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I'm extremely excited to announce a brand new sponsor for the Behind the Shield podcast

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that is Transcend.

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Now for many of you listening, you are probably working the same brutal shifts that I did

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for 14 years.

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Suffering from sleep deprivation, body composition challenges, mental health challenges, libido,

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hair loss, etc.

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Now when it comes to the world of hormone replacement and peptide therapy, what I have

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seen is a shift from doctors telling us that we were within normal limits, which was definitely

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incorrect all the way to the other way now where men's clinics are popping up left, right

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and center.

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So I myself wanted to find a reputable company that would do an analysis of my physiology

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and then offer supplementations without ramming, for example, hormone replacement therapy down

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my throat.

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Now I came across Transcend because they have an altruistic arm and they were a big reason

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why the 7X project I was a part of was able to proceed because of their generous donations.

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They also have the Transcend foundations where they are actually putting military and first

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responders through some of their therapies at no cost to the individual.

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So my own personal journey so far filled in the online form, went to Quest, got blood

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drawn and a few days later I'm talking to one of their wellness professionals as they

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guide me through my results and the supplementation that they suggest.

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In my case specifically, because I transitioned out the fire service five years ago and been

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very diligent with my health, my testosterone was actually in a good place.

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So I went down the peptide route and some other supplements to try and maximize my physiology

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knowing full well the damage that 14 years of shift work has done.

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Now I also want to underline because I think this is very important that each of the therapies

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they offer, they will talk about the pros and cons.

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So for example, a lot of first responders in shift work, our testosterone will be low,

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but sometimes nutrition, exercise and sleep can offset that on its own.

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So this company is not going to try and push you down a path, especially if it's one that

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you can't come back from.

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So whether it's libido, brain fog, inflammation, gut health, performance, sleep, this is definitely

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one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox.

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So to learn more, go to transcendcompany.com or listen to episode 808 of the Behind the

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Shield podcast with founder Ernie Colling.

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This episode is sponsored by a company I've literally been using for over 15 years now

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and that is 511.

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Now my introduction to their products began when I started wearing 511 uniforms years

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ago for Anaheim Fire Department.

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And since then I have acquired a host of their backpacks and luggage, which have literally

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been around the world with me.

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The backpack where I keep all my recording equipment is a 511 backpack.

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And then most of my civilian gear, the clothes that I wear are also 511.

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Now more recently they've actually branched out into the brick and mortar stores.

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So for example, Gainesville where I do jiu jitsu has a beautiful 511 store.

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So if you are a fire department, a law enforcement agency, you now have access to an entire inventory

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of clothing and equipment in these 511 stores.

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Now I've talked about the range of shoes they have and how important minimizing weight in

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our footwear is when it comes to our back health, knee health, et cetera.

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I've talked about their unique uniforms that are fitted for either male or female first

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responders.

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And then I want to highlight one new area, their CloudStrike packs.

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For those of you who enjoy hiking, this would even be an application I believe for the wildland

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community.

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They've created an ultra light pack now with a hydration system built in for rucking, running

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or other long distance events.

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Now as always, 511 is offering you the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast 15% off every

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purchase that you make.

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So if you use the code SHIELD15, that's S-H-I-E-L-D-1-5 at 511tactical.com, you will get that 15% off

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every single time.

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So if you want to hear more about 511 and their origin story, go to episode 338 of Behind

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the Shield podcast with their CEO, Francisco Morales.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on

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the show, Matt Harrison and Brian O'Connell.

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Now as you know, I've been trying to layer the incredible stories from departments that

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have gone from a 2448 to a 2472 shift schedule.

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We've already heard from Boynton Beach, Pasco County and then Sarah Jenke discussing the

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research and science behind the importance of moving to this shift.

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Well this week we have Matt and Brian, both Gainesville firefighters.

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Matt is also a SWAT medic and Brian is the vice president of their union.

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And as I sit here recording this today, in two short months, Gainesville is moving to

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a 2472.

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So this is another powerful story and blueprint of how and why Gainesville made the change.

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So we discuss a host of topics from the immense amount of overtime costs they were paying

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to cover vacancies, the recruitment crisis, the mental and physical ill health they were

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seeing in their fire department, the exciting research study they're going to be part of

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as they make this transition and so much more.

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Now before we get to this amazing conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment.

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Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and

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leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for

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others to find.

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And this is a free library of well over 900 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so

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I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you Matt Harrison and Brian O'Connell.

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Enjoy.

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Well Matt and Brian, I want to start by saying firstly thank you for driving the long way

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from Gainesville down.

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Luckily you avoided the big wreck that was going northbound at the moment.

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But I want to welcome you both to my home and to the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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Awesome.

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Yeah, thank you for having us.

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So what I want to do is do a quick backstory of each of you so people know kind of you

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know where you came from and then obviously they understand the firefighter behind the

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movement and then we'll get on to the amazing change that your department's about to make.

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So Matt, let's start with you.

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Tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what

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your parents did, how many siblings.

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Yeah, so I was actually born in Gainesville, which is where I work now, Gainesville Fire

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Rescue.

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I'm one of the few locals that stayed in Gainesville.

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So my mom, she was a nurse and she retired a few years ago and she did I think 42 years

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as a nurse, which is amazing.

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I have the utmost respect for people working in the hospitals because me being in the fire

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service, you know, I try to avoid the hospital as much as possible.

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But yeah, so I've been on with Gainesville Fire Rescue for 17 years now and I'm a driver

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operator and paramedic.

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Did your mom do shift work when she was a nurse or was she many days?

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She was shift work during the day.

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She did some night shifts back when we were younger, but she hated the night shifts.

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She was ICU.

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So yeah, she was she was hard working.

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So they would do 12 hour shifts.

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So we were very fortunate that my neighbor was actually they had kids similar age, so

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they were able to babysit us.

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So when we got home from school and my mom was still at the hospital working, you know,

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she wouldn't get home till seven or eight at night.

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They would watch us until my mom got home and then they would, you know, we'd come back

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to the house.

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So we were fortunate.

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So mom was telling me one of my friends who was a firefighter, paramedic and a nurse,

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Steph, about ICU, ICU psychosis a few years ago.

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And obviously we're going to talk about sleep.

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But what I'd never thought about is that you've got a patient in ICU and even, you know, other

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wards of a hospital and there's all the lights and all the sounds, you know, they're checking

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vitals like every 30 minutes, every hour, whatever it is, and they're staying awake.

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And so they lose the kind of sense of day and night and they literally get psychotic.

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And so even for the patients in the hospital, the medical profession is starting to understand

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that if we can let them sleep and that's when we all heal.

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So in the very thing we're having a conversation about, your mom probably saw firsthand all

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those years ago.

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Oh yeah.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Yeah.

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It turns out sleep is way more important than people thought, you know, even 10 or 20 years

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ago.

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And it's good that we're having these conversations about it because it's a, it's a, it's a, has

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a huge negative impact not being able to get that those full, full cycles of sleep.

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Absolutely.

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Oh, Brian, same to you.

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So where were you born and tell me a little about your family dynamic, what your parents

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did, how many siblings?

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I was born in Fort Myers, Florida, down on the beach, which I miss dearly to this day.

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Unfortunately, I got married and my wife decided we were sending Gainesville.

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So I mean, unfortunately you got married when you cut that out.

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Now you can go ahead and get that in there.

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She'll smack me later.

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It's fine.

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I'm used to talking incorrectly.

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I have one sister, she's actually an attorney out in Destin and my parents, my dad was a

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principal, mom was an ESC teacher for almost a 31 or 32 years.

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So it's like, just like Matt, all the credit to her, dealing with the emotional handicap

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kids and stuff for that many years and loving it every single day.

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I mean, it took a toll on her, but she absolutely loved going in there.

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I used to go to class with her in the summertime and it was the most amazing thing I've ever

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seen.

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You know, to see how much those individuals were actually able to participate in life

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and stuff is really kind of a cool experience.

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I moved away at 18, moved to Tennessee for a year, wanted to get a little bit closer

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to home.

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I've been in Gainesville ever since.

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As I said, I met my wife.

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She really wanted to stay in Gainesville, did not want to move anywhere coastal.

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She wins like she always does.

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We have two daughters now.

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Nice house.

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So it worked out.

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She's smarter than me.

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So yeah, that's true.

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Matt knows her really well.

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Well speaking of education, have you had the conversation with one or both of your parents

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about how it's changed through the years that they were teaching?

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All the time, all the time.

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My dad did a much better job.

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He got to retirement and doesn't really think about it anymore because he was like, I'm

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done when I'm done.

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My mom still does tutoring and stuff on the side just for fun.

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She lives out in Despo with my sister, but she's realistic about it, but disheartened.

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She doesn't like losing the ability to actually educate people and try to like have honest

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conversations with them and do, I guess, more of the old school.

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We actually sit down and talk about things.

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Actually have to have educated opinions and be able to figure it out as opposed to just

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checklist teaching.

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I have a guy called Pasi Saalberg on the show who lives in Australia now, but he's from

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Finland originally.

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He was an educator and he ended up touring the world teaching about the Finnish system.

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The way they do it differently is they look at the whole child holistically.

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Their system, they put more funding and support into the poorer areas and the areas who obviously

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aren't performing as highly.

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They have a lot more recess, a lot more play, shorter days, and they're usually number one

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on the international success list when it comes to education.

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The way that we do it rigidly in our standardized testing, again, insanity is doing the same

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thing expecting different results, which we're going to get to in a second in the fire service.

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In education, it seems like less is more is becoming more and more for principle.

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I hear you're insinuating that maybe no child left behind might have left some children

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behind.

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They don't think any of them got on the bus in the first place.

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Me and Matt, I think, are products of that system too.

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Look at us, we're doing great.

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That's a good segue then.

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I'd love to walk through your journey into the fire service.

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What's interesting is we're all sitting here, products of the trade schools, Pyramidic,

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Fire, EMT.

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Matt, first, from graduating high school, were you dreaming of becoming a firefighter

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and if not, walk me through your journey into testing?

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Yeah, I think I was one of the few that I knew what I wanted to be ever since I was

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a kid.

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I actually told this story in my interview at Gainesville Fire Rescue.

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When I was seven or eight years old, I was at my house and I heard a bunch of sirens

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and I heard they're getting louder and louder.

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So naturally, being a kid, ran outside, jumped on my bike and started riding down the neighborhood.

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And I pulled up to a house and the house was on fire.

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And I remember just a whole bunch of fire engines just pulling up.

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And I just sat there on my bike, just sat on the curb and watched them go to work, watched

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them go in and pull hoses and put the fire out.

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And luckily nobody was hurt.

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I actually knew the residents.

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They were all okay.

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And after that, I told my mom, I want to do that.

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She's like, okay, yeah, that's a good career.

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I had no, my dad, nobody in my family, nobody was a firefighter.

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So I wasn't connected to it in any way.

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Had some people in military here and there.

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But yeah, so right after high school, went to college, got my AS degree.

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And then I said, that's enough with the degrees.

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I'm ready to go to fire college.

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So I actually got into EMT school first, went to Santa Fe, great program.

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Got my EMT school, got into fire college, went down to Florida State Fire College.

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And I was very fortunate that right out of fire college, I ended up getting hired on

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with, with Gainesville Fire Rescue, that it just lined up with the timing was perfect.

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And it's funny, we talk about this now.

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I think when I applied, I think we hired maybe eight or nine positions and there was initially

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600 that applied.

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And you know, 600 didn't make it to the interviews, you have a lot of people that drop out along

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the levels, you know, a lot of people weren't serious about it, but they heard, hey, that's

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a good, good paying job, you know, I'll try that.

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Nowadays it's, it's insane to think about if we had 600 people apply, you know, there's

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just the workforce just doesn't seem to be there anymore.

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But but yeah, so it's something I always wanted to do.

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And being able to get on with my local department in the city that I grew up in, you know, is

242
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pretty neat.

243
00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:46,520
Yeah.

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Amazing.

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Yeah, we'll get to that because I tested against 1000 people in the written and this is I could

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visually see them in a conference center in Anaheim, California.

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And they were all I found out later, not just, you know, didn't have their bits of paper,

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they were firefighters, EMTs or paramedics.

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Most of them had experiences, ambulance operators, most of them came from the wildland community

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at some point, a lot of them were explorers.

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So I mean, we're talking a fat resume, 1000 of them and there was 30 spots.

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Yeah, I was I was actually an explorer as well.

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But I was explore with with the county fire department, Lauchee County Fire Rescue, where

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our cities in and and I think that helped for sure.

255
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But it's staying with you a sec.

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We have an incredible mentorship program here in Ocala, which one of my friends, Chris Hickman,

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started and my bonus boy, my stepson went through it.

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And to me, when you have that diversity conversation, of course, there are some underserved populations

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in most cities and counties that there are barriers to entry.

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So I mean, my mom, even I was in my 20s, gave me the money for fire school, for example,

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there's a lot of young people that just wasn't feasible, they weren't going to be able to

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get that.

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So there are barriers.

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So what I've seen is that they put this, you know, this incredible mentorship program,

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I think it's three or four times a week, it's in the central locations, all the kids have

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to do is just get there.

