, but I'm i'm almost like, unless you're screwing up, just, just let it go.
00:03:32
yo
Yeah. Well, I always tell my boss, like, my EPAs only... The only thing you'll see in my EPAs are good things. Because if it wasn't a good thing, you would have already known about it.
00:03:41
Chris
ah Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:03:43
yo
Like, if my employees...
00:03:44
Chris
Yeah, not like you're going to write down, oh, you were late for work. We're not talk about that till next year.
00:03:49
yo
Right.
00:03:51
yo
I'm going to handle those.
00:03:51
Chris
Yeah.
00:03:52
yo
Because if I'm not handling those things in March, I'm not sure I'm not going handle them January. I'm not going to remember.
00:03:57
Chris
Yeah.
00:03:58
yo
Other shifts...
00:03:58
Chris
Right.
00:03:59
yo
I've seen other shifts' EPAs. I'm like, you guys are crazy.
00:04:01
Chris
Yeah.
00:04:03
yo
They write three-page paragraphs forever. you know It's like...
00:04:06
Chris
ah Well, that's a certain select group that, yeah, took after a certain somebody who doesn't work there anymore. And yeah, dumb.
00:04:13
yo
It's crazy.
00:04:15
Chris
Yeah.
00:04:15
yo
My EPA say...
00:04:16
Chris
Let's see, even the good stuff, you should be, you should be recognizing the good stuff along the way too.
00:04:20
yo
Yeah.
00:04:21
Chris
Yeah.
00:04:21
yo
You should have done all of that.
00:04:21
Chris
All that, that evaluation should be like, Hey, look, you, you maybe like some big achievements, you know like, Oh, you, you know, you finished paramedic school or you enrolled in paramedic school goal for next, you finished paramedic school or, you know, Hey, maybe take some of these classes.
Hoarding and Inefficiencies in Fire Equipment Design
00:04:35
yo
but what Like, my one employee has 22 years on the job. What's his goal? Make it to retirement?
00:04:44
Chris
apply for medicare
00:04:44
yo
i'm not going to right Like, I'm not going to put things in there like, I really want you to go be a go-getter next year and step up three more things. No. It's not going to happen.
00:04:55
Chris
yeah well yeah yeah well that mean that individual you got to make sure he's you know remembering his teeth and
00:04:56
yo
You know, it's it's it's such a weird world. Yeah.
00:05:06
yo
Well, yeah, the biggest challenge we have is make sure he has his applesauce with his pills. That's... That's our job.
00:05:14
Chris
Ah, God. That one day the probie ate that applesauce? Oof.
00:05:17
yo
It was a bad day.
00:05:20
Chris
but There's people at home going, and oh my God.
00:05:25
Chris
ah
00:05:26
yo
My station's finally going to have a kitchen again when I get back from this work trip.
00:05:27
Chris
Yeah.
00:05:31
Chris
Yeah.
00:05:32
yo
Supposedly.
00:05:32
Chris
Yeah.
00:05:33
yo
Very excited.
00:05:34
Chris
ah Have you seen the pictures?
00:05:36
yo
ah Oh, is it like...
00:05:37
Chris
it looks
00:05:37
yo
It
00:05:38
Chris
It looks bigger.
00:05:40
yo
looks bigger.
00:05:42
Chris
Yeah, like the space looks bigger
00:05:44
yo
Yeah, it's because the table that table is really big.
00:05:47
Chris
yeah yeah that's a big thing well i mean everything that you guys took out you know from the last clean out we've got it secured away so we can bring it back to you oh my yeah yeah i mean somebody the other day was like oh no it was today
00:05:47
yo
That table gives a lot of room. But if we don't jam it full of other shit, maybe it'll be nicer in there. Yeah.
00:06:06
yo
like Oh, I'm getting a picture something. Yep.
00:06:12
Chris
they were talking about uh the contractor was like yeah gotta get your dishwasher and i think i need to get you a disposal so yeah so and somebody was like why didn't we keep the old disposal what but that's uh i could see like if we had just got the disposal like a month before maybe we would reuse it but that was an old disposal
00:06:37
yo
Yeah, yeah. I'm going to talk to the the three bosses, and i think we're going to get some new knives. We're going to throw away all the old ones and just get new knives.
00:06:48
Chris
No, no, no. Can't do that.
00:06:50
yo
Yes, again.
00:06:51
Chris
We will piecemeal some knives together.
00:06:53
yo
no no, no. I think... No, no, no, no. Your maniac employee, by the way, your maniac employee, I said, hey, what are we doing with this extra booster hose?
00:07:04
yo
ah I'm going to keep it.
00:07:09
Chris
Hmm.
00:07:09
yo
we might We might lose a section of Booster Hose. Well, in the 20 years I've been here, we've never lost a single section of Booster Hose. Let's get rid of this.
Challenges in Fire Department Procurement and Maintenance
00:07:23
yo
I don't know.
00:07:25
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:26
yo
swo I don't know.
00:07:28
Chris
Yeah,
00:07:32
Chris
yeah but I think some of these people that are like that at work, it's because they don't do it at home. So they have to let their hoarder flag fly when they're at work.
00:07:42
yo
really
00:07:43
Chris
I think so. I do think some of them also hang on to everything at their house.
00:07:47
yo
I think they sing ah think that you hang on to everything at home.
00:07:47
Chris
But I think.
00:07:50
Chris
Yeah. But there are some, I think, that their home is probably, like, meticulous and clean and everything, but it worked.
00:07:51
yo
i'm
00:07:55
Chris
It's just...
00:07:57
yo
And I'm not, look, I'm not saying we should just never repurpose things.
00:08:00
Chris
Oh, yeah.
00:08:01
yo
But hose that's been on a brush truck for 15 years, either we don't need it and we can give it to another department, or we just throw it the fuck away.
00:08:12
Chris
Yeah.
00:08:12
yo
It has no other purpose.
00:08:14
Chris
Yeah.
00:08:16
yo
It's fine.
00:08:17
Chris
yeah
00:08:17
yo
we'll be okay without it. We, on top of that hose, if that, if that breaks, we have like 300 feet of forestry line.
00:08:25
Chris
right
00:08:25
yo
We live in urban Salisbury. We're not in fucking Wyoming.
00:08:32
yo
Right. That brush truck's not getting pulled to go to Wyoming to brush the, right. The, the wildfires yet.
00:08:37
Chris
well give them time yeah it's uh it's interesting where it's like you know there was a pull handle off a saw broken uh
00:08:38
yo
so i said yet.
00:08:45
yo
It's crazy. It is.
00:08:54
yo
Throw it away.
00:08:55
Chris
was like, so we're throwing this away. Well, we got measure it before we order a new one. What? They're standard. Just order one. I said, worst case, get a piece of wood and drill a hole through it. Now you have a handle.
00:09:08
Chris
I mean, I was like, oh my gosh.
00:09:09
yo
What?
00:09:12
Chris
Yeah.
00:09:13
yo
What? I don't know what that fire department thing is. ah We are going to hoard this thing for 50 years.
00:09:17
Chris
Yep. Yeah.
00:09:21
Chris
Yep.
00:09:21
yo
And then...
00:09:22
Chris
Yeah. Or I always liked
00:09:23
yo
throw it away.
00:09:24
Chris
We broke the head off the axe.
00:09:27
yo
Oh, yeah.
00:09:28
Chris
Okay.
00:09:28
yo
Yeah. Yep.
00:09:29
Chris
Yeah, well, I brought you back the head and the handle. What am I supposed to do with the handle?
00:09:33
yo
so I don't need that handle.
00:09:35
Chris
No.
00:09:36
yo
Don't need that handle.
00:09:36
Chris
No. Nope. Nope. And then, well, now it's, well, I mean, that's good for poking down the hose when you're wrecking. I'm like, oh my God, you are a bunch of hillbillies. ah That's my poking stick.
00:09:51
yo
I mean, it also goes to even like how we design apparatus.
00:09:56
Chris
Oh, yeah.
00:09:56
yo
You know, like, well, we have to have this much hose because we might respond to a call and there might not be a hydrant within 3000 meters. Well, by code, you have to be within 500 feet of a fire hydrant anywhere in the city, anywhere outside of the hy of that district, it doesn't matter.
00:10:12
Chris
Yeah.
00:10:16
Chris
Yeah.
00:10:17
yo
So how much hose do you need on this fire truck?
00:10:19
Chris
Yeah.
00:10:20
yo
600 feet?
00:10:24
yo
But that's how we design fire trucks.
00:10:24
Chris
ah Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's.
00:10:30
yo
ah Speaking that, have you seen...
00:10:30
Chris
Uh-oh.
00:10:32
yo
i Look, I'm not a Josh Hawley fan. He's a Republican GOP House... think he's a representative.
00:10:39
Chris
Okay.
00:10:39
yo
He's grilling the CEO of whatever the company that owns Pierce is.
00:10:46
Chris
Rev.
00:10:47
yo
Yeah, he they've had them up on Congress.
00:10:48
Chris
Rev.
00:10:51
yo
Like, why the hell is it five years for a fire engine to get made?
00:10:51
Chris
Yep.
00:10:56
Chris
Yeah.
00:10:57
yo
And he's been like, but of course, nothing's going to change. But he's really calling them out on their bullshit. I got to give him that.
00:11:02
Chris
Oh yeah. Well, there's that. And the fact that the cost is pretty much doubled in the last eight years and
00:11:07
yo
Oh, yeah. Well, so, like,
00:11:12
Chris
well, new ambulances, I got the thing the other day, they will start the production line. No, uh, the fall of 2027. That's ridiculous.
00:11:20
yo
Yeah, that was what we were talking about the other day.
00:11:21
Chris
that's ridiculous
00:11:22
yo
An ambulance. So for those who are outside of baseball, let's go inside baseball here a second.
00:11:28
Chris
Yeah.
00:11:29
yo
These ambulances, pretty much three years and they're done.
00:11:34
Chris
Yeah.
00:11:35
yo
Right. Three years is...
00:11:37
Chris
yeah In three years, we've put over 100,000 miles on them.
00:11:38
yo
We run the...
00:11:41
yo
Right, and and like you say, oh, it's 100,000 miles, but it's really rough mileage.
00:11:46
Chris
Yeah.
00:11:46
yo
Like diesel engines just aren't meant to run like the fire department runs them.
00:11:50
Chris
Right.
00:11:50
yo
And so they're really, and and not only that, but like they just get used and the equipment starts to break and it just becomes a maintenance nightmare.
00:11:57
Chris
Yeah.
00:11:59
Chris
Yeah, yeah.
00:12:00
yo
So about three years, they have to be replaced, which means with the way things are are right now, we would have had to known that this was going to happen
00:12:08
Chris
Yeah.
00:12:09
yo
and ordered them the day we got the new ones.
00:12:12
Chris
Yeah.
00:12:13
yo
Right?
00:12:13
Chris
Yeah.
