The Talker
It became painfully clear to me after one car ride that the guy I car pool with to the academy every week loves to here the sound of his own voice. At nineteen years old, he tells stories of saving the water supply for all of Western Mass, having blood and brains run through his gloved fingers and saving numerous colleagues from burning to death as a product of their own stupidity durring training burns.
His stories have the cocky air of a B grade movie hero recounting tales of derring do to a new commer in the field of heroism. Every word is carefully chosen in order to sound self assured and confident of his abilities as a firefighter.
In reality, this guy is as green as freshcut grass in the middle of July. His stories of gore and heroism are just stories because he mistakenly views firefighting as a job where personal glory is the goal. Anyone in the class will say that they have heard his stories and that they silently wish for him to shut up but feel it would be rude to tell him off. After all, we're all brothers.
The point is that he is trying too hard. Theres no shame in the fact that he's never done half of the stuff that he claims to do. Hollywood scriptwritters haven't even dreamed up some of his outlandish creations. His fabrications hurt the emergency service community because when lay people hear someone babbling on and on about brains and gore they think we're sick people who do it for the glory of telling our stories to starry eyed girls at the bar.
People who have actually seen that stuff, dealt with human suffering and death, don't take it lightly. They don't talk about it flippantly with their co workers. Theres the occasional dark joke or sick remark but they don't constantly regale each other with tales of terrible car accidents and dead children.
All of the bad things that we see (if we actually see them) go in to a sort of mental vault. We know they are there and we remember them vividly-- the sights, smells, our own almost parlyzing fear that we won't be able to do what we were trained to do-- but we don't boast about them. In a way those moments when we see people in pain, dying or dead are like praying. On the most basic and primal level, you are witness to the effects of a power much greater than yourself. Call it God, fate or whatever but you are present durring something so powerful that telling stories of it afterwards cheapens the whole experience. When it becomes about you "I did this.....I did that.....My first move was to....." the point of why you are doing your job in the first place is totally lost.
I'm not saying he's a bad guy, far from it, he's actually kind of funny sometimes, but he's too caught up in the image of the hero tough guy. Listening to country music and strutting around talking about your achievements is just going to get you laughed at. Because anyone who actually does emergency work looks on those experiences as their own, if people outside the job want to know about them, then they can ask. Most of the time, the answer will be "I don't wanna talk about it." Because its something that you don't show off, its your own private experience and to put it out as a boast makes it less than what it was.
Theres a big difference between bragging and keeping a record for your own sanity. When trying to deal with the disturbing events of emergency service, it is often recomened that the rescue worker keep a journal or a diary. Many of those journals are later published as a sort of tribute to the patients and people who the rescuer encountered. I like to think that my articles are a tribute to the people I have met and come into contact with.
The job I do is not about me, its about everyone else. I do what I to help people, not to make myself look cool. Emegency work is not about glory, its fullfillment comes not from having people listen to your stories but self knowlege you had experiences that few are privilaged to have. My job takes me to some very interesting places, I see some very disturbing (and some very uplifting) scenes but you don't have to hear about all that.
When I'm working on a patient, its me, my partner, the patient and God. My partner and I can work as hard as we want but in the end God decides whether our efforts are enough. When one of my patients lives, its because of God's blessing. I'm not overly religious, I went to a Catholic high school and the whole thing pretty much turned me off to organized religion, but I do believe that there is a deity. I wouldn't do this job if I didn't. So when I am blessed enough to help someone live through their ailment of the hour, I see it less as my victory and more as the will of a higher power.
People don't get that. Some people involved in this line of work don't even get that. The ones who know what the work is about tend to be quiet about their jobs. Those who don't understand that their work is not about them, they talk.
His stories have the cocky air of a B grade movie hero recounting tales of derring do to a new commer in the field of heroism. Every word is carefully chosen in order to sound self assured and confident of his abilities as a firefighter.
In reality, this guy is as green as freshcut grass in the middle of July. His stories of gore and heroism are just stories because he mistakenly views firefighting as a job where personal glory is the goal. Anyone in the class will say that they have heard his stories and that they silently wish for him to shut up but feel it would be rude to tell him off. After all, we're all brothers.
The point is that he is trying too hard. Theres no shame in the fact that he's never done half of the stuff that he claims to do. Hollywood scriptwritters haven't even dreamed up some of his outlandish creations. His fabrications hurt the emergency service community because when lay people hear someone babbling on and on about brains and gore they think we're sick people who do it for the glory of telling our stories to starry eyed girls at the bar.
People who have actually seen that stuff, dealt with human suffering and death, don't take it lightly. They don't talk about it flippantly with their co workers. Theres the occasional dark joke or sick remark but they don't constantly regale each other with tales of terrible car accidents and dead children.
All of the bad things that we see (if we actually see them) go in to a sort of mental vault. We know they are there and we remember them vividly-- the sights, smells, our own almost parlyzing fear that we won't be able to do what we were trained to do-- but we don't boast about them. In a way those moments when we see people in pain, dying or dead are like praying. On the most basic and primal level, you are witness to the effects of a power much greater than yourself. Call it God, fate or whatever but you are present durring something so powerful that telling stories of it afterwards cheapens the whole experience. When it becomes about you "I did this.....I did that.....My first move was to....." the point of why you are doing your job in the first place is totally lost.
I'm not saying he's a bad guy, far from it, he's actually kind of funny sometimes, but he's too caught up in the image of the hero tough guy. Listening to country music and strutting around talking about your achievements is just going to get you laughed at. Because anyone who actually does emergency work looks on those experiences as their own, if people outside the job want to know about them, then they can ask. Most of the time, the answer will be "I don't wanna talk about it." Because its something that you don't show off, its your own private experience and to put it out as a boast makes it less than what it was.
Theres a big difference between bragging and keeping a record for your own sanity. When trying to deal with the disturbing events of emergency service, it is often recomened that the rescue worker keep a journal or a diary. Many of those journals are later published as a sort of tribute to the patients and people who the rescuer encountered. I like to think that my articles are a tribute to the people I have met and come into contact with.
The job I do is not about me, its about everyone else. I do what I to help people, not to make myself look cool. Emegency work is not about glory, its fullfillment comes not from having people listen to your stories but self knowlege you had experiences that few are privilaged to have. My job takes me to some very interesting places, I see some very disturbing (and some very uplifting) scenes but you don't have to hear about all that.
When I'm working on a patient, its me, my partner, the patient and God. My partner and I can work as hard as we want but in the end God decides whether our efforts are enough. When one of my patients lives, its because of God's blessing. I'm not overly religious, I went to a Catholic high school and the whole thing pretty much turned me off to organized religion, but I do believe that there is a deity. I wouldn't do this job if I didn't. So when I am blessed enough to help someone live through their ailment of the hour, I see it less as my victory and more as the will of a higher power.
People don't get that. Some people involved in this line of work don't even get that. The ones who know what the work is about tend to be quiet about their jobs. Those who don't understand that their work is not about them, they talk.
posted by Nick Stabile at 7:48 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home