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And it's usually put, you know, closer to some of the poorer areas.

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They give them the equipment, they give them the training, the fire academy, there are

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scholarships for fire school.

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And then obviously, locally, there's loads of people looking for people at the moment.

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So what I saw from my stepson is he did it and he was like, I don't want to be a firefighter,

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massive win, you know, now he hasn't gone all the way through all that money and then

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realized.

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But then you go into, you know, whatever group that you're not represented in your department

275
00:16:35,240 --> 00:16:40,480
and you find the best candidates rather than the old school way of just go get me, I always

276
00:16:40,480 --> 00:16:42,440
joke, go get me 50 English guys.

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00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:46,320
We don't have any in our department, of which some will be good and some will be shit.

278
00:16:46,320 --> 00:16:48,760
So what was your experience with the Explorer program?

279
00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:53,080
And then talk to me about your kind of lens on mentorship programs today.

280
00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:57,280
Yeah, so the Explorer program was great.

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I want to say the program I was in, I was actually the only one that ended up getting

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hired on locally.

283
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But I do know later on, we've got we've got some other people with us that that also came

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00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:15,560
from the Gainesville mentor mentorship program and they've been hired on and they're great.

285
00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:21,840
And I think that is a that's actually a really good point you make of because I know of firefighters

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00:17:21,840 --> 00:17:27,320
that did the EMT, went to fire college, got hired on and a year down the road said, this

287
00:17:27,320 --> 00:17:28,480
isn't for me.

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And it's because they that's they didn't know anything about fire service until they got

289
00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:37,160
hired on as a probationary, you know, candidate, you know, and went through probation.

290
00:17:37,160 --> 00:17:41,240
And at the end, they just they said this, this isn't my thing, you know.

291
00:17:41,240 --> 00:17:48,400
And so I think that's actually key because you're not just, you know, you have the upfront

292
00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:51,800
cost of it, especially like you said, if you don't have the parents that can pay for you

293
00:17:51,800 --> 00:17:54,960
having to, you know, pay for fire college is not cheap.

294
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EMT school is not cheap.

295
00:17:56,680 --> 00:18:01,640
And you know, EMT is required as the basic minimum anywhere around here, you know, and

296
00:18:01,640 --> 00:18:05,880
so you're going to you're going to save money and you're going to save time of having to

297
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hire and put people through orientation.

298
00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:12,000
Orientation is very expensive because with our orientation, you know, it's six or seven

299
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:16,680
weeks and we're having to pay people overtime five days a week just to cover that.

300
00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:20,580
And then that's less people that are able to work, you know, to get mandated overtime

301
00:18:20,580 --> 00:18:23,760
because we're short staff, just like every other department, you know, just about in

302
00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:25,880
the country.

303
00:18:25,880 --> 00:18:27,960
So the mentorship programs have been successful.

304
00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:32,040
We've had some great candidates that have come through, you know, in Gainesville that

305
00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:35,440
are now on the road and they're they're doing great.

306
00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:36,440
Beautiful.

307
00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:37,440
That's so good to hear.

308
00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:41,760
Well, Brian, I know you have a slightly different journey into the fire service yourself.

309
00:18:41,760 --> 00:18:46,300
So walk me through what you were dreaming of becoming high school age to your your entrance

310
00:18:46,300 --> 00:18:47,300
in the fire service.

311
00:18:47,300 --> 00:18:53,280
So as I say before, I grew up in a beach community, so I actually can't really remember what exactly

312
00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:54,280
my dream was.

313
00:18:54,280 --> 00:19:00,240
I enjoyed fishing and being out on the boat and, you know, being on the Gulf of Mexico

314
00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:01,240
all the time.

315
00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:06,760
I actually worked on Sanibel Island for a lot of my youth, so when I was a kid, my grandmother

316
00:19:06,760 --> 00:19:11,160
lived for Myers, obviously has grown a lot in the last 20 plus years.

317
00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:13,720
It was much smaller when I was a kid, which was nice.

318
00:19:13,720 --> 00:19:18,040
There was a fire station city for Myers right around the corner from her house.

319
00:19:18,040 --> 00:19:19,040
And bless her heart.

320
00:19:19,040 --> 00:19:21,080
She never told me, no, we always go over there.

321
00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:22,920
Those guys probably hated seeing me, I'm sure.

322
00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:27,560
But probably every time I mean, you see me right now when I go to work.

323
00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:28,560
So I get it.

324
00:19:28,560 --> 00:19:32,240
But no, so I was able to go over there a lot and just kind of fell in love with it, have

325
00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:38,720
no family history at all, didn't really know much, went off to college, came back.

326
00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:41,000
I was bartending, making pretty good money at the time.

327
00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:42,920
And all I kept hearing was you can't get hired.

328
00:19:42,920 --> 00:19:46,520
This is probably like 2007, 2008, like, hey, nobody's hiring, nobody's hiring.

329
00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:50,040
So I was living in Gainesville and I was like, well, making good money, not really trying

330
00:19:50,040 --> 00:19:51,040
very hard.

331
00:19:51,040 --> 00:19:57,520
And then life once again, met a woman who realized that I needed benefits and like,

332
00:19:57,520 --> 00:20:00,680
you know, some trajectory of my life, other than bartending till three o'clock in the

333
00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:04,000
morning every single night, starting at five o'clock in the afternoon.

334
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:09,640
And I went to EMT school, had a buddy who was working for a private ambulance service

335
00:20:09,640 --> 00:20:12,640
in Columbia County doing 911 calls.

336
00:20:12,640 --> 00:20:14,560
I was like, perfect.

337
00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:15,560
That sounds amazing.

338
00:20:15,560 --> 00:20:16,560
I like the CMS stuff.

339
00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:17,560
Let me do that.

340
00:20:17,560 --> 00:20:22,080
It took about six months before I realized that maybe the private model wasn't exactly

341
00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:28,360
what I preferred to do, the profit side of it, per se.

342
00:20:28,360 --> 00:20:31,680
They put me through paramedic school, so that was a win because I kept hearing from everybody

343
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:32,680
like, I gotta be a paramedic.

344
00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:35,240
You know, you gotta have a bachelor's degree if you want to get on any of these places.

345
00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:38,560
You know, it's still probably like 2011, 2012.

346
00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:42,320
Fortunately met a lot of wonderful guys at Lake City Fire Department at that time who

347
00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:46,680
explained to me what fire school was, where you go to fire school, how you do all of that,

348
00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:49,240
gave me bunker gear to get through fire school.

349
00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:50,680
And I ended up working there for a while.

350
00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:54,680
And like I said, I owe a lot of it to them by just walking me through and being like,

351
00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:57,320
oh, this is a ladder truck and it has extrication equipment.

352
00:20:57,320 --> 00:20:59,720
I didn't know those things at the time.

353
00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:03,320
I tell Matt all the time jokingly like, I didn't know when I got to Gainesville that

354
00:21:03,320 --> 00:21:05,840
Hazmat Tech was a specialty course.

355
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:09,080
I thought just anybody goes to building collapses.

356
00:21:09,080 --> 00:21:11,480
I don't have any family history doing this.

357
00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:12,480
And I didn't, by the way.

358
00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:13,480
It's zero.

359
00:21:13,480 --> 00:21:16,040
Yeah, I mean, I feel like an idiot now because I'm like, oh, there's so much that goes into

360
00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:17,040
this.

361
00:21:17,040 --> 00:21:20,960
I mean, it's tech rescue guys are amazing, but I didn't know it was a thing.

362
00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:21,960
Nobody told me.

363
00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:28,200
So eventually applied to Gainesville, got on not quite as competitive that nine year

364
00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:29,360
ago, Mark, I think is my gone.

365
00:21:29,360 --> 00:21:32,920
But there's still I think they said it was like 600 applied and then there was 100 that

366
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:34,160
actually interviewed for 10 spots.

367
00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:38,600
But it was when this new cycle was going of, you know, weaning people out and not having

368
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:39,600
as many applicants.

369
00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:44,600
But you know, Gainesville and that's once again, my wife wanted to live there.

370
00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:46,400
We are there.

371
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:47,720
We are in the community now.

372
00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:49,600
So so we're staying with you.

373
00:21:49,600 --> 00:21:50,600
Talk to me.

374
00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:52,080
What was the shift schedule that you were on?

375
00:21:52,080 --> 00:21:53,080
Was that Kelly's?

376
00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:54,080
No, Kelly's.

377
00:21:54,080 --> 00:21:59,700
And then as the years progressed, did you notice the impact of the regular shifts of

378
00:21:59,700 --> 00:22:04,000
any mandatories that were there from a family perspective?

379
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:05,680
So I started doing EMS.

380
00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:09,360
I actually started on a I think they call it a Bahama schedule, which like the 12 hour

381
00:22:09,360 --> 00:22:13,720
where you work Wednesday, Thursday, one week and then Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then

382
00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:14,720
Monday, Tuesday.

383
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:17,680
It rotated and so you had every other weekend off.

384
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:19,640
That's pretty terrible.

385
00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:23,840
It was going a lot longer than you would want to be there, obviously.

386
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:26,880
And so if you did any overtime, you didn't have weekends left.

387
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:30,280
And at that time, I think I was making like nine dollars an hour, maybe 10.

388
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:31,280
And we wanted to buy a house stuff.

389
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:33,680
So we were definitely working as much overtime as possible.

390
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:35,760
My wife is still in school.

391
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:39,520
I found out what a Kelly Day was once again from the guys in Lake City.

392
00:22:39,520 --> 00:22:42,280
And once I got that, I was like, probably not going to apply anywhere that doesn't at

393
00:22:42,280 --> 00:22:46,480
least have a six week Kelly Day, which is where we're at.

394
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:52,440
But I do notice the impact on family life that that extra day off is nice.

395
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:55,560
I mean, I don't know anybody who wouldn't say that, you know, having an extra day off

396
00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:59,960
units every six weeks is amazing, you know, to be able to spend with kids, which is a

397
00:22:59,960 --> 00:23:03,880
new perspective I've had in the last four years now of I actually need to be home for

398
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:04,880
them.

399
00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:09,640
So but yeah, I really the 24 schedule was definitely more conducive.

400
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:13,480
And I think also at the time, I was only thinking of it from profit standpoint, where I was

401
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:16,840
like, I can work more because we're poor.

402
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:21,160
So now I'm thinking from it like, OK, well, now I might need to live a little longer so

403
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:22,200
I can raise my children.

404
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:26,080
So yeah, that's where it's evolved to perspective, right?

405
00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:27,080
You get perspective.

406
00:23:27,080 --> 00:23:28,080
Absolutely.

407
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:30,440
Well, Matt, same with you.

408
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:35,760
What was the the environment that the work that you entered and then kind of walk me

409
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:41,560
through any realizations of the impact of that on the family dynamic?

410
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:42,560
Yeah.

411
00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:46,200
So I worked at Publix previously.

412
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:49,120
So I worked at Publix while I was in fire college.

413
00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:51,920
And so that was just a normal, you know, four or five days a week.

414
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:53,420
You know, I stock shelves.

415
00:23:53,420 --> 00:23:58,120
So it was it was, you know, nothing, nothing too crazy about that.

416
00:23:58,120 --> 00:24:01,680
I guess that's kind of the normal, normal work week that most people do.

417
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:03,680
They go to work for eight or 10 hours a day.

418
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:06,120
You're home at night, you know, and you sleep in your own bed.

419
00:24:06,120 --> 00:24:10,680
And so starting off in the fire service, you know, that was my first ever job was with

420
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:11,760
with Cainesville Fire.

421
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:14,320
And so we have a six week K-Day there.

422
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:17,360
Obviously, we're going to be going to 24 72.

423
00:24:17,360 --> 00:24:20,840
So we'll be losing the K-Day, of course, but it'll be a net positive.

424
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:27,600
But yeah, like like Brian said, having that K-Day was was huge because it gave you time.

425
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:31,600
You know, after six weeks, you get that paid day off where you can you can you can use it

426
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:37,040
to recover, you know, and and take what a lot of people don't talk about nowadays is

427
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:38,400
mental health days.

428
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:41,800
Honestly, I mean, especially if you're at a busy station.

429
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:47,480
I started off I was on engine two on Archer Road, and that's that's always traditionally

430
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:48,480
been a busy unit.

431
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:49,960
You know, that was where I first got assigned.

432
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:54,040
And so but but, you know, I was I got hired.

433
00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:55,040
I was 23 years old.

434
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:57,760
So I was young and dumb and just, you know, I was just ready to go and do whatever my

435
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:01,880
lieutenant told me to do and put my gear on as fast as I can and hop on the truck and

436
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:02,880
go on calls.

437
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:07,120
And and, you know, when you're starting off, that's kind of you're just you're drinking

438
00:25:07,120 --> 00:25:08,120
from a fire hose.

439
00:25:08,120 --> 00:25:09,120
You know, is what they say.

440
00:25:09,120 --> 00:25:12,200
You're just trying to learn as much as you can, especially because that was my first

441
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:14,600
ever, you know, fire department job.

442
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:20,440
And in Gainesville, we've got a lot of really good professionals and a lot of good a lot

443
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:21,440
of experience.