00:12:14
yo
So now we're looking at, ambulances should have been replaced after three years are going to make it six.
00:12:14
Chris
Mm hmm.
00:12:19
Chris
Yep. Yeah.
00:12:21
yo
And that is a real problem.
00:12:25
Chris
Mm hmm.
00:12:25
yo
Like, you know, our maintenance budget is X.
00:12:26
Chris
Yeah.
00:12:28
yo
And if these ambulances, which are our biggest maintenance issue, I would say, ah
00:12:36
Chris
truck two yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah they are the one they're the workhorses
00:12:37
yo
Okay, fair. Okay, we do have one really bad piece right now. But outside in normal operating procedures, the AMO, they're the workhorses. They go on the most calls, they they get the most and they have to be replaced.
00:12:51
yo
And now because of decisions that have nothing to do with us, we have nothing. These things are gonna take four years.
00:12:58
Chris
yeah yeah
00:12:59
yo
We order them now to 2025. We won't see them until
00:13:05
yo
And it's not like we can order them tomorrow. Like, we have to we have to get the funding from the city.
00:13:08
Chris
Yeah.
00:13:11
yo
We have to we have to spec them.
00:13:13
Chris
Right. Yeah.
00:13:13
yo
You know, we there's there's government regulations we have to follow. We have to predestine going, oh, these and animals are going to have to last three more years on top of that. It's insane.
00:13:23
Chris
Yeah.
00:13:23
yo
It's impossible for us to deal with.
00:13:25
Chris
Oh, yeah.
00:13:26
yo
You know, like to end the new...
00:13:27
Chris
Yeah. And we're not like some agencies that are getting like these Cadillac of, you know, ambulances.
00:13:28
yo
and
00:13:33
Chris
We're getting workhorses. I mean, they have some creature comforts in them, but for the most part, The ambulances are workhorses.
00:13:39
yo
Yeah, there's some things that we can't skimp on. Like, they have to have air conditioning, right?
00:13:42
Chris
Yeah.
00:13:43
yo
They have to have heat. They have to have... But it's not like we're getting much past that.
00:13:45
Chris
Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, no,
00:13:48
yo
We're lucky we get an FM radio in the things.
00:13:51
Chris
no. Oh, I cut back to AM this time.
00:13:52
yo
know Okay, good, good. It won't matter me. They won't be here when i before I get to retire.
00:13:58
Chris
Yeah. Can you imagine if we were like, yeah, here's some new ambulances and it has an eight track in it.
00:13:59
yo
You know.
00:14:04
yo
What? But...
00:14:05
Chris
Or here's a place you can plug in your Zune.
00:14:08
yo
Nice. Nice. But fire engines are the same thing. You know, fire engines, you know, it's it becomes a safety issue after about, like our plan is five years, probably 10 years is really where they need to be replaced.
00:14:12
Chris
ah Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:21
Chris
Yeah.
00:14:24
yo
You know, but truck engine one is 10 plus six is 16 years old right now, right?
00:14:33
Chris
yeah
00:14:33
yo
And it won't be replaced. It hasn't been ordered yet, right?
00:14:37
Chris
right
00:14:38
yo
But if we order it tomorrow, it's got to make it another four years. so
00:14:42
Chris
yeah mm-hmm yeah
00:14:43
yo
That's insane. You know, it used to take 11 months to get a new engine, which is a ah a, it's a long time, but it's a reasonable amount of time that you can budget for and plan for.
00:14:57
yo
Four years to be told, hey, you you you just gave us a million dollars and we're not even going to start in for three years.
00:15:00
Chris
um yeah right yeah yeah and that's like and i've heard somebody was like well you know and also
00:15:05
yo
That's crazy talk. it' it's
00:15:12
Chris
Just because you're you know you're buying it now. I mean, it's going to go up in price over the next four years. I'm sorry. If I'm buying it today, that's the price.
00:15:19
yo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:21
Chris
But I read somewhere.
00:15:22
yo
And it's so hard for us. Go ahead, sorry.
00:15:25
Chris
Good.
00:15:25
yo
i was gonna say, it's so hard for us to plan for what an engine is gonna look like in four years.
00:15:25
Chris
No good.
00:15:32
yo
Right? So like, you're the boss.
00:15:33
Chris
Yeah.
00:15:33
yo
I'm i'm not the boss, you're the boss. you This is your planning. What does engine one need to look like for for today versus what does it look like for four years from now?
00:15:39
Chris
Yeah.
00:15:42
yo
That engine's going to go on way more calls in four years.
00:15:42
Chris
right yeah
00:15:45
yo
i And then you have to plan in that, hey, that engine needs to last 10 years. Now it's 14 years you're planning out.
00:15:51
Chris
oh yeah yeah it's ridiculous yeah yeah i was just gonna say i saw something the other day i can't remember who it was it was it was it wasn't like a little podunk fire department who's decent size and they called pierce
00:15:53
yo
Right. That's really hard to do. Yeah.
00:16:12
Chris
canceled their contract they had contracted out like three engines and two trucks and a rescue or something like that and they bought used equipment that they could get on site within like five months and are happy as you know pigs in shit
00:16:27
yo
I mean, there's a part of me that says engine one, maybe one of the two of the two engines that are station one, get a huge piece because they're still going to be newer than what we have.
00:16:32
Chris
yeah yeah yeah but the maintenance guy and i think
00:16:37
yo
Yeah.
00:16:39
Chris
The other day we're talking about, we saw that a local fire department selling their ambulance and it looked, it's set up just like ours. And it's, I don't know, eight years old and it's got a hundred thousand miles on it. i was like, that might be a decent backup for us.
00:16:53
yo
Yeah.
00:16:55
Chris
Knowing that hundred hundred grand and I can get it, you next week.
00:16:55
yo
and
00:17:00
yo
Right. You know, and that's without shopping around, right?
00:17:03
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:04
yo
They've put us in this, I'd say us, they put you guys in a very uncomfortable position, you know?
00:17:08
Chris
yeah Oh yeah.
Impact of Costs on Staffing and Decision-making Autonomy
00:17:12
yo
And I try to tell the guys at work all the time, like, and look, as much as you guys, the admin doesn't say it, our guys take care of our equipment very well. Like our admin staff does a great job of fixing things.
00:17:24
yo
We do a great job of reporting things compared to a lot of other departments.
00:17:26
Chris
yeah
00:17:28
yo
Baltimore city, their engines dog crap by the end of their lifespan.
00:17:30
Chris
Oh yeah.
00:17:31
yo
You know, if you took an engine like engine one and put it in Baltimore, it ain't making it done 16 years.
00:17:32
Chris
Yeah.
00:17:36
Chris
um No.
00:17:38
yo
You know, I will say we, we take, I would say pretty good pride in our equipment.
00:17:47
Chris
Yes, for the most part.
00:17:47
yo
And, and there's just a certain point where it just can't handle anymore. Yeah.
00:17:52
Chris
Yeah, yeah. It's not like back when you and I had first started and we had certain people that would, you know, break the dash and dumb shit like that just because they were animals.
00:18:01
yo
Right.
00:18:02
Chris
Yeah.
00:18:04
yo
Yeah, for the most part.
00:18:06
Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or let me go through this giant puddle at 60 miles an hour.
00:18:11
yo
Well, the propeller gets you through it.
00:18:13
Chris
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, yeah.
00:18:17
yo
Yeah, it's it's that. Just the answers from that guy enraged me.
00:18:22
Chris
Oh, yeah.
00:18:23
yo
and And just like, you're screwing over.
00:18:24
Chris
Yeah.
00:18:26
yo
Because what they've done is they bought all of these other departments or these other companies.
00:18:29
Chris
Oh, yep.
00:18:30
yo
So we don't have, there's no competition. We have no choice.
00:18:34
Chris
Yeah.
00:18:35
yo
You know, it's real bad.
00:18:36
Chris
It's almost like a Monopoly's bad. Yeah.
00:18:40
yo
And it's costing us a lot of money.
00:18:43
Chris
Yeah.
00:18:43
yo
You know, when people want to ask, it used to be pretty easy to say, oh, the biggest cost of fire departments was staff.
00:18:51
Chris
Yeah.
00:18:51
yo
Right. But now ambulance is pushing $500,000. five hundred thousand dollars You know, if you're going to buy three ambulances in a year, that's,
00:18:57
Chris
It's ridiculous. Yeah.
00:19:03
yo
1.5 million dollars you know and you got to do that every three years you know that's it's it's lot of money that we we're not recruiting
00:19:04
Chris
yeah
00:19:07
Chris
Yeah.
00:19:11
Chris
Yeah. yeah It's a whole nother bag of cats, the whole payer issue.
00:19:20
yo
sure but the taxpayers have yeah like an engine was when i started
00:19:22
Chris
Yeah. Or just that ah you know a fire truck used to cost 500. ye five hundred
00:19:31
yo
really looking at this, probably, i would say, 10 years into my service. And that's what It's jumped this much in 10 years.
00:19:37
Chris
yeah oh yeah yeah the yeah usually yeah it's 7 50 to 8.
00:19:39
yo
An engine costs about $500,000. A ladder truck, sub-million, right? It was like $700,000, $800,000, $900,000 for a ladder truck.
00:19:50
yo
Yeah. A new ladder truck is... Well, our last ladder truck was 1.4.
00:19:55
Chris
yeah
00:19:56
yo
The new Rescue, which we don't even need, 1.3.
00:19:58
Chris
god don't even yeah yeah yeah
00:19:59
yo
is one point three A rescue is nothing more than a box on wheels. That doesn't make sense. It should be cheaper than anything else.
00:20:07
Chris
you would think yeah it doesn't have a pump it doesn't have an aerial system yeah yeah yeah why is that yeah
00:20:10
yo
Yeah. should be the cheapest piece of equipment you buy. And for some reason, it's $1.3 million dollars or $1.4 million. I can't remember what that is up to now.
00:20:21
yo
Crazy.
00:20:24
yo
i can't I couldn't explain it to you.
00:20:28
yo
but i mean, I know why it is. They're gouging.
00:20:30
Chris
what yeah rev yeah yeah yep
00:20:31
yo
They're gouging the American people. Rev is literally gouging the American people at this point. We don't pay for that.
00:20:39
Chris
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's what it kills me when I hear guys and gals. Well, you know, they invest a lot into it too. I mean, you know, they fly us down and, you know take us out to dinner and everything.
00:20:51
yo
ah You pay for that! You pay for that!
00:20:52
Chris
It's like you animals paid for that.
00:20:53
yo
They're
00:20:55
Chris
It's literally in the contract. You can look at the contract and see the line item that they're charging you to fly your ass down there.
00:20:58
yo
not...
00:21:02
yo
They fly six of you to Wisconsin or or Florida, whichever site you go to.
00:21:08
Chris
Yeah.
00:21:09
yo
Six morons who know nothing about anything to go.
00:21:12
Chris
engineering or anything. Yeah.