444
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:23,840
You know, a lot of.

445
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:30,280
I ended up getting assigned with a lieutenant at the time that had 25 plus years in the

446
00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:32,600
fire service and he had started out more rural.

447
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:37,960
And, you know, we talk about this in the fire service now, how we kind of get less and less

448
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:41,440
fires now because fire safety has improved.

449
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:45,520
And so all the new buildings that are being built, they're a lot safer, you know, commercial

450
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:46,520
buildings.

451
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:48,580
You know, if they're over a certain size, they have to have sprinklers.

452
00:25:48,580 --> 00:25:54,400
So even if there's a fire, we go there and luckily a lot of the work's been been done

453
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:55,720
as far as putting the fire out.

454
00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:59,200
So the so the hazards been mitigated from the residents.

455
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:03,120
But you know, you still have, you know, other stuff you have to deal with.

456
00:26:03,120 --> 00:26:09,720
But but yes, this is like I said, this is my only fire department I've worked with.

457
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:13,080
So I consider myself very fortunate as far as that goes, because a lot of people generally

458
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:15,760
have to kind of start smaller departments like Brian did.

459
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:22,320
And you kind of try to work your way up to a more designation department.

460
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:26,160
No one thing I got out of that is low key or hazmat guy at heart is what you're saying.

461
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:27,160
Nope.

462
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:30,920
Welcome to the family.

463
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:35,400
So with your department specifically, I mean, if I think of Orange County, for example,

464
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:40,400
I would I could I mean, there's the name the list of names that have died is unending.

465
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:43,320
And I do a thing every year with them called the three, four, three hero challenge.

466
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:48,800
And I write the names of the fallen just that either work right where I work or where I

467
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:49,800
used to in California.

468
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:50,800
That's it.

469
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,240
And my back now it started six names the first year.

470
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:59,800
Now it's was I think it was 96 or 100 and I forget either side of 100.

471
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,880
So every department I've worked with in Marion where I live that protects my family now.

472
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:08,800
I mean, they just lost a guy who was Marion and then Dixie County.

473
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:13,640
And then we just a year ago, we lost two young men, very young men within 12 weeks of each

474
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:14,640
other to suicide.

475
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:19,240
And that's not even to mention the heart diseases and the cancers and everything else.

476
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:24,120
What were you seeing as far as ill health in your department?

477
00:27:24,120 --> 00:27:30,120
So I think every department has it where it's interesting.

478
00:27:30,120 --> 00:27:35,520
I was just talking to Brian about this when when I first got hired on.

479
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,680
I mean, we had a really we had a horrific incident and involved a child.

480
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:45,600
And I still remember to this day, the district chief was was very proactive and called us

481
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:47,000
up and said, hey, I'm going to come out.

482
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:48,640
We're going to do a stress debriefing.

483
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:50,600
I want to talk to the crew and everything.

484
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:55,400
And at that time, the lieutenant, you know, he was the he was the old school mentality

485
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:57,280
of suck it up, buttercup.

486
00:27:57,280 --> 00:27:59,480
And he didn't he said, no, he said, we're good.

487
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:01,720
We're not going to sit around, talk about our feelings.

488
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:03,640
We're going to we're going to deal with this like men.

489
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:08,240
We're all going to deal with this on our own and we're going to move on.

490
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:10,000
And I still think about that.

491
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,120
And there's he wasn't trying to be hurtful.

492
00:28:13,120 --> 00:28:14,620
That's just how he was taught.

493
00:28:14,620 --> 00:28:16,320
And that's all he knew.

494
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:23,040
There was no research showing of of because 20 years ago, PTSD, when they first started

495
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:26,120
talking about this, however long ago, that it was just military.

496
00:28:26,120 --> 00:28:27,120
That was it.

497
00:28:27,120 --> 00:28:30,520
Now we're finally seeing, oh, police and fire.

498
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:34,560
We also are getting PTSD because, you know, we're living this and we get no break from

499
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:35,560
it.

500
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:36,560
It's day in, day out in the communities.

501
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:42,080
And where these accidents and these incidents are happening is on roads that we drive up

502
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,720
and down every time, you know, and you have a bad accident and it's on a road that you

503
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:49,360
drive and you leave the fire station and go home and you look at that tree and like, yes,

504
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:53,400
I remember a couple of kids died hitting that tree and that that affects you whether you

505
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:54,760
know it or not.

506
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:59,200
And I'll be honest, when I was in my 20s, I had the mentality of what's like, what's

507
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:00,200
wrong with these people?

508
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:01,200
I'm fine.

509
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:02,200
I'm fine.

510
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,760
And then it catches up with you after a certain amount of time is going to be different for

511
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:06,760
everybody.

512
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:07,760
It will catch up with you.

513
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:10,960
And I still remember the day that caught up with me and I was just in a fog and I asked

514
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,880
my lieutenant about it and I said, hey, this normal, like, should I be feeling this way?

515
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,840
And he's like, he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, just, you know, sleep it off.

516
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:17,840
Get some rest.

517
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:19,120
It'd be fine.

518
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:24,760
And it's just that's that's the stigma that we have to change.

519
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:28,520
And luckily, there are, you know, people talking about this and you've had some great people

520
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:34,240
on the on the podcast talking about this, that the mental health side of it is just

521
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:39,760
as important as the physical side of the issues we're having with with increased cancer and

522
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:44,640
heart disease and increased risk of injury as well, you know, because it is a physical

523
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:47,160
job.

524
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:51,160
But but yeah, that's that's there's definitely been a been a big change.

525
00:29:51,160 --> 00:30:00,120
And we our union did a great job years ago of setting up to where we can we can get counseling

526
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:01,840
as much as we want.

527
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,220
And it's paid for it's covered by the city.

528
00:30:04,220 --> 00:30:08,440
And it's you know, if you're having issues, you can you can call up the counselor or,

529
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,800
you know, text her and say, hey, I want to come in and talk and schedule schedule an

530
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:12,800
hour session.

531
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:17,720
And a lot of people, everybody I've talked to that's done that has found it very beneficial.

532
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:22,720
Well, that's amazing, because one of the big barriers to entry we talk about stigma is

533
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:26,320
that a lot of times this conversation ends at stigma and even the PTSD.

534
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:31,600
Like, I love that for that description of moral injury.

535
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:34,320
Like what we've realized is that it's morphed to that.

536
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:40,260
Yeah, you got PTSD, like panic attacks, crying, crawling in a corner, you know, the car backfires

537
00:30:40,260 --> 00:30:44,040
and you're pulling out your weapon, you know, the kind of classic and then you have more

538
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:48,520
injury, which is I couldn't save that child, you know, the guilt, the shame, which is I

539
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:54,120
think what most of us actually suffer from, you know, and then I think the the real conversation

540
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:59,220
now needs to happen is the post traumatic growth conversation, the hope that the other

541
00:30:59,220 --> 00:31:04,800
side of whatever therapies work for you is a more resilient version of yourself.

542
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:05,800
But we're not there yet.

543
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:07,280
And I think that's where we need to go.

544
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:13,640
But the barrier is, I've heard so many EAP horror stories, the Russian roulette of counselors,

545
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:18,360
you know, where that's how we that's where we ended up with our counselor that we jumped

546
00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:19,360
in.

547
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:22,320
So no, I mean, Matt pretty much hit it on the head.

548
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:27,120
I was going to say a couple of things in there was one thing we're looking at now, we have

549
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:30,880
a bunch of people jumping on this in the department, which is kind of revamping a bunch of our

550
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:31,880
mental health stuff.

551
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:34,120
We don't have a large budget, so that makes it difficult.

552
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:38,880
And I know you sitting here for the budget conversation a million times.

553
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:39,880
We were talking about right up here.

554
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:43,600
And I said, you know, the funniest thing is, why do we work out from eight to nine o'clock

555
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:49,120
in the morning, you know, like per contract hours, you know, it's so we can be our best

556
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:50,760
version of ourselves.

557
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:53,920
When we when that alarm goes off, we actually have a fire and somebody needs to be rescued,

558
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:54,920
like we are ready to go.

559
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:57,440
And that is very important.

560
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:03,200
When I've seen some of the mental health failure, and this is across the entire services, we're

561
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:04,200
attacking.

562
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:07,800
Oh, you're in crisis.

563
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:10,240
You've done nothing to prehab or train those people.

564
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:13,720
And that's kind of the hardest time to get a hold of people, I think, especially because

565
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,000
we all think we're Teflon.

566
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,200
But then we're trying to pull them back.

567
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,640
And, you know, I liken it to like doing a cardiac arrest.

568
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,040
You know, if you've already arrested, it's very hard to pull that person back.

569
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:28,680
If I can cardiovert you and get you back, like we have a much higher chance of bringing

570
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:29,680
you back.

571
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:34,400
If you have the tools going into this and you know it works for you, you are going to

572
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:35,400
get through that.

573
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:39,560
But if you are already to the point where you are unfortunately substance abuse, harming

574
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:43,760
yourself, like it's going to be very difficult to pull that person back without any of the

575
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:44,760
resources.

576
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,800
And now we're like trying to stop the train that's all the way down the track.

577
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:52,160
And I do believe that somewhere we're trying to get to.

578
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:53,600
Like he said, it's difficult, though.

579
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:58,480
There's a one of the strangest things I had to realize was like letting go of stigma.

580
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:00,840
Like if somebody asked me a question, I'm an open book.

581
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:02,580
Like it's cool.

582
00:33:02,580 --> 00:33:07,520
Like I need to be a teacher also because somebody is going to be at my point in my career.

583
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:11,800
And I need to educate them as kids now and move along.

584
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:16,720
And I told him, strangely, like at the ALTS conference this year for IFF, like I went

585
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:21,800
to a resiliency training course and this happens to me all the time because I'm not that intelligent.

586
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:25,520
I didn't really know necessarily what was involved with it because like I did read the

587
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:28,000
like, you know, resiliency and building resiliency in your department.

588
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:31,040
So I was like, I wasn't necessarily thinking just strictly mental health, but it ended

589
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:32,800
up being a great class.

590
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:34,800
A lot of stuff in there people wouldn't find helpful.

591
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,240
But I also learned in that trip, like the more I show you, like I don't need everything

592
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:39,240
to be helpful.

593
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:40,720
I need you to figure out what works for you.

594
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:41,880
And then you're able to use that.

595
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:46,200
And it makes you better at your job, which is the part that like I sometimes feel like

596
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:47,200
I beat my head against the wall.

597
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:49,840
Like if you can communicate with people better, you're better at your job.

598
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:52,160
If you're better at your job, you're going to make better command decisions.

599
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:54,960
If you're making better command decisions, there's a good chance everyone's going to

600
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:55,960
go home safe.

601
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:59,640
Doesn't mean mistakes won't happen, but it's giving you that ability to actually interact

602
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:00,840
with life better.

603
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:01,840
Children better.

604
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:04,480
And it takes a lot of the stressors out.

605
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:09,600
So I think we're slowly moving in that direction, but I think it's like a little bit of a mind

606
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:10,600
shift.

607
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:12,040
You know, you got the shift change and all that coming up.

608
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:15,280
But it's also like we put a lot of effort into these things.

609
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:18,000
We also like might need to get effort into this.

610
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,720
And it's difficult because it's not a metric.

611
00:34:21,720 --> 00:34:23,560
We know how many people kill themselves, unfortunately.

612
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:25,860
Like we know that that's a hard metric.

613
00:34:25,860 --> 00:34:28,320
We don't know how many people didn't kill themselves because they have the right tools.

614
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:32,960
So it's almost like how do you even know how well this has worked?

615
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:36,200
Because I don't have any way to count that because there's not a lot of people who come

616
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:38,680
up and are like, I was going to kill myself.

617
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:40,480
I learned X, Y, Z from whatever.

618
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:41,480
Like I'm good now.

619
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:42,480
OK.

620
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:44,960
And it's a constant process, just like working out.

621
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:46,640
You got to add weight to the bar.

622
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:49,480
You got to keep doing it and keep catching yourself and keep working on it.

623
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:53,600
So what's interesting when you say about we know how many people killed themselves because

624
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:58,600
sadly we don't because it's probably already under the number because some people just

625
00:34:58,600 --> 00:34:59,600
don't.

626
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:01,520
I mean, how many times have you seen died suddenly?

627
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:02,640
And we all know what that means.

628
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,680
I mean, even I don't know, for example, the Dixie gentleman, you know, did he just go

629
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:10,560
in the woods and then have an MI and he was going hiking or did he go in the woods and

630
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:11,800
do a lot of people do in the woods?

631
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,320
You know, and I don't make an assumption, but that's the problem.

632
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:20,680
The Canton firefighter we just lost, his family were very courageous and they put it out.

633
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:21,760
This is what happened.

634
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:22,760
That's what we need.

635
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:27,440
And then the other massive piece of the pie is our retirees.

636
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:32,600
Like I on paper retired from the fire service, even though I've carried on doing this.

637
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:37,680
If I dropped dead the day after I left, I ceased to be a statistic.

638
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:38,680
So you think about it.

639
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:43,760
When does disease and mental health really manifest when we transition out in our fifties?

640
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:48,760
So how, you know, what percentage are our stats actually of all the firefighters that

641
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:51,360
truly died from all these different ailments?

642
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:56,040
Yeah, unfortunately, I probably never know.

643
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:57,040
Right.

644
00:35:57,040 --> 00:35:58,040
But we can keep working.

645
00:35:58,040 --> 00:35:59,040
Yeah, exactly.

646
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:00,040
We got left.

647
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:05,600
So the proactive side, all we can do is we can fix knowing that it's probably going to

648
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:09,280
have a much, like you said, a much bigger impact than people would probably acknowledge.

649
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:10,280
Right.

650
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,440
Definitely agree with that.

651
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:16,640
But yeah, the stigma barrier, like you said, though, that definitely is something that

652
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:18,200
I do see that getting better.

653
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:22,960
I see people more willing to talk, but I'm also learning that some of that comes from

654
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:27,440
being able to facilitate, you know, and that's just taking people to actually be there and

655
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:29,400
be like, I don't have the answers.

656
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:33,240
I might not be able to help you, but hell, we'll go find somebody who does or we'll find

657
00:36:33,240 --> 00:36:34,240
a way not.

658
00:36:34,240 --> 00:36:35,240
It might not involve the city.

659
00:36:35,240 --> 00:36:37,760
It may involve the city, your county, whatever your local organization is.

660
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:43,280
I think the key is lowering the barriers to entry, which is which is what we did by by

661
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:45,920
you know, making it so easy to talk to the counselor.

662
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:50,960
I don't have to go to my chief, then has to report to HR, then then and then it goes around.

663
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:55,640
I can reach out directly to that counselor, shoot a shoot, shoot a text and say, hey,

664
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:59,380
can I meet with you on Wednesday and says, yeah, what time works good for you?

665
00:36:59,380 --> 00:37:00,380
And that's it.

666
00:37:00,380 --> 00:37:05,440
And and we've been told that the that she only reports how many people have she's seen

667
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:08,040
from GFR and she does not report names back.

668
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:11,680
And honestly, I think that the that's been being anonymous.

669
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:16,200
It's been a huge part to help with that, because I know, especially in the military, I don't

670
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:21,280
know if it's changed, but I know I've heard a lot of people talk about it, that they're

671
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:25,600
scared of losing their clearances if they go speak to somebody and it can be used against

672
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:31,240
them in a negative way when it comes to, you know, seeing if they're of sound mind because

673
00:37:31,240 --> 00:37:33,880
they reached out for help, which is which is insane.

674
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:37,840
Because if you if you say, hey, I'm having some issues, I need some help, that actually

675
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:42,360
shows you're mentally stronger to me, that you're you're willing to recognize your issues

676
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:43,360
and work on them.

677
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:46,200
And that's how we grow as a human, you know, 100 percent.

678
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:47,200
Absolutely.

679
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:48,200
Yeah.

680
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:49,200
And that's it.

681
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,920
I mean, that that barrier to entry that we have, you know, it's the EAP roulette, it's,

682
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,680
you know, the financial side, it's the waiting lists.

683
00:37:55,680 --> 00:38:00,680
And over and over again, what you guys have put in Gainesville is what I think is a solution.

684
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:05,340
And if you're not a massive department, then work in with the neighboring departments and

685
00:38:05,340 --> 00:38:07,240
hire someone between the collaborative.

686
00:38:07,240 --> 00:38:09,840
But yeah, you should have an A to B thing.

687
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:11,920
This is where I think we've tripped on the stigma thing.

688
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:13,320
All right, we get it.

689
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:14,480
Mental health and the fire service.

690
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:15,840
But now what?

691
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:19,920
This guy is a family counselor and he cried when I told him what fucking bothers me at

692
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:20,920
night.

693
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:24,480
This lady, I've got to wait three months and that bloke says it's a five hundred dollar

694
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:25,480
a session.

695
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:26,840
It's just the problem.

696
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:27,840
Right.

697
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:32,060
Well, and to his point, you know, you have that one call or two calls, you know, adding

698
00:38:32,060 --> 00:38:33,060
up over time.

699
00:38:33,060 --> 00:38:36,120
But also another thing I don't think we necessarily do a good job of addressing is it's not always

700
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:37,280
just the bad calls either.

701
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:43,120
It's drunk people that you're picking up five times a night over and over and over again.

702
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:44,120
And that is part of our job.

703
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:45,120
That's what we do.

704
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:48,880
But we also don't ever address those things where it's like we look at this one event.

705
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:50,680
You're like, well, no, that's what I'm paid for.

706
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:51,680
I'm here.

707
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:52,680
And this is the way I look at it.

708
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:54,220
But I'm paid to be here for that.

709
00:38:54,220 --> 00:38:55,480
That's an emergency.

710
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:59,480
Like I can't explain to you why I have to go home not sleeping all night because there's

711
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:02,320
just drunk people falling over all over the place.

712
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:03,320
There's no yes.

713
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:04,320
Apparently to pick them up.

714
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:07,920
I'm guessing in the 1920s, there was just bodies all over parking lots at some point

715
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:08,920
because people couldn't pick them up.

716
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:09,920
They weren't being picked up.

717
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:10,920
They just bystander cells that way.

718
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,920
They must have been a scary world back then.

719
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:18,120
But you know, in those little things, we're like, man, it's a lot to like reframe into

720
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:19,320
a positive light at some point.

721
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:24,960
So like this is not I didn't really visualize this when I was learning how to, you know,

722
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,400
put fire out or cut a car apart or any of that stuff.

723
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:30,320
You know, it's not that wasn't exactly what I foresaw happening.

724
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:31,320
Yeah.

725
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:36,040
Well, I've always said you've got the acute traumas, you know, the 9-11s, the Vegas shootings,

726
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:37,040
pulse.

727
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:41,200
And then you've got most of us, the other 99%, which is death by a thousand cuts.

728
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:45,040
You know, I mean, it's not, you know, people say, and I've never been asked this ironically,

729
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:49,560
but when people tell me they are asked, you know, what's the worst thing that you've seen?

730
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:51,920
My response to people be more specific.

731
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:56,240
We want you want a kid, you want a gang member, you want an elderly person, you want a car

732
00:39:56,240 --> 00:40:01,100
crash, you want, you know, there's so many in our encyclopedia and this is a problem,

733
00:40:01,100 --> 00:40:03,920
but none of them made the news or anything major.

734
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:06,640
It wasn't, you know, 50 people killed.

735
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,280
I just saw one person killed 50 times.

736
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:10,280
You know what I mean?

737
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:13,360
So this is the problem is that, you know, you've got that acute trauma, but then you've

738
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:19,160
just got this slow beat down, which I think what is really the underlying element of most,

739
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:20,760
you know, first responders challenges.

740
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:22,160
Yeah, I'd agree with that.

741
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:28,400
I think there's nothing is more of an empathy, empathy killer than your frequent fires that

742
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:33,000
you go to multiple times a shift in the middle of the night that, you know, if it, and there's

743
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:38,340
a difference between somebody who has a physical ailment that can't help themselves versus

744
00:40:38,340 --> 00:40:42,760
somebody like what Brian was saying, just somebody who's got substance abuse problems

745
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:46,760
and they need to be picked up and put back in their bed because they're not taking care

746
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:48,320
of themselves.

747
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:50,920
And those are tough because that's not why any of us signed up.

748
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:57,720
You know, I think every firefighter in America will agree that we feel a lot better after

749
00:40:57,720 --> 00:40:59,400
we say a real call, right?

750
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:03,140
You know, we go and we're working arrest or we have a fire extrication that goes well

751
00:41:03,140 --> 00:41:05,660
and we feel like we're actually making a difference.

752
00:41:05,660 --> 00:41:07,320
That's why we all got into it, right?

753
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:08,960
You know, what's the cliche?

754
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:09,960
Why do you want to be a firefighter?

755
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:13,880
Because I want to help people, you know, and you never say that in an interview, by the

756
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:14,880
way, but it's true.

757
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:15,880
That's the irony.

758
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:20,480
We were told never do an interview, but every good firefighter or police officer or dispatcher

759
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:24,360
corrections officer, it's ultimately that I want to, I want to be there when someone's

760
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:25,800
having their worst day and make it better.

761
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:27,800
Plus it'd be awkward if you do the alternative.

762
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:28,800
I want to see the world burn.

763
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:33,800
I don't know how many points you get on that.

764
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:35,800
I like chaos.

765
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:39,840
That's why I got into it.

766
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:42,480
And with the sleep too, you know, they're saying like when it happens all night long,

767
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:45,720
like it's not even that sometimes you even want to be mean to them, but like you're just

768
00:41:45,720 --> 00:41:49,280
your barrier to being able to handle your emotions are going down at the same time.

769
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:50,280
Right.

770
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:52,280
And it's just over and over again.

771
00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:57,600
There's a video just literally the last 24 hours of surface and it was in, um, Oh God,

772
00:41:57,600 --> 00:41:58,600
it's somewhere in the Northeast.

773
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:04,200
I forget now I'm blanking, but, um, it's these two EMTs and this guy supposedly has a stroke

774
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:07,360
and they're, you know, just arms folded, just get on.

775
00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:12,200
He's trying to crawl in and he falls on the back and stuck between the, but I didn't have

776
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:14,160
any comment on it because it could be one of two things.

777
00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:18,200
It could be two really shitty EMS providers that probably should never have their license

778
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:25,520
again or it could be that guy that you've been on six times who's rude, who's entitled

779
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:26,720
and you're sick of his shit.

780
00:42:26,720 --> 00:42:29,120
And you're like, climb your ass up into that thing.

781
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:32,000
You know, when you, we can't tell from this one clip, hopefully it wasn't because they

782
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:33,360
said it was a stroke victim.

783
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:35,520
I then had internal bleeding later.

784
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:41,640
So it could be, you know, a complete malpractice, but it's really hard for people to understand.

785
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:42,640
I'll give you a perfect example.

786
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:48,560
We had an old lady in my first due in Orange County and the daughter supposedly said that

787
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:53,080
she had a back injury and we go in this lady all the time and she would have fallen, genuinely

788
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:54,080
fallen just so weak.

789
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:58,040
She can't get up and the daughter would just be sitting there on the couch watching TV.

790
00:42:58,040 --> 00:43:02,560
And one time this poor woman had fallen on her commode was leaning and piss was already

791
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:07,120
on her and it was kind of just on her body with pistol in the commode and she didn't

792
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,520
even move, move the commode off her own mother.

793
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:14,080
That's not the mother, but the daughter is the kind of person that maybe you're not going

794
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:19,040
to be super mother Teresa when you're dealing with her because you know, she's a piece of

795
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:20,040
shit.

796
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:24,520
You know, now as a professional you have to, but you take a good first responder and you

797
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:26,440
beat them down with sleep deprivation.

798
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:29,840
You expose them to go into that woman over and over again.

799
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:33,520
You just refuses to lift up her own fucking mother.

800
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:35,480
You know, it's a nuanced conversation.

801
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:38,680
This goes back to those dead bodies in the parking lots in the 1920s.

802
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:43,840
Yeah, no, and to me that all builds into also like what we talked about with that giving

803
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:47,120
people the tools or how we figure out to do it, to deal with it.

804
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:48,560
Cause I mean, I'm not immune to it.

805
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:51,840
I've caught myself before sitting there on the scene and being like, okay, I know that's

806
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:55,640
not the right flow of thoughts because I just, I have to complete this call and we have to

807
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:59,360
do in a professional manner, but like we're not having none of us are, none of us are

808
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:03,360
immune to sitting there and be like, what am I just threw your phone as far as possible?

809
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:04,360
They got out of the woods.

810
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:05,360
You're like, okay, that'd be bad.

811
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:06,360
We'd all get fired.

812
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,880
I'm like, that just wouldn't be the right thing to do for this person.

813
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:11,040
But then you actually did it.

814
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:12,720
That's part of that story.

815
00:44:12,720 --> 00:44:13,720
Yeah.

816
00:44:13,720 --> 00:44:16,960
I think that's the part of the sleep deprivation conversation that people got understand as

817
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:17,960
well.

818
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:18,960
And this extends to law enforcement.

819
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:25,720
You've got your complete, you know, horrendous shooting like that poor RAF, um, uh, airman

820
00:44:25,720 --> 00:44:29,360
that was just killed when they went to the wrong address, complete, you know, lack of

821
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:32,300
communication, just a disaster tragedy.

822
00:44:32,300 --> 00:44:34,920
And then you have the ones that are completely justified shoot.

823
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:39,640
And ironically, we just have one in, um, Ocala and a guy ran at the cop with a gun, uh, with

824
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:41,680
a knife, excuse me, and he had to shoot him.

825
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:42,680
Right.

826
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:45,800
I mean, you know, it's sad, but I think hopefully he survived that.

827
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:50,360
But then you have the gray areas, you know, the teenager reaches for the driving license,

828
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:53,440
but it looks like he's going for a gun and you've got to trigger happy cop who's sleep

829
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:59,120
deprived and one of his friends was shot three weeks before, you know, is how often was that

830
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:01,200
officer, you know, um, working?

831
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:02,200
Was he forced mandatory?