00:21:13
yo
Yeah, to go. Yep. Looks like a fire engine. Cool. Thanks.
00:21:16
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:18
yo
it's
00:21:18
Chris
God, I thought I was going to get shot when I was like, why isn't this walk through a virtual thing?
00:21:18
yo
but
00:21:24
yo
Why is it a thing?
00:21:26
Chris
Yeah. Yeah. That's why I was like, when I buy a, and I get it is, you know, it's a piece of apparatus.
00:21:33
yo
So Chris, why don't.
00:21:33
Chris
That's a big investment, but I'm pretty sure that Mike over in field ops isn't touring the pre-production of a garbage truck.
00:21:44
yo
Right, I send you this. This is the list is the contract. You must build this fire engine right at the end of the contract when you deliver the fire engine.
00:21:49
Chris
Yeah. Yep.
00:21:54
yo
If that fire engine isn't what I ordered. I don't take delivery of it.
00:21:58
Chris
Yeah.
00:21:58
yo
Why do I send six of you for pre-op? Why do I send six of you for final?
00:22:04
Chris
Yeah.
00:22:04
yo
Why am I, so and that costs us money, by the way. It doesn't, by it's not free.
00:22:07
Chris
Oh yeah.
00:22:08
yo
We have to send, we have to cover those people's positions and all that bullshit.
00:22:09
Chris
Yeah.
00:22:11
Chris
Right. Yep.
00:22:14
yo
I don't buy a car and say, I want a Honda Insight. And they show up with a Honda Accord and say, here you go. Like, that's not how it works.
00:22:21
Chris
Oh, well, I didn't fly out to the Honda plant, so I guess I got to take this.
00:22:23
yo
Right, right. It's insane. Oh, man.
00:22:28
Chris
Yeah. Well, and I think part of it also is, you know, so many departments and us, yeah we're guilty of it. It,
00:22:39
Chris
it's gotta be so specialized for us.
00:22:42
yo
Sure. Yeah, we think we're special.
00:22:45
Chris
Yeah.
00:22:46
yo
We think we all... this is All firefighters think that they have invented something different.
00:22:52
Chris
Yeah.
00:22:53
yo
All of them.
00:22:53
Chris
Yeah. Our hose bed is two inches shorter.
00:22:55
yo
Yep.
00:22:56
Chris
Oh my gosh.
00:22:58
yo
This load that we are the only ones who use and it has to have specialized...
00:23:04
yo
It's all fucking loads. It's all hoses.
00:23:07
Chris
Yeah. Oh,
00:23:08
yo
yeah
00:23:08
Chris
side tangent to that so the other day i was uh across the way and it was d shift it was 16d out there and they were messing with the high-rise packs that are on the sides of the wagons and ah they got mad at me because they were talking about i can't remember they were talking something that was on the truck or whatever was like why is there extra hose on the truck but whatever um
00:23:10
yo
Oh boy.
00:23:21
yo
Okay. Yep.
00:23:36
Chris
They were talking about deploying it and this and that. I said, well, you know, there's a way that if you reverse double donut it and you drop it, it deploys up and down at the same time. So one person deploys it up, the other person takes it down and it makes it so much easier. Like, oh my gosh, whoever thought of that? I was like, Lieutenant Wismer thought of that.
00:23:59
Chris
And we practiced that all weekend, one weekend, and it worked like a charm, but yeah.
00:24:00
yo
Yeah, we did.
00:24:06
Chris
They're like, oh my gosh. i was like, yeah, that's the patented whismarole. Ah,
00:24:11
yo
It's the Whismur Truett roll. It's not the Whismur roll.
00:24:12
Chris
ah, ah, but still it was, it was just like, guys, there's, there's a million different ways to make this happen. Just, just make it happen. Yeah.
00:24:23
yo
Yeah, that's the biggest thing about it is you're not inventing something new. You're just...
00:24:28
Chris
Yeah.
00:24:28
yo
doing something old a different way.
00:24:30
Chris
yeah Let's say it. Yeah. They fuss about, well, well, see shift. They come in and they, They pull the hose off and they re-rack it you know the way they like it. Okay? but They're staffing that thing for 24 hours. If they want to put, you know, hemorrhoid donut seats in all the seats, that's fine.
00:24:49
Chris
It's theirs for 24 hours. Yeah.
00:24:51
yo
Yeah, so we had this conversation the other day at Station 1, and two other the three like three of the four lieutenants were on my side.
Communication Gaps and Internal Operations
00:25:00
yo
Or I should say, two of the four lieutenants had this opinion.
00:25:04
Chris
yeah
00:25:05
yo
C-Chef came up with an idea, and they said, hey, we'd like to rack this hose this way.
00:25:07
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:25:10
yo
I said, it only affects Station 1 because the Station 16 equipment can't re-rack this way.
00:25:10
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:25:16
Chris
Right.
00:25:18
yo
If the four lieutenants agree, it doesn't need to go any further. And then the one lieutenant, wow, it needs to have a trial period and go in front of the assistant chiefs. Why? Why do the assistant chiefs need to be? but We are, I think, empowered to make decisions about the equipment at station one.
00:25:36
Chris
Yeah.
00:25:37
yo
Don't, if you don't like it, that's, you know, that's a conversation. And he was like, well, I really like it. I said, then we should just do it.
00:25:44
Chris
yeah
00:25:44
yo
And we should just inform other people that we've done it. I'm not saying we should keep it in secret.
00:25:47
Chris
Right. Oh yeah, no no, Let other people know. But yeah, it's.
00:25:53
yo
Literally, we're the only piece in the city, besides the tanker, which I don't think is the conversation to really have, that have a cross-lay.
00:25:59
Chris
Yeah.
00:26:01
yo
If chift C-Shift came up with a way and said, hey, I think this would deploy better, I said, do it.
00:26:01
Chris
Yeah.
00:26:05
Chris
Do it.
00:26:07
yo
And they were like, well, we we can. I said, no, we can, guys. we We are allowed to make decisions. they They pay us to make decisions, I think.
00:26:13
Chris
Yes.
00:26:16
Chris
yeah
00:26:18
yo
I might be wrong, you know?
00:26:18
Chris
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was the same group they were talking about. Because you got, and it's true in your district, you've got some longer leads from the driveway or from the roadway to the houses.
00:26:32
yo
Yeah.
00:26:33
Chris
And they're like, yeah, you know, sometimes just having a pre-connected 200 on the front would be a lot easier than the 150. I said, then't do it. Well, I mean, we got to ask for permission.
00:26:43
yo
Yeah.
00:26:44
Chris
said, no. I'm pretty sure the hose load says a minimum of 150 in the bucket.
00:26:49
yo
Yeah. we we
00:26:50
Chris
Make it 200. If you want to pull 250 off it, do it.
00:26:51
yo
It's funny because my my boss
00:26:53
Chris
Just make sure the chauffeur knows so they know what pressure to hit it.
00:26:56
yo
my boss and I had that conversation and he's like, there's a minimum. the s SOPs are a minimum.
00:27:00
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:02
yo
ah Yeah, we should have, because I've always said we should get rid the 350 and just have bundles.
00:27:08
Chris
Yeah.
00:27:09
yo
Because sometimes 400 might be needed.
00:27:12
Chris
Right.
00:27:12
yo
You know, we have very long lays in our district.
00:27:14
Chris
Yeah.
00:27:16
yo
Just do bundles. Oh, we'd have to go through the ACs. I said, no, that's, the ACs pay us to make those decisions.
00:27:25
Chris
yeah right yeah
00:27:26
yo
If they don't like it, then they can come ride the seat of the of the engine. They don't ride the seat the engine. That's not their job.
00:27:33
Chris
no
00:27:34
yo
It's, I love him to death. He's on my shift. The EMS sergeant is on my shift. Well, want to make this change ambulance. Then talk to the paramedics on A1.
00:27:43
Chris
yeah right
00:27:43
yo
If the paramedics at station one say, this is what we want, then that's the end of the conversation.
00:27:51
yo
well while it affects how we do things it doesn't affect things how we do things at the glucometer i worked for i worked following quillen for years i had to equalize the ambulance every goddamn shift i didn't say quillen stop doing that right it's your ambulance for 24 hours do what you want as long as it's got the equipment it's supposed to have on it fine
00:27:55
Chris
No, no. Oh my God.
00:28:03
Chris
Right. Yeah.
00:28:06
Chris
Yeah.
00:28:11
Chris
Yeah. Do have you, let the next, i mean, let the next crew know, hey, you know, i keep XYZ here or whatever, but yeah, like you said, don't keep it secretive.
00:28:18
yo
Sure, don't take equipment off. Right. But I knew that when I got to work, I had to go, I don't like it this way, I like it this way, and I just fixed it.
00:28:27
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:29
yo
I don't go to Quill and say, stop doing that. I just move on with my day.
00:28:32
Chris
Right.
00:28:35
Chris
but ah That, I think that's a big part of it. Also people don't communicate.
00:28:39
yo
They do not. Well, I should say this, but I'm going to say it anyways. Okay. A paramedic the other day, so there were some supply issues.
00:28:51
Chris
yeah
00:28:51
yo
And they I said, hey, paramedic, this is going on. There are some supply issues. They won't be replied. Well, nobody tells me anything. I literally just told you.
00:29:03
Chris
Yeah.
00:29:03
yo
That is me telling you about the thing. Well, it's not in writing. I'm telling you this is what's going on.
00:29:07
Chris
Oh my god! it's It's not in writing. I love that. Yeah.
00:29:13
yo
This is me passing information. If I just walked out of the door and didn't say anything, that's one thing.
00:29:18
Chris
Yeah.
00:29:19
yo
Instead, I took the time to explain to you what's going on. That's me passing it on. Well, it's not official.
00:29:24
Chris
yeah
00:29:25
yo
I'm a fucking lieutenant in this fire department telling you that this is what's going on.
00:29:29
Chris
Yeah.
00:29:30
yo
This is officially what's going on.
00:29:31
Chris
It doesn't get much more official than that.
00:29:33
yo
Do you want the fire chief to come out? No, because it's my job.
00:29:35
Chris
Oh my God.
00:29:37
yo
ah
00:29:38
Chris
God.
00:29:39
yo
i lost my shit a little bit.
00:29:39
Chris
Yeah.
00:29:40
yo
We
00:29:40
Chris
Yeah. Yeah. Well, rightfully so.
00:29:42
yo
It was a little, just the conversation of, well, nobody tells me anything.
00:29:44
Chris
Yeah.
00:29:46
yo
i'm like, I don't, I don't, I don't know what to tell.
00:29:47
Chris
Yeah.
00:29:49
yo
I just told you.
00:29:49
Chris
yeah
00:29:50
yo
Well, it's not on the, it's not on the board.
00:29:51
Chris
Yeah. Or I like that. Well, nobody told. Yeah. Well, nobody tells us anything. Well, okay. I get that. But did you. When's the last time you checked your email? I don't check my email.
00:30:01
yo
Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:30:02
Chris
Okay. Okay.
00:30:05
yo
Yeah, don't, I check email.
00:30:06
Chris
There was an officer. I haven't checked my email in three weeks. Proud of it. I'm like, you're a God bless it. Officer in this department.
00:30:16
yo
Now,
00:30:16
Chris
I it. You are backstep firefighter. Sure. Check your email when you get to work.
00:30:23
yo
right.
00:30:25
Chris
But yeah.
00:30:25
yo
I tried, when I'm on vacation, I don't check my email.
00:30:28
Chris
And right.
00:30:28
yo
That's a new Whismur thing.
00:30:29
Chris
that Well, I mean, that's a healthy thing. That's a separation.
00:30:32
yo
Yeah, yeah, it's my separation from the department.
00:30:33
Chris
But yeah.
00:30:36
yo
But, you yes, as an officer, you have to check your
00:30:40
Chris
yeah well that's all yeah i hope that individual takes the outlook class god that would be amazing if he was in that was like well i've never deleted a single email watch the instructor just have the aneurysm right there in front of everybody
00:30:40
yo
There's also an officer in our department who's never thrown an email away.
00:30:49
yo
it
00:30:58
yo
some of those emails are from so old that it's from other systems of email yeah it's crazy
00:31:03
Chris
oh yeah yeah yeah Yeah, it's like he's got to boot up MS-DOS to see some of them. God.
00:31:13
yo
ah man we just bitched the fire department for like 20 minutes
00:31:17
Chris
Yes, we did.
00:31:20
yo
Well, you want to move on to topic one?
00:31:20
Chris
yeah
Quality vs. Cost in Product Preferences
00:31:21
yo
Because it's just a rant.
00:31:21
Chris
sure topic one.
00:31:21
Chris
Yes! I mean, yes
00:31:26
yo
Why the fuck do ballpoint pens exist?
00:31:31
Chris
ah ah i mean
00:31:34
yo
good I want you to sit down.
00:31:35
Chris
um I think I'm using a ballpoint pen right now.
00:31:37
yo
I want you to... No, you're not.
00:31:40
Chris
It's a uniball.
00:31:42
yo
That's crazy talk.
00:31:44
Chris
Yeah.
00:31:45
yo
Finepoint pens exist. We invented the technology to make finepoint pens.
00:31:49
Chris
But those still have a ball at the end.
00:31:51
yo
No, no, no, no. I'm talking about the rounded ones.
00:31:52
Chris
Yes, they do.
00:31:54
yo
No, these are gel. They don't have a ball.
00:31:56
Chris
Yes, they do. They're still a ball there.
00:31:58
yo
I don't think so.
00:31:59
Chris
I think so.
00:32:01
yo
Okay, well, round point pens. Why do those exist?
00:32:03
Chris
Are you talking about like the old school, like clear plastic?
00:32:06
yo
yeah Those too, but any pen...
00:32:07
Chris
with the blue cap
00:32:08
yo
Like, half the pens I get, if I get like a free pen, it's always some shitty, non-fine point pen.
00:32:15
Chris
yeah yeah well yeah that's the thing yeah why does anything past fine point exist and for kids i don't know it doesn't
00:32:16
yo
Why do those exist?
00:32:20
yo
yeah
00:32:26
yo
How does it make them better? Has anyone ever written something with a fine point pen and then with a non-fine point pen and gone, yeah, that looks better. No one, not one person in the entire world has gone, that's better.
00:32:40
Chris
Yeah.
00:32:42
yo
Why do they exist? It doesn't make any sense to me.
00:32:46
yo
It's been driving me nuts. I can't tell you. i i wrote my my... I took a crappy non-finepoint pen into my workout journal for the last like six months.
00:32:58
yo
I can't read anything.
00:32:59
Chris
Yeah.
00:33:00
yo
switched over finepoint pen. like, oh, I can read all of these things.
00:33:03
Chris
Yeah. Cause it just, it, it goes over itself and it, And I feel like once it gets us past a certain size, it's like the ball gets stuck.
00:33:08
yo
They're just...
00:33:13
Chris
So you got to like really get it going.
00:33:13
yo
Yeah. yeah I have to do the stupid scribble to get us started.
00:33:16
Chris
Yeah.
00:33:17
yo
It's terrible.
00:33:18
Chris
Yep. Yeah.
00:33:19
yo
They're awful pens.
00:33:22
Chris
It's i I guess they're cheaper to make.
00:33:26
yo
They can't be that much cheaper to make.
00:33:28
Chris
I guess it's, you know, it's not as fine a. don't know, machining to get them down that size.
00:33:36
yo
Well, here's what going to tell you Look, big company. I know you exist. Everything you make sucks.
00:33:45
Chris
ah ah
00:33:47
yo
Your pens are terrible. Your razors suck. Bic, you suck.
00:33:52
Chris
yeah
00:33:53
yo
No one thinks of Bic razor and goes, that's a good quality razor, right?
00:33:57
Chris
yeah they make lighters though oh yeah that's true god bic has been around for more than 80 years
00:34:01
yo
That's fair. Which also burn your fingers cause they suck.
00:34:06
yo
Yeah.
00:34:10
yo
Oh, yeah, easily. Yeah, I would believe that. I would have said 100%. Because their pens are that old fashioned and crap.
00:34:16
Chris
yeah oh but you can customize your pocket lighter with them now you can get your face on it uh but the glossy black is out of stock
00:34:23
yo
Cool. Cool.
00:34:29
yo
Yeah, but like if you think quality, right? So if somebody said, hey, what's the best lighter? what What comes to your mind?
00:34:36
Chris
zippo yeah yeah yeah oh
00:34:37
yo
Zippo, right? you're not thinking Bic, right? So you're saying Zippo, all right? What's the best Razor?
00:34:46
Chris
I mean, I use Harry's, but if it.
00:34:48
yo
I also use Harry's.
00:34:50
Chris
ah Other than that, Gillette is what you think of.
00:34:53
yo
Right, Gillette's what you think of. And it comes to pens, what's the best pen?
00:34:59
Chris
ah the set The Zimbra Zebra.
00:35:03
yo
Zebras, yeah, see? Though I have turns to these Kekos, which are really nice, but it's never Bic.
00:35:08
Chris
okay Yeah, I use Sharpies now a lot, too.
00:35:09
yo
Why does that company, that company sucks.
00:35:13
Chris
Yeah.
00:35:14
yo
Everything you make sucks, Bic, be better.
00:35:15
Chris
Yeah. They make Djeep lighters now too?
00:35:20
yo
The Jeep?
00:35:21
Chris
That's a D-J-E-E-P.
00:35:23
yo
Don't know what that is
00:35:23
Chris
It looks like it looks like a knockoff Zippo.
00:35:27
yo
Yeah, well, you suck.
00:35:28
Chris
Yeah. Our story. In 1944, Marcel Bic and his business partner went into business making and writing instruments parts in France.
00:35:39
Chris
Okay, so it started in France. There's strike one.
00:35:40
yo
Uh-uh, no, no, strike one, no French.
00:35:42
Chris
Six years later in 50, ah Oh, six years later, Bic launched his own ballpoint pen under the Bic brand, a shortened, more memorable version of his own name, and an icon was born.
00:35:56
yo
No, but it's a shit pen.
00:35:58
Chris
See what goes into a Bic pen.
00:35:59
yo
Everybody knows. We can all describe what a big pen looks like.
00:36:03
Chris
Yeah.
00:36:03
yo
It's clear hexagonal, which is uncomfortable to put in your hand.
00:36:06
Chris
Yep. Yeah.
00:36:09
yo
A shitty cap.
00:36:10
Chris
Yep.
00:36:11
yo
And it's blue or black and it sucks.
00:36:14
Chris
Yep.
00:36:15
yo
Like I'm sure.
00:36:15
Chris
And if it were if it gets hot, the tip like will actually fall out and ink goes everywhere.
00:36:22
yo
Yeah. And at one point it was great, right?
00:36:23
Chris
I've had that.
00:36:24
yo
Like it was like, this is the greatest pen because we were all using quills and shit.
00:36:28
Chris
Yeah.
00:36:29
yo
But that pen sucks. Even if I had to not pick a zebra, which think a zebra is a fine pen. It's a paper paper mate, right?
00:36:39
Chris
Yeah.
00:36:40
yo
They make a great pen.
00:36:41
Chris
Yeah. Yep.
00:36:43
yo
It's never going to be Bic. Pilot makes a great pen.
00:36:45
Chris
Yeah, no.
00:36:48
yo
The best thing you say about Bic is you can buy like a hundred of them for a dollar.
00:36:54
Chris
Yeah, Bic products are high quality and safe, affordable, essential for everyone, everywhere.
00:37:00
yo
you and i we're old school people, right? I think we're now, we're the age where can say we're old school, right?
00:37:06
Chris
Yep.
00:37:07
yo
We're old school paramedics. We bridge the gap where we used to have to do paper reports, right?
00:37:14
Chris
Yeah.
00:37:15
yo
Bic pens were the worst pens to carry.
00:37:17
Chris
Oh my God, they they would tear through the paper.
00:37:20
yo
Yeah, terrible.
00:37:20
Chris
yeah But Ron, one of those plastic hexagonal pens has more than two kilometers worth of writing ink in it.
00:37:22
yo
And like,
00:37:29
yo
two kilometers of bullshit writing ink for it.
00:37:32
Chris
Yeah.
00:37:32
yo
How about that? but i
00:37:33
Chris
Yeah.
00:37:34
yo
Come at me, bro.
00:37:36
Chris
Yeah.
00:37:37
yo
Yeah.
00:37:37
Chris
a
00:37:38
yo
I'm, I'm going after the the real people here. Roller ball is terrible technology.
00:37:43
Chris
yeah
00:37:44
yo
Fine point pen or nothing.
00:37:46
Chris
Yeah.
00:37:47
yo
Yeah. And like, I feel like as a paramedic and you still probably still do the same thing as I do.
00:37:49
Chris
Yeah.
00:37:54
yo
When you find a good pen, you keep that son of bitch.
00:37:56
Chris
Oh, yeah.
00:37:57
yo
And now when you get when you get brand Lanator.
00:37:59
Chris
Oh, if somebody somebody can ask me, they're like hey, can i borrow a pen? No, I don't have one. But I see that right in your pocket. I don't have a pen.
00:38:05
yo
Yeah. when I got promoted to lieutenant, the first thing I did was I bought a big jar of Staples shit pens.
00:38:13
Chris
Yeah.
00:38:14
yo
And I put it in my locker. And they were like blue and green and black and red. And I said, those guys, those pens are yours to borrow, guys. If you need a pen, go get a pen.
00:38:26
yo
I never carried one of those pens. Not one time did one of those pens go into my pocket.
00:38:29
Chris
yeah yeah
00:38:32
yo
Because they're terrible.