832
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:05,280
He or she, you know, were they trained to a higher level?

833
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:09,880
And so our ability to make the right decisions and be compassionate and bite our tongues

834
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:15,220
when we don't, you know, and then push the right meds and not have a microsleeping intersection

835
00:45:15,220 --> 00:45:18,400
and blast through a minivan of five kids.

836
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:22,560
That performance side is also part of the sleep conversation.

837
00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:24,920
I always, I always think it's, it's funny.

838
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:31,080
And when I talked to the public about that, um, me being a driver, I'm like, imagine you

839
00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:35,800
being told, so you work a 24 hour shift and you get mandatory for another 24.

840
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:38,520
So you're being forced to be at work.

841
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:40,880
And let's say that first night you're up all night running calls.

842
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:47,760
And the next day you're now in charge of a, of a three quarters of a million dollar machine

843
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:52,360
that you have to blast through red lights, lights and sirens at five o'clock traffic

844
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:54,040
going down Newberry road in Gainesville.

845
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:57,320
And you have to try not to hit the kid walking down the, you know, riding his bike on the

846
00:45:57,320 --> 00:45:59,720
sidewalk and try not to run into a car.

847
00:45:59,720 --> 00:46:01,200
You're sleep deprived.

848
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:05,040
You're, you know, and you're just running on, on caffeine.

849
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:08,840
And it's, it's, there's a reason semi truck drivers can only work.

850
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:10,320
Can they can only drive for so many hours?

851
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:16,240
Well we, you know, we kind of have the subset that rules don't really apply to us.

852
00:46:16,240 --> 00:46:21,680
Because out of necessity, honestly, because if, if, if after driving the fire engine for

853
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:26,320
12 hours, if we had to take a go to sleep for eight hours, it obviously wouldn't work.

854
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:28,480
You know, there's just, it's just not.

855
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:34,080
So it's well, that's a good segue because the only answer to this is to fully staff

856
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:35,120
a fire department.

857
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:40,880
So mandatory is only, you know, when there's a hurricane or God forbid, you know, another

858
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:42,840
COVID or something that, that sweeps through.

859
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:44,440
Well, hopefully that'll be handled a lot better.

860
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:48,160
But as he pointed out before too, like hurricanes, that's a great example.

861
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:53,160
We've never had a truck, like never had a problem up staffing our department with volunteers

862
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:54,960
because that's an emergency.

863
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:56,120
People are ready, right.

864
00:46:56,120 --> 00:46:57,120
People are ready to go.

865
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:00,240
Like that's what we're here for.

866
00:47:00,240 --> 00:47:02,080
It's you know, the other mandatory is racing.

867
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:04,480
They're like, Whoa, I was supposed to take my kids to Epcot.

868
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,520
Like they're not going to be very happy with me.

869
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:09,040
You know, exactly, exactly.

870
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:10,200
So, so let's talk about that.

871
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:14,440
So the answer then, I mean, cause I don't think the deviation from the 24 is the right

872
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:15,600
fit for the fire service.

873
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:17,880
We have buildings that have beds.

874
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,320
I don't know if you feel the same way, but if, you know, where I worked for the longest

875
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:25,600
time, you know, you get in, if you don't get banged out straight away, you know, you'd

876
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:28,920
be putting your gear on the rig, you check in your pack, you check in your tools and

877
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:30,600
you're doing your med med checks.

878
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:34,000
You know, you've got your workout, you're running calls in between all this.

879
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:35,640
You've got, you know, online training.

880
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:37,040
Hopefully you got operational training.

881
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:39,600
You know, now before you know it's eight o'clock at night.

882
00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:42,240
I can't imagine then leaving and then doing the same thing.

883
00:47:42,240 --> 00:47:47,480
You know, so, you know, I think the 24s are a great idea, but putting an extra 24 hours

884
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:52,600
off in between that kind of mitigates, as you said, the necessity for someone to be

885
00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:59,560
awake for 24 hours or close to 24 hours, driving that machine, pushing those drugs, you know,

886
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:03,400
operating extrication equipment inches from someone's head.

887
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:11,440
So when did the conversation about the 24 72 arise in Gainesville and Mr. unpacking,

888
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:17,800
you know, firstly identifying, um, you know, the financial losses that you're experiencing

889
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:23,280
the way that you were operating and then, you know, how you, you sold it to not only

890
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:27,600
your own people, but ultimately the city.

891
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:31,320
We've jokingly been talking about it for, because I mean, everybody's known that Boca

892
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:32,320
had it for four years.

893
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:35,480
But I remember me and Matt were assigned together seven, eight years ago.

894
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:36,760
We would joke about it all the time.

895
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:38,760
Like this would never be a thing.

896
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:43,680
Um, fortunately we have a pretty forward looking department, our chief, our deputy chief, our

897
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:44,680
union president.

898
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:49,000
We all saw the writing on the wall, it was something we could pull off.

899
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:53,320
Um, and it was multifaceted cause I want to say it's all about health, which I think

900
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:57,240
it's, that's what it's going to actually get to, which is going to be great and help us

901
00:48:57,240 --> 00:48:58,240
out.

902
00:48:58,240 --> 00:49:02,040
But we also had to find a way to find people to work also like every other fire department

903
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:03,040
does and like, what do you do?

904
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:05,360
You got to stick out above your peers.

905
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:11,320
Um, we were able to be kind of uniquely situated cause the way the K days work and everything

906
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:15,160
in our departments about the right size where we had actually a lot of the employees already

907
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:16,160
there for four shift.

908
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:21,880
Um, once again, our deputy chief, uh, chief Hill house did a, he's a numbers guy, fortunately

909
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:23,080
and broke it all down.

910
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:26,120
And between him and Nick and all his union president, they really started getting the

911
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:27,120
legs on this.

912
00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:31,180
Our, our DCs are actually up for contract bargaining first.

913
00:49:31,180 --> 00:49:34,240
So they were able to get it across the finish line before we opened.

914
00:49:34,240 --> 00:49:37,040
So we kind of knew the writing was on the wall that either we were going to have a different

915
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:42,800
DC every single day or we were going to end up on 24 72.

916
00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:47,840
I don't know the, I'm not well educated on all of the financial aspects of it.

917
00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:52,040
Cause also I don't know that we have that yet only because we know we're, we're going

918
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:57,040
to it and we hope that there is a savings to it and there is a retention to it.

919
00:49:57,040 --> 00:49:58,600
We haven't started it yet though.

920
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:00,880
So I don't know that.

921
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:05,720
Well in before though, with, with, did you annotate cause I always talk about this, the,

922
00:50:05,720 --> 00:50:09,240
the overtime fees covering the spots.

923
00:50:09,240 --> 00:50:11,920
The this is one thing at Marion stuff is for horrendously.

924
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:13,440
They're a fricking revolving door.

925
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:18,920
The, the cost it is just to, for one employee that then leaves and goes to somewhere else,

926
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,280
the workman's comp costs, the medical retirements.

927
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:26,220
And then a big one that I think is not talked about is lawsuits.

928
00:50:26,220 --> 00:50:30,680
When you guys hit a car, when you push a wrong man, whatever it is, that's usually going

929
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:32,660
to be hundreds of thousands, if not millions as well.

930
00:50:32,660 --> 00:50:39,480
So were you able to identify areas that you could clearly attribute to exhaustion and

931
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:41,520
then tack that on?

932
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:47,160
So from what I remember, nothing from necessarily exhaustion sample by new overtime budget was

933
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:49,720
a huge part of this.

934
00:50:49,720 --> 00:50:50,960
I don't like, I don't remember.

935
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:55,280
I think it was in the ballpark of like $5 million for our department size.

936
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:59,200
I think they said our lot are yearly allotted overtime budget.

937
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:04,040
If I remember correctly, we, we hit that amount within a first few months.

938
00:51:04,040 --> 00:51:10,280
It was, it was how many, how many firefighters you have online, actual working in the stations?

939
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:16,040
I think we have right now, which we know is just 166 with a $5 million overtime budget

940
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:18,760
that you hit in a few months, just to reframe that.

941
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:19,760
Okay.

942
00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:20,760
Yes.

943
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:21,760
At least several million.

944
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:23,760
Well, cause we also think about overtime.

945
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:27,140
We talk about mandatory every time we talk about that 24 hour on the truck, we don't

946
00:51:27,140 --> 00:51:35,040
talk about football games, high school football games, concerts, art fairs, call outs, other

947
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:38,240
medical things we're involved with in the community.

948
00:51:38,240 --> 00:51:41,800
So it's not like there's only like, we worry about the trucks that are getting assigned

949
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:42,800
every day.

950
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:46,360
We have all sorts of special events occurring throughout that city that have to be covered.

951
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:48,060
We're going into hurricane season right now.

952
00:51:48,060 --> 00:51:52,560
We have members who are on task force task force eight, which gets deployed a lot, which

953
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:56,440
they're, I think they're with Marion County.

954
00:51:56,440 --> 00:52:00,160
It's a whole, you know, that does cost people to actually like come in and get paid, but

955
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:01,160
you know, they are needed.

956
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,040
They do a great job when they go down these hurricane areas.

957
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:04,960
They're very well trained and very good at what they do.

958
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:06,200
Like that's a service that we provide.

959
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:07,640
We want to help people.

960
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:10,160
So all of that goes in, not just what you can see.

961
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:12,600
We're like, okay, this engine needs X amount of people.

962
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:13,600
And that's every day.

963
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:17,600
Like that doesn't account for Matt having to work some sort of concert of some music

964
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:18,600
that he probably doesn't understand.

965
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:22,320
Cause he is getting older as we talked about where people are just listening to it on headphones

966
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:23,320
walking around for five hours.

967
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:29,640
Garth Brooks or somebody I've heard of, but so, you know, and that, so we did unpack that

968
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:34,560
and what the hope is going forward is that that does start pulling that down a little

969
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:37,500
bit because people are better rested.

970
00:52:37,500 --> 00:52:40,400
We have more people to take these spots and like, so that helps out with that.

971
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:44,460
So, but once again, that's a to be seen with everything else.

972
00:52:44,460 --> 00:52:47,200
Cause we have to, we have to implement it first, which will be in August.

973
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:49,600
So we have to get through that little hurdle first.

974
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:53,480
We've heard from other departments that went to 72 is that when they went the amount of

975
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:58,520
vacation and sick time that the individuals were taken, they saw a marked decrease in

976
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:02,960
it because more people willing to do trade times.

977
00:53:02,960 --> 00:53:08,800
Because it's a lot, the problem with, with, you know, mandatory or at the trade time.

978
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:09,880
So I'm on a shift.

979
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:14,720
And so if I work my regular a shift and then I work a 24 hour B shift, I have C shift off

980
00:53:14,720 --> 00:53:16,340
and then right back on a shift.

981
00:53:16,340 --> 00:53:22,040
So what I tell people is it's 72 out of 96 hours I'm at the firehouse and at the, and

982
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:24,240
that's almost the worst one is your next shift coming on.

983
00:53:24,240 --> 00:53:27,280
Cause you're not well rested because you get to go home for a day.

984
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:29,200
Well, you're not just sitting around sleeping all day.

985
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:30,200
You know, we all have responsibilities.

986
00:53:30,200 --> 00:53:33,880
You know, you have to take care of the kids or take care of the house or, you know, go,

987
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:38,320
you know, help your mom with, you know, help her with some yard work, whatever it is.

988
00:53:38,320 --> 00:53:40,160
Cause you know, that next day you're right back there.

989
00:53:40,160 --> 00:53:44,120
And so your alarm goes off at five or five 30 in the morning and now you're right back

990
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:48,220
at work and it absolutely has an impact on you.

991
00:53:48,220 --> 00:53:52,760
You notice on that, at least for me personally, I noticed on that, that fourth day that my

992
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:57,040
next shift that I'm pretty much over it at that point.

993
00:53:57,040 --> 00:54:02,520
And so having that extra day off of rest, you know, now if you do have to do a 48 hour

994
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:06,400
shift, which we know is not good for you, at least you have a whole nother day that

995
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:09,060
you're able to sleep in your own bed.

996
00:54:09,060 --> 00:54:12,240
And that's another thing that, that people don't talk about.

997
00:54:12,240 --> 00:54:14,360
You do not sleep as well at the firehouse.

998
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:18,760
Even if you get no calls, I think the research shows it's about a 50%.

999
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:21,920
You can't get into a deep sleep because that's parasympathetic.

1000
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:26,840
If I always tell people, imagine someone has those symbols from an orchestra and they said,

1001
00:54:26,840 --> 00:54:29,400
I might smash these in your ears at some point tonight.

1002
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:30,920
How well are you going to sleep?

1003
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:33,480
Or a burglar goes, I might break into your house.

1004
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:35,120
You're not, you know, that's how it is.

1005
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:36,680
So yeah, I mean, you're, this is a thing.

1006
00:54:36,680 --> 00:54:39,080
It's still the one eye open sleep.

1007
00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:40,680
Or you get a call, fire alarm, 1130.

1008
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:44,160
These are my favorite, put your gear on, walk around a dormitory.

1009
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:46,720
That's 12 stories tall.

1010
00:54:46,720 --> 00:54:48,120
Well now you're sweating or high.

1011
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:51,440
You come back and be like, I can't nap right after you're done working out.

1012
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:53,960
So that's essentially like at night, like, Oh, we should be going to bed.

1013
00:54:53,960 --> 00:54:57,360
I'm just sitting there wide open wide awake.

1014
00:54:57,360 --> 00:55:04,400
And to piggyback off of that part of this also was we, as you found on this podcast,

1015
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:06,800
I'm sure, you know, people don't understand our hours.

1016
00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:10,440
We saw some of that through, I don't necessarily think fault of their own, but the city didn't

1017
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:13,320
really necessarily like some of this just involves overtime.

1018
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:17,680
Like there are, so like having that two extra days off is much healthier for the employee.

1019
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:20,640
If it runs into a situation where they are going to have to work overtime, which once

1020
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:24,000
again, there's only so many people, so many things we can do.

1021
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:25,000
There's all these special events, everything.

1022
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:27,640
It is just a fact of life to an extent.

1023
00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:29,280
How much can we mitigate that though?

1024
00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:34,920
And I think that was them understanding once we were able to sell that vision a little

1025
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:37,280
bit like this is what you're doing currently.

1026
00:55:37,280 --> 00:55:41,000
Just try not to run everybody off and kill everybody as quickly.

1027
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:42,000
Yeah.

1028
00:55:42,000 --> 00:55:47,720
Well, I think this is when I look back now, eight years later and assess why was it so

1029
00:55:47,720 --> 00:55:50,320
hard to get people to understand this?

1030
00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:55,080
And even with Boca, if you hear a Boca's origin story, someone just educate me the other day,

1031
00:55:55,080 --> 00:56:00,760
they used to do 12th and the 24 was supposedly a big FU to the fire service back in, this

1032
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:02,920
is like the seventies, I think they said.

1033
00:56:02,920 --> 00:56:03,920
Oh, really?

1034
00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:09,160
So technically it ended up being great for them, but that wasn't out of altruism and

1035
00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:11,840
for their health or anything either.

1036
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:16,480
So you look at the way we were all brought into the fire service, it's an amazing, and

1037
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:20,680
separating the calling from the way we worked is really important.

1038
00:56:20,680 --> 00:56:28,040
I just did a video today about that little angry video, but because we want to serve,

1039
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:30,960
we want to be there on people having their worst day, whether it's just picking an elderly

1040
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:35,000
lady up and putting her back into bed or whether it's dragging someone out of a fire.

1041
00:56:35,000 --> 00:56:39,400
This is why we train, this is why we go to school, this is why we educate ourselves.

1042
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:45,360
But we've also told ourselves a lie from day one, which is it's a dream schedule.

1043
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:50,120
I work one day on two days off, I work nine days a month and most of my career, a lot

1044
00:56:50,120 --> 00:56:54,080
of my career, I had 56, no Kelly, Anaheim and Orange County.

1045
00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:57,200
And so then when you actually take a step back, you're like, wait a second, 24 hours

1046
00:56:57,200 --> 00:57:01,880
is three, as you said, regular days, nine hours, you know, with a one hour lunch, eight

1047
00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:03,740
hour days crammed together.

1048
00:57:03,740 --> 00:57:06,840
So it's three days on one day off and the second day isn't a day off because you work

1049
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:09,700
from midnight to eight, excuse me.

1050
00:57:09,700 --> 00:57:11,440
So that wasn't a day off.

1051
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:15,200
So the only day off is you've got as a third one, that's the one where you wake up and

1052
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:18,560
now you start thinking about packing your shit and going back to the station.

1053
00:57:18,560 --> 00:57:22,340
So then you expand that out for a month, it's actually 30 days a month.

1054
00:57:22,340 --> 00:57:26,640
Now you throw in a mandatory, now it's an 80 hour work week.

1055
00:57:26,640 --> 00:57:30,960
80, double what the person at Publix works.

1056
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:33,660
But the person at Publix doesn't have to be up 24 hours.

1057
00:57:33,660 --> 00:57:37,460
So like Matt said, now you're awake four days that week.

1058
00:57:37,460 --> 00:57:40,740
So that's our lie that we've got to debunk.

1059
00:57:40,740 --> 00:57:45,580
But then, you know, you've got the person who, and this blows my mind, once did the

1060
00:57:45,580 --> 00:57:49,940
job and now all of a sudden it's like the fucking men in black, they forgot how to be

1061
00:57:49,940 --> 00:57:54,000
a firefighter and now they're working 40 hours and forget to advocate for their people, which

1062
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:55,560
I just don't understand that at all.

1063
00:57:55,560 --> 00:58:02,900
But then you have Joe Publix, which includes city and county councils, who we've done such

1064
00:58:02,900 --> 00:58:07,580
a piss poor job of telling the public what we do, that they genuinely think that we sit

1065
00:58:07,580 --> 00:58:13,020
around the firehouse playing jokes and petting the dog and go to a fire once a week.

1066
00:58:13,020 --> 00:58:16,820
So this is why it's been a problem because from the new probationary firefighter through

1067
00:58:16,820 --> 00:58:22,740
to the politicians, there's been these myths that no one has debunked.

1068
00:58:22,740 --> 00:58:27,540
So what's happening now is I think people finally starting to go, wait a minute, you

1069
00:58:27,540 --> 00:58:33,620
know, and I, to be fair, I only got understood this a few years ago myself, but we have to

1070
00:58:33,620 --> 00:58:38,580
educate everyone at every single rung of the ladder to get them to finally have that aha

1071
00:58:38,580 --> 00:58:42,420
moment that not only, you know, is it going to be better for physical and mental health,

1072
00:58:42,420 --> 00:58:46,880
which is most importantly, but there's no question it's going to save money, your money

1073
00:58:46,880 --> 00:58:50,580
for your new rigs, for your training, for that new station you want to put in to put

1074
00:58:50,580 --> 00:58:55,380
the fourth person back on the rig is downstream.

1075
00:58:55,380 --> 00:58:57,220
You just got to put the money up front.

1076
00:58:57,220 --> 00:59:01,500
And what drives me crazy is people, some people refer to the fire service as a business.

1077
00:59:01,500 --> 00:59:05,500
And I've said this a thousand times, so I apologize for repeating myself, but it's like,

1078
00:59:05,500 --> 00:59:07,420
okay, well, I disagree.

1079
00:59:07,420 --> 00:59:10,700
We're a service, but let's say for a second, we are a business.

1080
00:59:10,700 --> 00:59:13,580
You're following the Indonesian sweatshop model.

1081
00:59:13,580 --> 00:59:18,100
You look at the progressive business people, they've gone to a four day work week for nine

1082
00:59:18,100 --> 00:59:23,860
hour days and they found that people to be as productive, if not more, more innovative.

1083
00:59:23,860 --> 00:59:27,620
I've got four days to get my work done and now they get three days off.

1084
00:59:27,620 --> 00:59:31,140
So obviously their family time and their mental health and physical health, they put gyms

1085
00:59:31,140 --> 00:59:35,180
in all, you know, in Google, I've been to the Google's headquarters, which again, Gainesville,

1086
00:59:35,180 --> 00:59:37,860
I've seen station one, beautiful gym.

1087
00:59:37,860 --> 00:59:42,540
So this is the point, no matter where you look at it, there is no downside from the

1088
00:59:42,540 --> 00:59:47,660
financial savings to our delivery of service to the health of our people.

1089
00:59:47,660 --> 00:59:53,580
So I think it's so great when a department like yours is finally stepping up because

1090
00:59:53,580 --> 00:59:57,980
Gainesville, I would argue in Florida is a well-respected department.

1091
00:59:57,980 --> 01:00:02,060
And when you go, it's really going to turn the heads of a lot of other places.

1092
01:00:02,060 --> 01:00:03,940
Yeah, and I completely agree with that.

1093
01:00:03,940 --> 01:00:08,860
If we can do it, everybody can get there at some point, you just have to be the process

1094
01:00:08,860 --> 01:00:09,860
is long.

1095
01:00:09,860 --> 01:00:11,500
You can't get frustrated.

1096
01:00:11,500 --> 01:00:14,660
Things will pop up they didn't think about because every department is unique.

1097
01:00:14,660 --> 01:00:19,700
So just because we did it one way, like one of the things that popped up with us, like

1098
01:00:19,700 --> 01:00:24,540
the 11th hour they came in with FLSA overtime and we're like, oh, we don't have to pay overtime

1099
01:00:24,540 --> 01:00:27,540
until you guys hit two weeks, 106 is 106 or 105.

1100
01:00:27,540 --> 01:00:30,300
I can't remember, but I think it's 106 hours.

1101
01:00:30,300 --> 01:00:33,700
I really like well, time and a half not kicking into that.

1102
01:00:33,700 --> 01:00:36,420
Like there's a short paycheck in this where they're only going to work 72 hours.

1103
01:00:36,420 --> 01:00:40,500
You want them to work 30 hours overtime before they got time and a half.

1104
01:00:40,500 --> 01:00:43,260
We were able to get that down, you know, so there's 10 hours straight time in there on

1105
01:00:43,260 --> 01:00:44,860
every 24 hour periods.

1106
01:00:44,860 --> 01:00:47,100
Once you get that 10 hours straight time, you have 12 hours a time and a half.

1107
01:00:47,100 --> 01:00:48,100
So you're still making more money.

1108
01:00:48,100 --> 01:00:52,060
But that was like one of those things where like we didn't even think of that.

1109
01:00:52,060 --> 01:00:55,180
They kind of hit us with that out of left field, but that doesn't apply to any other

1110
01:00:55,180 --> 01:00:56,180
correct.

1111
01:00:56,180 --> 01:00:57,180
Right.

1112
01:00:57,180 --> 01:00:58,180
So this is what's maddening.

1113
01:00:58,180 --> 01:00:59,180
Right.

1114
01:00:59,180 --> 01:01:00,180
The guy that's something they brought out for us, right?

1115
01:01:00,180 --> 01:01:01,180
Yeah.

1116
01:01:01,180 --> 01:01:02,680
He doesn't have to done 10 hours of straight time.

1117
01:01:02,680 --> 01:01:04,900
So this is, you know, this is, this is the disconnect.

1118
01:01:04,900 --> 01:01:05,900
Correct.

1119
01:01:05,900 --> 01:01:06,900
Right.

1120
01:01:06,900 --> 01:01:08,140
It's one of those things we had to ask ourselves.

1121
01:01:08,140 --> 01:01:11,980
Like is this, is this worth it in the long run?

1122
01:01:11,980 --> 01:01:14,140
And I think the argument at the end of the day was 100%.

1123
01:01:14,140 --> 01:01:15,780
Like I said, you're still going to make more money.

1124
01:01:15,780 --> 01:01:16,780
So that's good.

1125
01:01:16,780 --> 01:01:17,780
And you can negotiate it down.

1126
01:01:17,780 --> 01:01:18,780
Hopefully.

1127
01:01:18,780 --> 01:01:19,780
Yes.

1128
01:01:19,780 --> 01:01:20,780
In the future.

1129
01:01:20,780 --> 01:01:21,780
That's I'm sure that's the plan.

1130
01:01:21,780 --> 01:01:27,380
And not only, not only is it going to be beneficial in the long run, but we were almost in a spot

1131
01:01:27,380 --> 01:01:32,620
where it became a necessity because we've been seen because, you know, you've had plenty

1132
01:01:32,620 --> 01:01:38,440
of people on the show talking about there's, there's much less of a workforce out there

1133
01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:41,820
that are trying to become firefighters because they're going online and they're seeing all

1134
01:01:41,820 --> 01:01:46,660
the, you know, the issues with the, the cancer in the fire service and how the PFAS is in

1135
01:01:46,660 --> 01:01:47,660
all of our bunker gear.

1136
01:01:47,660 --> 01:01:50,140
And that's a whole nother issue that they're, you know, they're trying to fix.

1137
01:01:50,140 --> 01:01:54,060
At least we know it now, but I mean, we were getting cancer before even going into the

1138
01:01:54,060 --> 01:01:56,740
house fire, just putting our bunker gear on.

1139
01:01:56,740 --> 01:02:03,220
Um, but, but we, I think, um, I think it's been six or seven years.

1140
01:02:03,220 --> 01:02:05,380
We've not been fully staffed.

1141
01:02:05,380 --> 01:02:10,260
We've had that much problem of hiring enough people, you know, recruitment and retention

1142
01:02:10,260 --> 01:02:12,460
in this area, you're a destination department.

1143
01:02:12,460 --> 01:02:14,780
You're the kind of the Orlando of North Central Florida.

1144
01:02:14,780 --> 01:02:15,780
Yeah.

1145
01:02:15,780 --> 01:02:16,780
And we've got K days too.

1146
01:02:16,780 --> 01:02:21,100
You know, it's not like we, you know, we're, um, so we had, and we have no rescues either,

1147
01:02:21,100 --> 01:02:22,100
you know?