00:38:35
yo
Yeah.
00:38:36
Chris
yeah uh yeah the classic oh it's called the classic crystal that's what that pen is uh yeah their quality and performance are debated with many users praising their reliability affordability and long-lasting ink while many others criticize their inconsistent inconsistent smoothness cheap feel
00:38:36
yo
It's a...
00:38:45
yo
Well, that's classic crap.
00:38:57
yo
yeah Terrible.
00:38:58
Chris
Pressure intensive writing experience.
00:39:01
yo
Yeah, it's terrible.
00:39:02
Chris
Ooh.
00:39:02
yo
its it the The little squares on your knuckle.
00:39:04
Chris
Yeah.
00:39:05
yo
It's terrible.
00:39:06
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:09
yo
I'm telling you, I've switched to these pens. Nobody sponsors me, but I will take the money if you want to sponsor me. their arc They're called KACO. K-A-C-O.
00:39:18
Chris
Keiko.
00:39:20
yo
They're great. They're pure plastic gel ink pens. Fine tip... Perfect. They're the best.
00:39:29
Chris
The Bic crystal pen has been recognized by the Museum of Modern Art for its iconic design.
00:39:37
yo
Okay, but also on top of that, they recognize Campbell's tomato soup as an icon. That stuff sucks.
00:39:46
Chris
Oh, you mean the soup you have to add water to and it just turns into a weird consistency?
00:39:48
yo
Yeah. yeah Condensed tomato soup, which is the worst soup of all time.
00:39:50
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:55
yo
Terrible.
00:39:56
Chris
Yeah. Cons of Bic pens. Again, the inconsistent smoothness. Users find the writing experience to be less smooth than most other pens. There's more pressure required, which leads to hand fatigue.
00:40:08
Chris
Perceive cheapness. The plastic body of the pen feels cheap.
00:40:11
yo
Does.
00:40:12
Chris
It cracks in your hand sometimes.
00:40:13
yo
Yes.
00:40:14
Chris
ah Limited ink flow. The ink flow can be inconsistent with some users experiencing blotchiness.
00:40:19
yo
Yeah. All of these things are correct.
00:40:19
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:21
yo
They're terrible pens. Terrible.
00:40:24
Chris
Yeah.
00:40:26
yo
Yeah. Yeah. This is the end of my rant, but I think we're 2025.
00:40:30
Chris
Yeah, it's right.
00:40:31
yo
We should just not have shit things. Everything else is shit. We could just have good pens.
00:40:36
Chris
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see. Yeah. Witch. Oh god, witch, not wick.
00:40:45
yo
And by the way, it's not like you have to buy $30 pen.
00:40:46
Chris
Witch.
00:40:50
yo
Like a $3 pen is all you need. Like a pack of six for $9.
00:40:53
Chris
Yeah.
00:40:55
yo
Good good p
00:40:57
Chris
Yeah.
00:41:00
Chris
Ah, whoa. I've never heard of these.
00:41:04
Chris
The best pen for good handwriting is one with a fine tip and consistent ink flow. Well, neither of those are with Bic.
00:41:11
yo
Not big.
00:41:12
Chris
The Lami L-A-M-I Safari Fountain Pen is an excellent example. Ergonomic grip, smooth nib, help create clear and elegant strokes effortlessly.
00:41:22
yo
Have you ever used a fountain pen? Like a real, true, old school fountain pen?
00:41:25
Chris
I tried to do calligraphy and I made a mess.
00:41:30
yo
It's fair.
00:41:31
Chris
Yeah.
00:41:34
Chris
Let's see. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at the, this is, oh gentlemen, stationary, the best pens 2025. We have the TWSBY swipe.
00:41:49
Chris
It's a fountain pen. It's below $30.
00:41:53
yo
Okay, sure.
00:41:55
Chris
Five different colors. Okay. right.
00:41:58
yo
If I pay $30 for a refillable pen, I feel like that wouldn't be like out of control.
00:41:58
Chris
And then,
00:42:03
Chris
Oh my gosh, this, the TWSBY Echo, ah it's a piston filler pen. So I guess that's one of those you like, yeah, draw the stuff back into it.
00:42:13
yo
don't know what that means.
00:42:16
yo
Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.
00:42:16
Chris
$33. Yeah.
00:42:19
yo
Okay, you know.
00:42:20
Chris
yeah The Lamy Safari is the quintessential beginner pen from the German powerhouse. Ooh, it's German, so you know it's going to work forever.
00:42:30
yo
Yeah.
00:42:30
Chris
Yep. Yeah. Okay. Oh, it's got a triangular so ah section or it has an aluminum, which is rounded. Okay.
00:42:40
yo
Yeah, I want round.
00:42:40
Chris
ah Number four, the Pilot Explorer.
00:42:44
yo
Oh, I do have a fondness for Pilot pens.
00:42:44
Chris
Okay.
00:42:46
Chris
Yeah.
00:42:47
yo
I like the Pilot G4.
00:42:47
Chris
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And then last is the Kaweco Sport.
00:42:55
Chris
K-A-W-E-C-O.
00:42:58
yo
You know it's good because it's faster.
00:43:00
Chris
Yeah. Yep. And then there's fountain pens for under a hundred dollars. Good gosh. Yeah.
00:43:06
yo
No, it's
00:43:07
Chris
Here are honorable mentions. Yeah. Yeah. Kaweco, a couple of pilots, platinum Prefonte. but yeah, no BIC on here anywhere.
00:43:16
yo
not going to be on that list.
00:43:18
Chris
Yeah.
00:43:19
yo
Like if I was going to give advice to, if I was the advice to a new EMS provider, if you pass paramedic school, buy a nice pen.
00:43:20
Chris
Oh my gosh. Steel nib pens over a hundred dollars. Good gosh.
00:43:30
Chris
Yeah.
00:43:31
yo
In fact, if my rookie passes paramedic school, I'm getting her a a nice pen.
00:43:36
Chris
Yeah. Oh, here are nice. Here are the best pocket pens. The Traveler Company Brass Pen.
00:43:45
Chris
The Lamy Pico, which is what we just heard about.
00:43:45
yo
Brass, huh?
00:43:47
Chris
about la The Pocket 6 Kaweco Fisher Space Pen. Yeah. But again, no Bic. You know why?
00:43:54
yo
No, Beck.
00:43:54
Chris
Because Bic sucks.
00:43:56
yo
They suck.
00:43:57
Chris
God dang.
00:43:58
yo
And I think, like, the problem is...
00:43:58
Chris
yeah Listeners out there, if you have a Bic pen right now near you, throw it away.
00:44:03
yo
We've gotten to the point where they... People just accept that we can have Bicpens and they suck.
00:44:09
Chris
Yeah, it's like people that like saltines.
00:44:13
yo
Oh, that's not fair.
00:44:14
Chris
Isn't it?
00:44:15
yo
Saltines are great.
00:44:16
Chris
No.
00:44:19
yo
Oh, saltine with a little bit of sardine on top? Hmm. Can't beat that.
00:44:23
Chris
Okay, Grandpa.
00:44:25
yo
Yeah, it's probably saltines with sardines and my grandpa.
00:44:28
Chris
yeah Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, they've convinced us that Bic pens are fine. just like it It's probably the same animals that use single-ply toilet paper.
00:44:39
yo
That's fair. No, the other conspiracy about that, it's the same animals that make us buy shit paper towels.
00:44:50
Chris
Oh my God, yes.
00:44:50
yo
So to watch, to dry your hands, like I would, again, I'm not the logistics person for this Salisbury, but if I was, I would love to do an experiment where it what does it cost to put real paper towels in the towel dispensers or the shit ones where everybody has to use six paper towels to dry their hands?
00:45:09
Chris
So you're saying you guys want to try the paper towels we use in admin?
00:45:12
yo
Oh, you guys are the fancy one. Oh. Let's see.
00:45:16
Chris
um but We always say that.
00:45:18
yo
I'm telling you.
00:45:19
Chris
We, we, we used to do that. like We used to, we did this like twice when people would get detailed to light duty, we would go and but like the first day they were there before they got there, we would change the toilet paper and the paper towels.
00:45:34
yo
like
00:45:36
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:37
yo
But those shit paper towels that we buy, it takes you six paper towels.
00:45:39
Chris
Yeah.
00:45:41
yo
What are those paper towels for?
00:45:43
Chris
I don't know. Tissue paper.
00:45:45
yo
They're terrible. Have you...
00:45:47
Chris
Actually, tissue paper is tougher. I've got some beside me right now.
00:45:50
yo
Right, have you ever used one of those paper towels to dry your hands?
00:45:53
Chris
No, no.
00:45:53
yo
One. No. So what's the point?
00:45:57
Chris
Yeah, I don't know.
00:45:58
yo
You always have...
00:45:58
Chris
what's like But again, they're cheap and Holt and whoever puts them out there.
00:46:03
yo
But are they cheaper than actually... so if I bought a paper towel, if I put out a paper towel that you had to buy one of to dry your hands, right?
00:46:11
Chris
oh yeah.
00:46:12
yo
And it costs you twice the price of whole paper towel. Isn't that a better deal?
00:46:17
Chris
I agree. It's the whole, it's the, you the Charmin rationale where Charmin's like, yeah, you know, you could buy 10,000 sheets of this other toilet paper, but, you know, you buy this and you use it, you know, three sheets at a time or whatever.
00:46:32
Chris
But it's not just us that do this.
00:46:32
yo
When I was... Yeah,
00:46:33
Chris
I mean, you go out to like a restaurant or something and they have paper towels there.
00:46:36
yo
everybody. It's everybody.
00:46:38
Chris
I hate it because you go and you go to dry your hands and you you pull the little thing and all you do is you get a piece of paper in each, you know, thumb and fingertips.
00:46:47
yo
And no one has ever no one has ever used that stupid dryer and been like, oh, my hands feel dry right now.
00:46:47
Chris
it just rips off the corners. It's like, what the hell?
00:46:51
Chris
Oh my God. No.
00:46:54
yo
At best, you're like, my hands feel slightly less moist.
00:46:58
Chris
They feel warm and damp, not yeah dry.
00:46:59
yo
Right. They're warm and damp, and I've spread a bunch of water all over the floor.
00:47:03
Chris
Yeah.
00:47:04
yo
Cool. I did a good job.
00:47:06
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:07
yo
When I was Yeah.
00:47:07
Chris
Or the, or the paper towel dispensers that have like the nipple in the middle that comes out.
00:47:12
yo
Yeah.
00:47:13
Chris
It, that does All it does is turn into a ball of mess. It doesn't open up. It doesn't dry anything. You end up like pulling out you know like a clown's or a magician's handkerchief thing.
00:47:26
yo
When I was a younger man, my my now wife and I had a conversation because she had bought cheap paper, or cheap toilet paper. And she's like, well, you know, it was this. And I was like, I don't care how much money it costs.