1148
01:02:22,100 --> 01:02:25,700
So, so if we're having problems, we know everybody else is, and we've talked to the chiefs all

1149
01:02:25,700 --> 01:02:29,980
around here, you know, we know everybody's having issues and that's, that's kind of where

1150
01:02:29,980 --> 01:02:36,860
with, with like Brian said, if we can do it, um, you know, anybody else can do and everybody's

1151
01:02:36,860 --> 01:02:41,500
going to have their own barriers that, and you know, it's going to cost, you know, bigger

1152
01:02:41,500 --> 01:02:44,780
departments, it's going to cost more money upfront, but you have to look at that long

1153
01:02:44,780 --> 01:02:52,460
term investment of, you know, the health and the wellbeing of those individuals, you know,

1154
01:02:52,460 --> 01:02:56,740
as well as the department, you know, it's, it's your recruitment, your retention, you're

1155
01:02:56,740 --> 01:02:58,140
going to have people working longer.

1156
01:02:58,140 --> 01:03:02,400
So you're not having to go out and pay because we know it costs a lot of money to put people

1157
01:03:02,400 --> 01:03:07,300
through EMT school and fire college, like we said earlier, um, cause it was mentorships,

1158
01:03:07,300 --> 01:03:12,100
a lot of, a lot of departments, I think most departments now have to have some type of

1159
01:03:12,100 --> 01:03:16,460
mentorship program and they didn't used to have to, cause there was enough competition.

1160
01:03:16,460 --> 01:03:17,460
Yeah, absolutely.

1161
01:03:17,460 --> 01:03:21,060
Well, it's, it means like, you know, you put in a new road, you put in a new park and new

1162
01:03:21,060 --> 01:03:26,140
high school, there's an upfront cost, but downstream, there's going to be a huge benefit,

1163
01:03:26,140 --> 01:03:29,580
you know, you're going to have young people educated and hopefully work in your county

1164
01:03:29,580 --> 01:03:33,380
or people are going to be able to get from A to B across your town, you know, fast and

1165
01:03:33,380 --> 01:03:34,860
get to work and pay their taxes.

1166
01:03:34,860 --> 01:03:36,220
It's the same with this.

1167
01:03:36,220 --> 01:03:40,260
If we're bleeding money and or you can't get the people, I mean, you've got to go back

1168
01:03:40,260 --> 01:03:45,100
to that delivery of service and you guys and Orlando and you know, Miami Dade and some

1169
01:03:45,100 --> 01:03:49,540
of these people that are known to at least be paid better and you know, you know, well

1170
01:03:49,540 --> 01:03:51,540
trained and that kind of thing.

1171
01:03:51,540 --> 01:03:55,460
If they're struggling, you know, then there's a lot of people, I know Marion, I mean, they're

1172
01:03:55,460 --> 01:04:00,140
basically taking anyone that shows up 18 and a heartbeat, which again, you know, back to

1173
01:04:00,140 --> 01:04:07,620
the point that we made earlier, if you got 600 or 1000 candidates for a handful of spots,

1174
01:04:07,620 --> 01:04:09,780
you've got to ask yourself, what is that group?

1175
01:04:09,780 --> 01:04:14,300
That's going to be a top tier, you know, not put saying that we're amazing firepower, but

1176
01:04:14,300 --> 01:04:18,940
you're obviously ranked in a certain way, fitness, the way you test your interview,

1177
01:04:18,940 --> 01:04:20,260
your resume.

1178
01:04:20,260 --> 01:04:22,120
And so now you're taking everyone.

1179
01:04:22,120 --> 01:04:24,580
So who's in that pile now, the good ones and the bad ones?

1180
01:04:24,580 --> 01:04:28,300
Well, the bad ones one day are going to be behind the wheel of an engine or God forbid,

1181
01:04:28,300 --> 01:04:32,300
even commanding a scene and you're going to have an avalde situation.

1182
01:04:32,300 --> 01:04:34,500
That's how you get an avalde situation.

1183
01:04:34,500 --> 01:04:40,220
So you know, this is at a point now where it's, it's about delivery of service as well.

1184
01:04:40,220 --> 01:04:44,540
And if, you know, if we don't change this, we won't have a fire service anymore in America.

1185
01:04:44,540 --> 01:04:45,540
It's that simple.

1186
01:04:45,540 --> 01:04:48,380
Well, and as you pointed out earlier, you know, nobody heard about that shooting at

1187
01:04:48,380 --> 01:04:49,420
three o'clock in the morning.

1188
01:04:49,420 --> 01:04:51,900
Nobody heard about the cardiac arrest at four o'clock in the morning.

1189
01:04:51,900 --> 01:04:53,800
It's because we're going to take care of it.

1190
01:04:53,800 --> 01:04:56,740
So once there's nobody left to go take care of it, I don't really know what your alternative

1191
01:04:56,740 --> 01:04:58,740
is because you're going to hear it now.

1192
01:04:58,740 --> 01:04:59,740
Exactly.

1193
01:04:59,740 --> 01:05:00,740
Body in the streets.

1194
01:05:00,740 --> 01:05:01,740
Right.

1195
01:05:01,740 --> 01:05:04,260
And you know, it's just, it's one of those things where it's like, like you said, it's

1196
01:05:04,260 --> 01:05:08,680
an investment, but it's just looking at it and understanding like we have a presumptive

1197
01:05:08,680 --> 01:05:09,740
cancer law now.

1198
01:05:09,740 --> 01:05:12,700
If less people get cancer 20 years from now, that saves the city money.

1199
01:05:12,700 --> 01:05:16,960
If they don't have their hormones all jacked up because they were able to recover, you're

1200
01:05:16,960 --> 01:05:20,980
saving money, but you have to have the eye on that longterm.

1201
01:05:20,980 --> 01:05:23,480
And it is hard.

1202
01:05:23,480 --> 01:05:27,740
We don't do a good job always of selling ourselves, but it is also hard trying to tell people

1203
01:05:27,740 --> 01:05:31,500
who are only in office for four years with agendas of whatever they want to do right,

1204
01:05:31,500 --> 01:05:36,380
wrong or indifferent that like you got to look at this as 20, 30, 40, 60 years.

1205
01:05:36,380 --> 01:05:40,620
And most people are like, yeah, I don't, I'm not going to be involved with this at that

1206
01:05:40,620 --> 01:05:41,620
point.

1207
01:05:41,620 --> 01:05:43,660
I'm like, well, we are, you know, and we're still going to be on your health insurance

1208
01:05:43,660 --> 01:05:44,700
at the end of our service.

1209
01:05:44,700 --> 01:05:48,260
So that's something you're going to pay for.

1210
01:05:48,260 --> 01:05:50,700
So we prefer not to get the cancer.

1211
01:05:50,700 --> 01:05:53,060
We'd prefer not to have you pay for it because we didn't have it in the first place.

1212
01:05:53,060 --> 01:05:56,020
So, but it is a hard, it's bizarre.

1213
01:05:56,020 --> 01:05:59,860
It is hard to, you know, unfortunately I do think there is actually a price on human lives

1214
01:05:59,860 --> 01:06:01,300
because there's actuaries to actually come up with that.

1215
01:06:01,300 --> 01:06:05,340
And that's how you buy your health insurance, which is unfortunate, but I think we got to

1216
01:06:05,340 --> 01:06:06,940
look at it a little bit differently.

1217
01:06:06,940 --> 01:06:13,180
Maybe with the cancer conversation, we focus on the carcinogens and the PFAS now, you know,

1218
01:06:13,180 --> 01:06:17,060
with the mental health conversations, we talk about, oh, it was that call that you had.

1219
01:06:17,060 --> 01:06:19,460
And yet sleep deprivation is in both of those.

1220
01:06:19,460 --> 01:06:22,520
And I had Sarah Jenke on, you know, you, you see what sleep does.

1221
01:06:22,520 --> 01:06:26,100
It's the known carcinogen in the world health organization.

1222
01:06:26,100 --> 01:06:30,620
You know, the brain heals, it processes trauma when you're asleep, deep restorative sleep.

1223
01:06:30,620 --> 01:06:31,820
So it's in all of those.

1224
01:06:31,820 --> 01:06:33,700
So that's the resilience of the human being.

1225
01:06:33,700 --> 01:06:39,700
So absolutely our incidence of disease would reduce and therefore the cost of insurance

1226
01:06:39,700 --> 01:06:43,860
to your company, you know, your, your department, Workman's comp and your regular insurance

1227
01:06:43,860 --> 01:06:46,280
would drop as well because we would be healthier.

1228
01:06:46,280 --> 01:06:50,500
So you know, when you look at the financial element, there's so many areas that you would

1229
01:06:50,500 --> 01:06:55,180
save, which then you can put back into your department, put back into your city.

1230
01:06:55,180 --> 01:06:57,300
And like anything, it takes an upfront investment.

1231
01:06:57,300 --> 01:06:58,300
It just does.

1232
01:06:58,300 --> 01:06:59,500
I mean, that's the world we live in, right?

1233
01:06:59,500 --> 01:07:04,020
Like you have to, you have to invest in things in order to get it running correctly.

1234
01:07:04,020 --> 01:07:08,260
And I did a video today and it was just, you know, calling out the people that call themselves

1235
01:07:08,260 --> 01:07:09,260
leaders.

1236
01:07:09,260 --> 01:07:14,040
You know, if you're just doing it to look good in a budget year or to posture for your

1237
01:07:14,040 --> 01:07:17,980
next promotion, then you're not doing it for anyone else.

1238
01:07:17,980 --> 01:07:18,980
You're doing for yourself.

1239
01:07:18,980 --> 01:07:19,980
That's not leadership at all.

1240
01:07:19,980 --> 01:07:22,100
It's selfishness, a leader.

1241
01:07:22,100 --> 01:07:26,020
And I've always butchered this phrase, but plants the tree under which the shade he'll

1242
01:07:26,020 --> 01:07:27,780
never know.

1243
01:07:27,780 --> 01:07:32,420
So I don't think I said that kind of wrong, but you know, it's not good.

1244
01:07:32,420 --> 01:07:36,020
The delivery was confident, but you know, but it's true.

1245
01:07:36,020 --> 01:07:39,660
You know, it's, it's the kind of people that set the foundation that they may never get

1246
01:07:39,660 --> 01:07:44,300
the glory for, you know, but people will look back and go, man, in, you know, in this year,

1247
01:07:44,300 --> 01:07:47,180
it went to 24 72 game changing.

1248
01:07:47,180 --> 01:07:50,880
And then with the cancer conversation was the one kind of area of research that Sarah

1249
01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:53,940
has found in the fire service she's been doing.

1250
01:07:53,940 --> 01:08:00,820
And I think we can all attest to this is the impact of the our reproductive health, excuse

1251
01:08:00,820 --> 01:08:05,980
me, reproductive health on the children and the amount of fire fire children that have,

1252
01:08:05,980 --> 01:08:11,100
you know, issues, whether it can genital amputees, whether it's pediatric cancer, you know, I

1253
01:08:11,100 --> 01:08:12,860
mean, loads of things.

1254
01:08:12,860 --> 01:08:17,660
So again, that is so important because those children aren't exposed to carcinogens on

1255
01:08:17,660 --> 01:08:23,660
a fire, but that's the shift work that's destroying our hormones and actually causing abnormalities

1256
01:08:23,660 --> 01:08:26,020
that we're passing on to our children.

1257
01:08:26,020 --> 01:08:29,580
So for the fire service, I say, well, you know, you, you might be Billy bad-ass and

1258
01:08:29,580 --> 01:08:32,260
I'm going to die one day anyway.

1259
01:08:32,260 --> 01:08:34,380
Well would you want to wish that on your kid?

1260
01:08:34,380 --> 01:08:36,180
Because this is the conversation we're having.

1261
01:08:36,180 --> 01:08:37,180
Right.

1262
01:08:37,180 --> 01:08:38,180
Yeah.

1263
01:08:38,180 --> 01:08:40,420
Have you had a, if you talked to Dr. Allison Breger.

1264
01:08:40,420 --> 01:08:41,420
Yes.

1265
01:08:41,420 --> 01:08:42,420
Allison's on a while ago.

1266
01:08:42,420 --> 01:08:43,420
Yeah.

1267
01:08:43,420 --> 01:08:46,980
It's actually, I heard I got most of my sleep stuff from her from once again, the affiliate

1268
01:08:46,980 --> 01:08:50,300
leadership training summit this year, but that was the same thing.

1269
01:08:50,300 --> 01:08:56,940
Like such, I didn't realize the amount of things that I obviously knew sleep was important.

1270
01:08:56,940 --> 01:09:00,220
There's a reason my children are on a schedule, not to drive me crazy, but like, you know,

1271
01:09:00,220 --> 01:09:03,260
I know what happens when they get off of it and like, you know, just finding out like,

1272
01:09:03,260 --> 01:09:04,260
what do you do with somebody who's schizophrenic?

1273
01:09:04,260 --> 01:09:06,940
The first thing you do is try to normalize their schedule because they need to be in

1274
01:09:06,940 --> 01:09:08,620
a schedule and you're like, oh, okay.

1275
01:09:08,620 --> 01:09:13,700
So a lot of things we're seeing is because there's a not normalization of the schedule

1276
01:09:13,700 --> 01:09:16,380
and you know, she brought up all these other things too, like these like little things.