00:47:42
yo
We are not buying cheap toilet paper. but type paper
00:47:44
Chris
yeah right
00:47:45
yo
It's not happening. I'm at the point now, and I don't want to admit this. I'm thinking about putting a bidet in my house.
00:47:53
Chris
yeah yeah absolutely everybody should yeah because it's either that or you take a shower every time you poop yeah yeah you don't want a cold water yeah well just all you do is you get the the sprayer
00:47:54
yo
I'm a fancy man. should have a clean butt.
00:47:58
yo
Yeah.
00:48:03
yo
Right, and I'm having warm water bidet. I don't have no cold water bidet.
00:48:08
yo
No. Yeah.
00:48:13
Chris
That, you know, goes to your kitchen sink and you just rig that joker up to the toilet.
00:48:15
yo
Yep, yep, yep.
00:48:18
yo
Yeah, yeah, it's perfectly fine.
00:48:19
Chris
Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you got to kind of angle a little bit, but I'm sure if you put some mirrors, you'll be able to see.
00:48:29
yo
Yeah, but you're not, it's funny how we we convince ourselves that buying the cheap thing, which sucks, and you have to buy three of that thing to replace the one thing that you could have gotten for less.
00:48:37
Chris
Yeah.
00:48:43
Chris
yeah
00:48:43
yo
Like, it's so asinine what we do to ourselves.
00:48:47
Chris
Yeah.
00:48:47
yo
so
00:48:47
Chris
Yeah. Yeah. That's like I've talked to guys, you know like tools. Like, yeah, i buy it. Yeah. It works for three months. I throw it away. I get another one. I'm like, but if you, if you invested in this, you quote unquote name brand, you wouldn't be doing that.
00:48:56
yo
right
00:49:03
yo
The only time I go to Harbor Freight to buy tools, and ah I'm so Harbor Freight, don't want to hear this, but I buy tools to put in my gear pocket because I know it's going to get ruined either way it doesn't cost me money.
00:49:03
Chris
You would.
00:49:08
Chris
Yeah.
00:49:12
Chris
Yeah.
00:49:15
yo
but like i'm not gonna put on
00:49:15
Chris
Yeah, absolutely.
00:49:17
yo
I'm not going to put a $40 multi-screwdriver in my gear pocket because it's going wet and rusted and going have to throw it away and get a new one.
00:49:22
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:24
yo
But I'll go Harbor Freight and get the $5 one.
00:49:27
Chris
Yeah.
00:49:29
yo
Other than that, in my house, I buy a name brand, the nice tool.
00:49:34
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:49:36
yo
And also, life advice for all the kids out there, buy the tool you need. If you're doing a project and it says you need this, just go buy that tool. It's going to change the world. Don't try to make some tool work to do that job.
00:49:52
yo
Just buy the freaking tool you need.
00:49:54
Chris
Yeah.
00:49:55
yo
Just calculate that as the cost of the project that you need. you need a circular saw, don't use a hand saw. you know If you need an edging saw, use an edging saw. Don't look around.
00:50:07
yo
That is the end of my rant.
00:50:09
Chris
Yeah. i yeah yeah using
AI in Fire Service and Healthcare: Efficiency and Strategy
00:50:12
Chris
Yeah. Using the right tool for the right job is crucial.
00:50:15
yo
Well, because it's it's hard, like, right? When you're, you don't have a lot of money and you're like, you're like thinking about it.
00:50:20
Chris
Yeah.
00:50:21
yo
You're like, oh, I'll make do. And then you end up making do and it either comes out worse or it's harder. Just get the right tool.
00:50:28
Chris
or somebody gets hurt.
00:50:29
yo
When somebody gets hurt, know.
00:50:30
Chris
Yeah. Yeah. That's my way we had, we were taking an azalea bush out and I, excuse me. was like, okay, well, you know, we'll cut it back.
00:50:43
Chris
She's like, well, let me just go get a saw. I was like, okay, let me go. She's like, I'll just get a saw. And she comes out and she's got my nice circular saw. was like, no, no, no, no. She's like, but it's a saw.
00:50:52
yo
That's not going to work.
00:50:53
Chris
I was like, no, you maniac.
00:50:56
yo
Okay.
00:50:57
Chris
ah So then she was like, what? So she goes in the same drawer and gets the jam saw. I was like, just stop. She's like, a saw is a saw is a saw. was like, no.
00:51:07
yo
Nope.
00:51:07
Chris
I said, I have a specific saw for cutting branches.
00:51:07
yo
No, it's
00:51:10
Chris
And this is it.
00:51:11
yo
not.
00:51:12
Chris
Yeah.
00:51:13
yo
I will recommend one of the best things you can buy as a new homeowner or anybody has to take over any property is buy a nice reciprocal saw.
00:51:22
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:51:23
yo
with battery power, because you don't to be dicking around with a cord, that you can change the blade to a pruning blade, you can change the blade to ah a demo blade, that's the best thing you can buy.
00:51:24
Chris
Yes. Yep.
00:51:31
Chris
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yep.
00:51:34
yo
And guess what?
00:51:34
Chris
Yep.
00:51:35
yo
Those pruning blades, you use them twice, you find a new blade. But that's okay.
00:51:39
Chris
Yeah.
00:51:40
yo
Just buy a new blade.
00:51:41
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:43
yo
Don't try to dick around with a, oh, this blade looks like it's okay. No, it's not, Grandpa. It's fine.
00:51:49
Chris
yeah
00:51:49
yo
Go get a new blade.
00:51:55
yo
Well, I think we've done for topic one. Don't buy shit pens.
00:51:58
Chris
yeah yeah Yeah, don't just, yeah it's just not worth it. It's, it's worth, you, you listener are worth spending $5 for a pen.
00:52:12
yo
You've never enjoyed ah using a Bic, and that little indent you get on your stupid finger, that doesn't make you happy.
00:52:18
Chris
No.
00:52:18
yo
Get a better pen. Well, unless you're into that kink, thats and I'm not judging.
00:52:22
Chris
I, yeah, I mean, you do you, but yeah, yeah. So topic two.
00:52:32
Chris
Um, I know AI is a huge hot button topic and everybody's up in arms, but there's some aspects of it that do help.
00:52:42
yo
Sure.
00:52:44
Chris
How, how do we better explain to people that not all AI is bad? And the example I gave today to somebody, i actually, in that healthcare talk I gave, uh, they were talking about AI in the workplace and this and that, and and Recently, I was talking with someone they was like, oh, AI stupid and this and that. i was like, okay.
00:53:06
Chris
So you've got your heart monitor on the patient and it starts beeping because their pulse went down. Yeah. I said, did you tell it to do that?
00:53:17
Chris
Well, no. I said, who told it to do that? Well, the machine inside. I was like, oh, okay. So it knew what the parameters should be and alerted you to come attend to the patient. Well, yeah.
00:53:27
Chris
was like, that's how AI works.
00:53:32
yo
have to be very careful how I say this.
00:53:34
Chris
Okay.
00:53:37
yo
In the few studies I've read, and I'm not an expert, please, and I'm not an expert.
00:53:39
Chris
Yeah.
00:53:43
yo
But in the few studies I've read, when, for example, doctors are given written signs and symptoms of patients, and and AI is given the same parameters,
00:53:49
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:53:58
Chris
Yep.
00:53:59
yo
The AI is correct like 80% more than the doctors.
00:54:03
Chris
Yeah. yeah
00:54:07
yo
And I'm not saying that doctors are not needed, but I'm saying that that kind of tool, that collation of information is something that AI will well of course beat us at, right?
00:54:14
Chris
yeah right yeah because it's tapping into a database we you know yeah yeah yeah i mean i'm on the list to get one but
00:54:27
yo
but We don't have a database. in our We three think we do. right We, you and i you and I are again our paramedics who are the worst by the way at this.
00:54:36
Chris
yeah oh yeah yeah
00:54:40
yo
We think somehow that at two o'clock in the morning we're going to remember every drug dosage and every drug medication and every drug interaction and we're just going to make the right decision without any input except our own brains.
00:54:52
Chris
yeah right yeah yep dumb yeah yeah
00:54:53
yo
right We do that all the time. It's what we're trying to do. That's how we were taught to do paramedicine.
00:55:02
yo
Wouldn't it be great if I could say, this patient has these symptoms, these vital signs, I think this is the right medication to have an AI copilot say, wait a second, you forgot about X.
00:55:19
Chris
Yep.
00:55:22
yo
Wouldn't it be great to have AI... collate the medications in our protocols in such a way to say this is the recommended we are still the check on that ai right like we're still the final arbiter of we give that medication but sure as heck would lee yeah what you and i talked about it right like i don't remember drug math anymore i remember what drugs to give and then i look in my app and say this is the dosage for that drug
00:55:28
Chris
Yeah.
00:55:34
Chris
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:55:38
Chris
Right.
00:55:46
Chris
Yeah, no, no.
00:55:50
Chris
Yep.
00:55:53
Chris
Right. Yeah.
00:55:55
yo
Right, wrong or indifferent, right? I trust my EMS supervisor. I trust the protocols that these things have all been figured out and they're done correctly.
00:56:02
Chris
Yeah.
00:56:04
yo
But I'm the final arbiter, right? if if If I gave the wrong drug, even though the AI said this is the right drug, it comes down on me, right?
00:56:14
Chris
Yeah.
00:56:14
yo
like I'm still the human brain in that point, but I think an AI in healthcare is a huge bonus, right?
00:56:21
Chris
Right, yeah. It's an extra set of whatever. Eyes, thoughts, what have you.
00:56:25
yo
yeah You know, I use it a lot in my personal historical research all the time. Like, hey, AI, like, what is this effect?
00:56:42
yo
And then I can look up and I can read and I can then say, okay, I'm going to go research this thing.
00:56:46
Chris
Right.
00:56:46
yo
You know, there's a lot of that stuff that AI is great at. Where's ai Not so great. What AI says not so great is because we as humans are going, what's going to replace us?
00:56:58
Chris
Yeah. Right.
00:56:59
yo
Well, it's going to replace some of us because we're unwilling to change. Right? It's going to replace...
00:57:07
Chris
Yeah. But at the end of the day, ai is not going to, you know, palpate for a pulse. It's not going to feel for injuries.
00:57:13
yo
No.
00:57:15
Chris
It's not going to.
00:57:15
yo
AI can't take the vital signs of a patient if I don't take the right vital signs.
00:57:18
Chris
Right. Yeah.
00:57:21
yo
right AI can't intubate a patient currently.
00:57:23
Chris
Yeah. Right.
00:57:25
yo
right
00:57:25
Chris
Yeah.
00:57:26
yo
right AI could recommend intubation.
00:57:29
Chris
Yeah.
00:57:30
yo
right
00:57:30
Chris
Yeah. Or it could recommend yeah like ultrasound.
00:57:31
yo
ai
00:57:34
Chris
You know, it's, hey, ah you need to move, they based on the view, you are two centimeters low or, you know, it'll it'll kind of guide you where you need to go with an ultrasound sometimes.
00:57:45
yo
We're not there yet, but AI could draw out my drugs for me.
00:57:49
Chris
Yeah.
00:57:50
yo
right Hey, I have a approximately 185 pound patient. What's this dosage?
00:57:57
Chris
Yeah.
00:57:57
yo
Can you draw that up for me?
00:57:58
Chris
Right.
00:57:59
yo
Right? Again, i'm I'm still the final arbiter. I'm still the human hands.
00:58:02
Chris
Yep. Mm-hmm.
00:58:04
yo
I need to check that AI. But man, we would be so much better at that, right?
00:58:10
Chris
Yeah. We'll just look at 12 leads.
00:58:15
Chris
the
00:58:15
yo
Tall blades are probably the best example of this.
00:58:15
Chris
As long as you... Yeah, I mean, as long as you're putting in the right patient age and gender and putting, again, human error, but putting the chess leads on in the right spot,
00:58:32
Chris
it's going to give you a good idea of what's going on because it's looking at a database of all these different, you know, parameters to look into, you know, I'm not.
00:58:42
yo
12 leads machines now are better than most doctors.
00:58:44
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:46
yo
Right?
00:58:47
Chris
Yeah. Well, but again, you as a human have to look at it and look at your patient and, you know, tie things together. You know, you don't want to be that paramedic who transports the, eye or youre at your location with a 42 year old female with noisy data.
00:59:00
yo
Right.
00:59:01
Chris
which has happened um but yeah oh wait side tangent back to that was was it were they actually taking care of a cyborg and they didn't know
00:59:01
yo
Right. Sure. Sure. But, well, I mean, even still, like, ah boy.
00:59:19
yo
Probably not yet.
00:59:20
Chris
probably not yeah okay yeah yeah
00:59:21
yo
Yeah. Probably not yet. And look, AI is going to be bad at the extraordinary.
00:59:32
Chris
Yeah.
00:59:32
yo
Right? The thing that is so outlier. But we're also bad at the extraordinary.
00:59:37
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:59:38
yo
I try to tell people that all the time. Like my job, I'm reasonably, I would say reasonably good at my job. I'm not the best person in the world. I'll never be the perfect person. But the reason I'm good at my job is because I've got a database of information I'm pulling from.
00:59:52
yo
But my database is based on my experience and training, right?
00:59:53
Chris
Yeah.
00:59:56
Chris
Right.
00:59:57
yo
So it's always going to be flawed because there are always times that can be outside of my database of experience, right?
00:59:57
Chris
Yeah.
01:00:02
Chris
Yeah.
01:00:03
yo
Same thing with an AI. We just have to accept that. And we do accept that now, right?
01:00:09
Chris
Yeah.
01:00:10
yo
we My paramedic... The other day, we and were talking the other day at ah work, and she's like, I had this call. And she went through the whole call. And she said, at the end of the day i didn't know what to do.
01:00:22
yo
I said, guess what? You just learned the most important lesson of being a paramedic. She's like, why? said, because you didn't know what to do. So what'd you do? I drove him the hospital. I said, yep.
01:00:31
Chris
There you go. Yeah.
01:00:33
yo
Because there's just going to be things that are outside of our experience and our protocols and our database of information.
01:00:37
Chris
Yeah.
01:00:40
yo
We're just going to say, I got nothing, we're just gonna get you to the hospital.
01:00:43
Chris
Yep.
01:00:44
yo
right
01:00:44
Chris
Yeah.
01:00:45
yo
She's like, well, I could have done this, I could have done this. i said, yeah, you could have done that if you had spent six hours studying it and you had lab work in your hand and all of those, you don't have that information.
01:00:51
Chris
Right. Yeah.
01:00:55
Chris
Yeah.
01:00:56
yo
You have to make the paramedic guess.
01:00:59
Chris
Yeah. yeah
01:01:01
yo
Ultimately, a lot of it is the paramedic guess. And
01:01:05
Chris
Oh yeah, yeah. We're going off of context clues to try to get to a diagnosis and, or ah a, an idea of how we should take care of this patient in the time we have to get them to definitive care.
01:01:19
yo
Yeah. And that's ah very hard for a lot of paramedic students to learn.
01:01:25
Chris
Yeah.
01:01:26
yo
Very hard for the new paramedic to learn. Because you're a new paramedic. You're like, I'm a god.
01:01:31
Chris
Oh yeah.
01:01:31
yo
I know everything.
01:01:33
Chris
Yep.
01:01:33
yo
Right? And then you find out, oh shit, this was not on my list. You know.
01:01:38
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:40
yo
You know.
01:01:40
Chris
This does not fall into A, B, C, or D. Yeah.
01:01:42
yo
Right. Which is the same thing with AI, right?
01:01:44
Chris
Yeah.
01:01:45
yo
Like, there are things that are going to be outside of AI's
01:01:45
Chris
Yeah.
01:01:50
yo
scope and we're still going to be needed us as paramedics are still going to be needed to say hey uh take the hospital right like make a decision where i think the ai is going to really screw up the fire service and i know nobody wants to hear this um i hate to say this but i think most departments are chief heavy and i think ai can replace a lot of those chiefs
01:01:51
Chris
Right.
01:01:54
Chris
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:01:58
Chris
Yeah.
01:02:00
Chris
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:02:14
Chris
yeah oh yeah yeah I agree but look at our department oh there's trouble on the foot
01:02:19
yo
You know, I look, our departments,
01:02:24
yo
look at our department. i I can get rid of, can get rid of two the three of our admin staff tomorrow with AI.
01:02:32
Chris
ah at least yeah two
01:02:37
yo
Yeah, at least two.
01:02:38
Chris
yeah yeah oh yeah that's yeah yeah yeah right like a pop they also have a policies chief and uh yeah
01:02:39
yo
But some departments, like they have a staffing chief. I could solve that problem for you. Right. You know, and look, I'm not saying.
01:02:51
yo
Right. Don't fire that person. Just put them on a different task.
01:02:55
Chris
yeah yeah
01:02:56
yo
Right. Like if you went to our department and said, hey, I've got two admin positions that I could replace with this computer program. Wouldn't that cover like our safety officer that we need?
01:03:09
Chris
yeah yeah yeah yeah or bringing the shifts all up to even staffing yeah yeah god yeah
01:03:10
yo
or at least go a long way to covering that position. Right? you know
01:03:19
yo
Right? Right? Like, bam.
01:03:25
yo
That's what you do with AI. Like, I think the problem with a lot departments, a lot of places are gonna be like, AI is replacing us. Well, no, it's gonna free you up to use those people elsewhere.
01:03:32
Chris
it's yeah yeah we've got to look at it more as yeah it's a
01:03:41
Chris
It's a task offload device. It's not a task replacement device.
01:03:45
yo
Yeah, look, our supply officer works very hard, but a lot of that job can be done with a computer program, right?
01:03:51
Chris
Yes.
01:03:55
Chris
Yeah.
01:03:57
yo
Hey, scheduling maintenance, scheduling order delivery, scheduling, you know, there's, you can easily have a database that says, hey, you're out of this, order it, right?
01:03:57
Chris
Yeah.
01:04:06
Chris
Yeah.
01:04:07
yo
We just don't have that, we haven't done that. So we have to have somebody doing that job.
01:04:10
Chris
yeah well and think of Yeah, and I think of the tasks that would free that individual up to do.
01:04:17
yo
Yeah, of course. You could be like, hey, now now I need you to go look at, hey, new gear trends that are emerging and other things that I need you to go work on.
01:04:18
Chris
It's amazing.
01:04:26
Chris
Yeah.
01:04:26
yo
I don't need a chief officer to order toilet paper.
01:04:29
Chris
Right.
01:04:30
yo
but I need a chief officer to be like, what is the next, the best way to use our budget?
01:04:35
Chris
Yeah.
01:04:35
yo
But he needs to have be freed up to be able to do those things.
01:04:38
Chris
Exactly, yeah, yeah.
01:04:39
yo
Yeah.
01:04:39
Chris
And right now it's task saturation and yeah.
01:04:42
yo
Yeah. Yeah, again, I'm not saying replace that person. I'm saying give that person more important jobs to do. And that's what I think a lot of people are like, oh, AI is going to kill us. it's like, no, it's going to free you up to do that work.
01:04:55
Chris
Yeah.
01:04:56
yo
You know, it's probably not in my lifetime is Skynet going to take over, right?
01:04:56
Chris
Yeah.
01:05:03
Chris
Yeah.
01:05:04
yo
But there are jobs that are going to go away because AI, right?
01:05:09
Chris
Right. Yeah, and and it's the unfortunate thing, but yes.
01:05:09
yo
You know?
01:05:12
yo
But also there were jobs that went away because the car came in about, right?
01:05:17
Chris
Yeah.
01:05:18
yo
You know, you
01:05:20
Chris
I mean, you gotta to feed the horses.
01:05:22
yo
but somebody got to feed the horses. Well, all a sudden you don't have to feed the horses anymore.
01:05:26
Chris
Yeah.
01:05:26
yo
You know, you had a stable horses before, not a thing anymore. You know, is, is ai going to replace the boots on the ground firefighter?
01:05:32
Chris
Damn horses.
01:05:37
yo
Absolutely not. Right.
01:05:39
Chris
Right.
01:05:41
yo
Somebody's got to run in the building, building. Somebody's got to do the job, the wrench turning.
01:05:44
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
01:05:46
yo
and On the hazmat side, do we need to have someone do, like you and I took hazmat long time ago.
01:05:54
Chris
Yeah.
01:05:54
yo
You'd have three sources of information. You had to backtrack.
01:05:57
Chris
Oh, yeah.
01:05:58
yo
You don't do that anymore.
01:05:59
Chris
No.
01:06:00
yo
You go, hey, what is Google? what's this What's this chemical and how does it work?
01:06:04
Chris
Yeah.
01:06:05
yo
Because you know it's already been done for you.
01:06:07
Chris
Right.
01:06:08
yo
Right. Like that job has already been replaced. The research position of hazmat.
01:06:11
Chris
Yeah.
01:06:12
yo
That's just a, that's literally just a button pusher.
01:06:12
Chris
yeah
01:06:17
yo
Right.
01:06:17
Chris
Yeah. yeah yeah
01:06:18
yo
Which is great. Cause now we can say, Hey, good. That technician can go do other jobs.
01:06:23
Chris
yeah Yeah. Free them up. Yeah. So yeah. Listen, people. AI is not horrible. Just don't use it. Make sure you just read back over it if you use AI for anything.
01:06:35
yo
Yeah. You know,
01:06:36
Chris
Just use it as a tool, not as the end product.
01:06:42
yo
Right. they Don't write your reports using ai
01:06:45
Chris
oh no no right yeah yeah
01:06:46
yo
um but Or do you do right? Hey, maybe that is the right answer. Maybe that person's ahead of their game. It's just they weren't doing it correctly. Right. Hey, because there's not a conversation to have. Hey, can you input information to this AI? Have them write a report in 30 seconds that we're taking you five minutes.
01:07:04
Chris
right yeah yeah yeah yeah
01:07:06
yo
And then you then go back and fix it or make sure it's correct. You just got to do that next step, but it saved you five, 10 minutes. And now a unit that would have been on of service for an hour is back in service in 30 minutes.
01:07:19
Chris
right yeah and uh i don't know of anybody around here but know some places like doctor's offices they've got you know they tell the patients you know you know this is being recorded or whatever but while they're talking to the patient there's that passive listening going on and it's picking up on certain things and when they go to chart it's so much more clear and well-defined and yeah time-saving
01:07:20
yo
Right?
01:07:35
yo
Sure.
01:07:44
yo
I hate to tell you this, boss, but we're already doing that, right?
01:07:48
Chris
Oh yeah.
01:07:48
yo
We don't, for the most part, you and I, well, we don't do it anyways because we're old farts up in command level, but what paramedics in the street, we used to have to write in all of the vitals.
01:07:53
Chris
Yeah.
01:07:55
Chris
Yeah.
01:08:01
Chris
Yeah.
01:08:02
yo
We don't do that anymore, right?
01:08:02
Chris
Now. Yep.
01:08:04
yo
We download the vitals because we let our equipment do it, right?
01:08:08
Chris
Yeah.
01:08:09
yo
It's just, and that saves us time, turns our units around,
01:08:11
Chris
yeah
01:08:13
yo
The next step of that is, hey, you know, talking to your ambulance, hey, paramedic two, I'm putting an IV in.
01:08:22
Chris
Yep.
01:08:22
yo
Right. Does that show up on your report in the future?
01:08:25
Chris
Yeah, it should.
01:08:26
yo
Sounds possible.
01:08:28
Chris
Yeah.
01:08:28
yo
You know, hey, just like a doctor takes notes over the air, I've got a 32 year old male difficulty breathing. He's showing rails, blah, blah, blah. You know, that all would show up in a report.
01:08:40
Chris
Yeah. yeah yeah Yeah.
01:08:42
yo
you know
01:08:43
Chris
Talk to text is definitely an asset.
01:08:46
yo
And that's not that far away from where we're at right now.
01:08:49
Chris
Yeah.
01:08:50
yo
you know And it's I think the big leap for us will be not, hey, don't do AI to do your reports. Hey, how do you use AI to do better reports?
01:09:02
Chris
Right, yeah, yeah. Like I said, I think it's it all comes down to using it as a tool, not as a crutch or the end goal.
01:09:09
yo
Yeah. Yeah.
01:09:12
Chris
Yeah.
01:09:13
yo
And we're just talking very, very simple fire department stuff, right?
01:09:17
Chris
Yes.
01:09:18
yo
Yeah.
01:09:19
Chris
Yeah, we're not talking about art or, you know, creative things.
01:09:23
yo
Yeah. I, like, I, I don't want to get into the art conversation because it's a weird conversation for me. Like, I don't know the answer to that question. Like if I say, hey AI, write me, write me a Batman comic with X, X, X, x and X, am I the creator?
01:09:40
yo
Or is the AI creator? I don't want to get into that conversation because I don't know the answer.
01:09:44
Chris
Right.
01:09:45
yo
you know But I do think some of the the doom and gloom of AI is out of control. you know
01:09:53
Chris
Yeah.
01:09:54
yo
like
01:09:55
Chris
Well, it's something new, so everybody's afraid of it.
01:09:59
yo
That's correct. They are afraid of it. Which is fine. You should be wary of technology, right?
01:10:04
Chris
Well, yes, a healthy wariness, not an immediate, oh my gosh, it's the worst thing ever.
01:10:11
yo
Right. we all We all have to think about what how that would affect us, but we don't then think about what's that going affect our next generation.
AI's Role in Future Planning and Global Challenges
01:10:25
Chris
Right. Yeah.
01:10:26
yo
Right?
01:10:27
Chris
Yeah.
01:10:27
yo
Like we in the fire source, you and i right now, today, we are fighting the fires of 2004.
01:10:34
Chris
Yeah.
01:10:35
yo
Right, and we we spec engines and do that things and write our policies for the fires of 2004. We have a real struggle of what are calls of 2025? And you have the struggle of, hey, what are the calls of 2030? Right, you know.
01:10:54
yo
right
01:10:54
Chris
yeah
01:10:54
yo
you know but When we wrote policies back in the day, when we've made decisions as a department, we never thought about the fact that the volunteer departments around us were not going to exist anymore.
01:11:06
Chris
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
01:11:07
yo
And they currently don't exist, right?
01:11:09
Chris
Right.
01:11:10
yo
And we didn't change our policies and we didn't change our thinking because we're always going to be behind the eight ball.
01:11:19
Chris
Yeah.
01:11:19
yo
You know, I had the conversation with the deputy chief the other day and he's like, well, we don't want to, we want to play politic. We can't play politic when the reality is no longer that anymore.
01:11:28
Chris
Well, it's those of us in the upper levels have to play politics while you Guys and gals do what you gotta do.
01:11:40
yo
To some extent, yes, that you have to play politic.
01:11:43
Chris
Yeah.
01:11:43
yo
I'm not taking away the fact that, yes, you have to be political about it.
01:11:46
Chris
Right.
01:11:47
yo
But we made decisions that are affecting today based on information that we didn't have then.
01:11:53
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
01:11:55
yo
and AI will be great for you guys. Hey, what is the city of Salisbury going to look like in 2030?
01:12:01
Chris
Yeah.
01:12:03
yo
I don't care who you are. You, you can't, you won't be as good as a computer model of the city.
01:12:09
Chris
yeah no that's
01:12:10
yo
Right. Right. our Our fire chief is all about GIS and all of the information that we're getting at GIS. The next step of GIS is, Hey, what does the city look like in 2040? Right.
01:12:19
Chris
right yeah um so i can better prepare for that yeah yeah
01:12:21
yo
right We're not going to, Right. had What do I need to look like? You know, because we have guesses. You know, 10 years ago, we all would have said the next fire station in Salisbury needs to be up north.
01:12:35
yo
Do you truly believe that the next fire station in City of Salisbury now needs north?
01:12:45
yo
I don't.
01:12:45
Chris
can i move current stations yeah yeah yeah right
01:12:48
yo
We can't, unfortunately, because those decisions have already been made, right? We can't fix the old ones. Right. that Those decisions were made off of faulty information and now we're screwed. But if you look at and say, no, it really needs to be Northwest.
01:13:01
yo
Right.
01:13:02
Chris
yeah northeast yeah yes
01:13:02
yo
Or Northeast. Northeast. Yeah. Somewhere out Northeast. Right. Or more easterly than northly. ah Those are decisions that AI will help us do. You know, that's, i guess that's all my saying about is, I think it's a good tool.
01:13:18
yo
Don't be scared of it. You know, don't allow it to take control of your life. but enjoy what it can give you.
01:13:26
Chris
Yeah, yeah.
01:13:29
yo
That's all i got.
01:13:30
Chris
Yeah, no, that's good.
01:13:32
yo
I feel like I i have ah have had a i've had this rant of AI building up against me because I've just, I've been hearing so much. AI, AI, AI. It's going to ruin everything. It's not going to ruin everything. It's going to just make you make better decisions and you don't want to make better decisions.
01:13:44
Chris
Yeah. Yeah, that's part of it. Yeah, yeah.
01:13:47
yo
Yeah. You aren't... When I see government politicians talk about AI, they're like, well, it's it's causing this. It's like, no, that's not causing that. It's just showing you that that thing's already happened.
01:14:00
Chris
yeah yeah it's used some kind of algorithm to learn from that i think that it's also i mean that that's a whole nother tangent you know the difference between ai and machine learning and yeah so
01:14:01
yo
Right? and Sorry.
01:14:08
yo
Yeah. It's just data.
01:14:19
yo
Right. I did see a pretty scary thing where apparently somebody was interviewing an AI creator and they were like, well, how does AI work? And they're like, well we don't even know anymore.
01:14:28
Chris
yeah
01:14:28
yo
That's pretty scary.
01:14:30
Chris
yeah
01:14:31
yo
You know, there gets to be a point where it, you know, look, I'm not a prognosticator of the future, but there could be a future where it gets out of our control.
01:14:40
Chris
yes no no yeah yeah yeah but after that yeah
01:14:41
yo
Right? We're not there. It's not going to happen in our lifetime. You and I are fine. Probably you your children are fine, you know. But after that, I can't promise you dick, you know, because we went from zero AI in our lifetime to some ai and that's only going to be more AI in our lifetime.
01:15:01
Chris
yeah yeah it's just gonna grow yeah
01:15:03
yo
Yeah. Yeah, we are in the exponential growth of AI time. You know, you and I grew up in a time when I was a kid, my father worked in a computer lab that was the size of our fire station, my fire station currently, like right?
01:15:18
Chris
Yeah, right. Yeah.
01:15:21
yo
All of those computers would fit into the palm of my hand now.
01:15:26
Chris
Yeah, it's insane.
01:15:27
yo
Right? Like, and that's,
01:15:28
Chris
Yeah. Yeah. The computing power of your phone was enough to you know launch Apollo 11.
01:15:33
yo
oh yeah. Your Wii, your Switch, Switch 2, has more computing power than the Apollo 11 mission.
01:15:38
Chris
Switch.
01:15:45
yo
probably a factor of 100.
01:15:47
Chris
Yeah.
01:15:48
yo
You know, that's, you know, we're using it for entertainment, but that information, that technology is used for a lot of other shit that we could not use before.
01:15:57
Chris
Yeah.
01:15:58
yo
Which is awesome.
01:16:00
Chris
Yeah. Yeah. It's great.
01:16:02
yo
Yeah. So. That's my rant. The future's good.
01:16:06
Chris
Yeah. That's good. Yeah.
01:16:10
yo
Just use it for the right thing.
01:16:14
Chris
Yeah. And that right thing should be taking care of each other.
01:16:15
yo
You want to solve... You want to solve climate crisis? AI will solve it.
01:16:20
Chris
Yeah.
01:16:22
yo
Yeah. You might not like the decisions it makes, but AI will solve it.
01:16:25
Chris
Right. Yeah.
01:16:29
yo
Windmills don't call cancer cause cancer. That's the of my rant.
01:16:32
Chris
yeah that's a whole other rant yep yeah yeah that was a good cast of the pod hope everybody's doing well out there getting ready for your cooler months like, subscribe, share yes and yeah yes be very careful take care of yourselves
01:16:34
yo
Yeah, it's whole other thing.
01:16:37
yo
Well, I think we've ended.
01:16:48
yo
Enjoy your pumpkin spice.
01:16:52
yo
Yeah. Be careful out there these days. Yeah.