1277
01:09:16,380 --> 01:09:19,740
I think it was Indianapolis, but like red lights, like submarines do in the dorm rooms

1278
01:09:19,740 --> 01:09:22,820
after like five o'clock, it goes to red light just so it's not spiking melatonin.

1279
01:09:22,820 --> 01:09:26,500
If you get up suppose a fluorescent lights and I'm like, these aren't actually expensive

1280
01:09:26,500 --> 01:09:27,900
things.

1281
01:09:27,900 --> 01:09:32,500
Like these are just, it just requires doing and it's obviously outside of our normal day

1282
01:09:32,500 --> 01:09:35,420
to day operation, but it's things we got to start looking at.

1283
01:09:35,420 --> 01:09:36,980
So, but yeah, I got hers.

1284
01:09:36,980 --> 01:09:38,340
It sounds like it's a lot of similar stuff.

1285
01:09:38,340 --> 01:09:39,340
I couldn't believe it.

1286
01:09:39,340 --> 01:09:41,460
I was like, I didn't realize it was that important.

1287
01:09:41,460 --> 01:09:44,820
I mean, it was important, but I didn't realize like it was literally just killing all of

1288
01:09:44,820 --> 01:09:47,220
us by constantly not being asleep.

1289
01:09:47,220 --> 01:09:48,220
So yeah.

1290
01:09:48,220 --> 01:09:49,220
Yeah.

1291
01:09:49,220 --> 01:09:53,780
And then another two proactive solutions that when I was in Anaheim, they had the individual

1292
01:09:53,780 --> 01:09:55,340
tones by the bed.

1293
01:09:55,340 --> 01:10:01,220
So if you compartmentalize rigs, you get used to, you know, cause there'll be an led and

1294
01:10:01,220 --> 01:10:02,220
it would wake you up.

1295
01:10:02,220 --> 01:10:06,860
And I proposed that in my last place and the initial dispatch chief was all for it.

1296
01:10:06,860 --> 01:10:09,980
And then he got fired and then they got rid of it.

1297
01:10:09,980 --> 01:10:14,420
So now everyone wakes up for every call still, which is insanity.

1298
01:10:14,420 --> 01:10:18,540
And the other thing, which I love is that kind of EMED side, the, you can embed into

1299
01:10:18,540 --> 01:10:20,920
a 911 dispatch.

1300
01:10:20,920 --> 01:10:26,020
And if it's a kind of, you know, alpha omega call, you can say, look, we can send a rig

1301
01:10:26,020 --> 01:10:29,820
or we can do a virtual call with an ER physician, which would you prefer?

1302
01:10:29,820 --> 01:10:30,820
Oh, oh, a doctor.

1303
01:10:30,820 --> 01:10:31,820
I'll talk to them.

1304
01:10:31,820 --> 01:10:32,820
Yeah.

1305
01:10:32,820 --> 01:10:35,460
My kids throw up once I'm a new parent and I think they're going to die of dehydration.

1306
01:10:35,460 --> 01:10:36,980
Now you're going to be okay.

1307
01:10:36,980 --> 01:10:40,580
You know, take the clothes off, give them a Tylenol, you know, if there's any, any other

1308
01:10:40,580 --> 01:10:41,580
issues.

1309
01:10:41,580 --> 01:10:42,580
Oh, okay.

1310
01:10:42,580 --> 01:10:45,460
Now you just avoided a massive medical bill for that family.

1311
01:10:45,460 --> 01:10:49,700
The child wasn't taken up a bed in ER, which might be between a drunken and assault, you

1312
01:10:49,700 --> 01:10:52,100
know, it's assailant.

1313
01:10:52,100 --> 01:10:56,860
And then, you know, you didn't have to wake up and run a call, you know what I mean?

1314
01:10:56,860 --> 01:11:00,740
So there's another way of reducing the calls and getting the fire service back to true

1315
01:11:00,740 --> 01:11:01,740
emergencies again.

1316
01:11:01,740 --> 01:11:02,740
Yeah.

1317
01:11:02,740 --> 01:11:04,660
That's, that's a benefit for everybody.

1318
01:11:04,660 --> 01:11:08,700
But telemedicine, we were kind of slowly us in the counties implementing that where if

1319
01:11:08,700 --> 01:11:12,500
we're on scene and somebody doesn't necessarily need to go to the hospital, they just, for

1320
01:11:12,500 --> 01:11:14,260
instance, just need to have their prescription refilled.

1321
01:11:14,260 --> 01:11:18,260
Well, they can get on with the doc, teladoc, and they can actually go ahead and call that

1322
01:11:18,260 --> 01:11:20,860
prescription into their local pharmacy.

1323
01:11:20,860 --> 01:11:23,460
And that's, that's huge because it's reduced.

1324
01:11:23,460 --> 01:11:25,420
I mean, we all know this.

1325
01:11:25,420 --> 01:11:26,740
I mean, we see this all the time.

1326
01:11:26,740 --> 01:11:30,380
People like a lot of people don't want to go to the hospital because that's where people

1327
01:11:30,380 --> 01:11:31,380
go to die.

1328
01:11:31,380 --> 01:11:35,020
I mean, and it's there's some truth to that, but also you have a whole bunch of sick people

1329
01:11:35,020 --> 01:11:36,300
all in one big room.

1330
01:11:36,300 --> 01:11:39,900
So you're actually increasing your, especially during COVID, like nobody want to go to the

1331
01:11:39,900 --> 01:11:42,100
hospital because they're all scared of getting COVID.

1332
01:11:42,100 --> 01:11:49,460
So we saw when COVID first started, our call load decreased significantly, but the severity

1333
01:11:49,460 --> 01:11:51,540
of the calls increased drastically.

1334
01:11:51,540 --> 01:11:55,620
It was just about everybody we're going to work was almost on death's door because they

1335
01:11:55,620 --> 01:11:58,420
were waiting so long, so long.

1336
01:11:58,420 --> 01:12:03,140
And it was funny, the big takeaway I had from that was, it was, wow, way more people go

1337
01:12:03,140 --> 01:12:04,940
to the hospital than need to.

1338
01:12:04,940 --> 01:12:07,260
And we all know that fire service way more.

1339
01:12:07,260 --> 01:12:10,700
I mean, and so I think the telemedicine is a great way to do that and implementing it

1340
01:12:10,700 --> 01:12:12,540
with dispatch is very smart.

1341
01:12:12,540 --> 01:12:13,540
Yeah.

1342
01:12:13,540 --> 01:12:14,540
I've heard about that one.

1343
01:12:14,540 --> 01:12:15,540
Yeah.

1344
01:12:15,540 --> 01:12:16,540
We'll look into that.

1345
01:12:16,540 --> 01:12:17,540
Yeah.

1346
01:12:17,540 --> 01:12:20,180
I'm hoping I haven't found one yet, but I'd love to find like a big company that's doing

1347
01:12:20,180 --> 01:12:24,020
that and get them on as a sponsor so we can just shout from the rooftop because I love

1348
01:12:24,020 --> 01:12:28,580
the idea, but from what I've seen, a couple of companies I know, they're so small that

1349
01:12:28,580 --> 01:12:33,460
they don't have the capacity for more, which is great for them, but it's not helping the

1350
01:12:33,460 --> 01:12:34,460
whole fire service.

1351
01:12:34,460 --> 01:12:35,460
Right.

1352
01:12:35,460 --> 01:12:38,620
Well, I mean, even if it came from your local hospitals, it wouldn't be terrible if they

1353
01:12:38,620 --> 01:12:39,620
are able to do it.

1354
01:12:39,620 --> 01:12:40,620
Yeah.

1355
01:12:40,620 --> 01:12:41,620
That's good.

1356
01:12:41,620 --> 01:12:42,620
Absolutely.

1357
01:12:42,620 --> 01:12:43,620
All right.

1358
01:12:43,620 --> 01:12:46,980
Well, then we talked kind of about some of the things that you brought to the city.

1359
01:12:46,980 --> 01:12:48,740
What about the pushback from the membership?

1360
01:12:48,740 --> 01:12:56,180
There's a lot of kind of urban legends out there that there's pushback and there's clearly

1361
01:12:56,180 --> 01:12:59,980
a lack of communication because you're saying to someone, we want to give you an extra 24

1362
01:12:59,980 --> 01:13:04,260
hours off between shifts and people, some people like, I don't want that.

1363
01:13:04,260 --> 01:13:10,140
It's going to mess up my shift schedule or overtime or they're going to cut my pay, all

1364
01:13:10,140 --> 01:13:12,900
these kind of fallacies that I've heard a thousand times.

1365
01:13:12,900 --> 01:13:15,620
So talk to me about from the membership now.

1366
01:13:15,620 --> 01:13:21,580
So I would say 98 percent of our membership was all for it from the beginning.

1367
01:13:21,580 --> 01:13:26,300
We did run into that, but instantly we came out with the if this involves any form of

1368
01:13:26,300 --> 01:13:28,500
reduction in pay, that's a non-starter.

1369
01:13:28,500 --> 01:13:30,860
So we might as well not even sit down and have that conversation.

1370
01:13:30,860 --> 01:13:33,580
And once again, fortunately, the city was receptive to this idea, so that was never

1371
01:13:33,580 --> 01:13:37,420
even really discussed.

1372
01:13:37,420 --> 01:13:40,540
The only other thing people didn't understand, so they were thinking like three week Kelly

1373
01:13:40,540 --> 01:13:46,140
days and there's some other like weird shift schedules out there that some other people run.

1374
01:13:46,140 --> 01:13:48,620
And we were able to just come back to them like even on three week Kelly day.

1375
01:13:48,620 --> 01:13:52,940
Once again, I'm going from my memory of a year ago, so it's a little hazy, but I think

1376
01:13:52,940 --> 01:13:56,940
we were still like one hundred and forty hours additional per year off.

1377
01:13:56,940 --> 01:14:01,780
A big one was rate of accrual of vacation and sick time, because obviously that's going

1378
01:14:01,780 --> 01:14:08,580
to go down and people that seem to be one of the more contentious aspects.

1379
01:14:08,580 --> 01:14:13,420
As Matt pointed out, with that much more time, all four hundred more hours off per year or

1380
01:14:13,420 --> 01:14:17,300
four hundred fifty, whatever comes out to like the chances of you being off for what

1381
01:14:17,300 --> 01:14:21,460
you need to do have now greatly increased, which helps both sides.

1382
01:14:21,460 --> 01:14:25,180
I'm no longer just using my third day off, knowing that I'd be off.

1383
01:14:25,180 --> 01:14:27,500
That's the day all the kids appointments, everything have to now have two full days

1384
01:14:27,500 --> 01:14:28,980
to actually like get all of those things done.

1385
01:14:28,980 --> 01:14:33,620
So you probably need less if we just want to go to St. Augustine for a day.

1386
01:14:33,620 --> 01:14:37,480
That's achievable without everybody being dead tired.

1387
01:14:37,480 --> 01:14:38,480
So that was one of them.

1388
01:14:38,480 --> 01:14:41,180
And then right at the end.

1389
01:14:41,180 --> 01:14:42,580
And this goes into some retirement stuff.

1390
01:14:42,580 --> 01:14:45,700
So not to get too far in the week, there was.

1391
01:14:45,700 --> 01:14:48,180
Leave bank issues at the very end.

1392
01:14:48,180 --> 01:14:54,820
And what we were able to do was one, we grandfathered everybody in who already has their 52 hour

1393
01:14:54,820 --> 01:14:55,820
leave bank.

1394
01:14:55,820 --> 01:14:58,380
They will continue to keep that throughout their career.

1395
01:14:58,380 --> 01:14:59,380
New hires.

1396
01:14:59,380 --> 01:15:02,100
We just were able to come up with a mathematical formula that reduced it.

1397
01:15:02,100 --> 01:15:05,020
I want to say it was like 77 percent of what it is now.

1398
01:15:05,020 --> 01:15:06,020
And that's what it would come out to.

1399
01:15:06,020 --> 01:15:08,740
We're getting proportionally the same.

1400
01:15:08,740 --> 01:15:12,660
And it was kind of a bad argument from the city that they kind of just came in with at

1401
01:15:12,660 --> 01:15:13,660
the very end.

1402
01:15:13,660 --> 01:15:16,220
But they were like, well, if you pay somebody out the end of their career, they just got

1403
01:15:16,220 --> 01:15:18,340
a 23 percent increase on that leave bank.

1404
01:15:18,340 --> 01:15:22,460
But that would also be assuming that every single firefighter we had was going to retire

1405
01:15:22,460 --> 01:15:24,360
the day that we got 24 72.

1406
01:15:24,360 --> 01:15:26,100
So it doesn't really.

1407
01:15:26,100 --> 01:15:27,140
I would love to.

1408
01:15:27,140 --> 01:15:29,900
I have some years left that I'm going to have to be able to go before that occurs.

1409
01:15:29,900 --> 01:15:32,500
So I think that was about it.

1410
01:15:32,500 --> 01:15:36,260
But once again, education and getting out there and staying ahead of the rumor mill.

1411
01:15:36,260 --> 01:15:39,380
I mean, that's I think every fire department has that because people, like you said, there's

1412
01:15:39,380 --> 01:15:41,100
some wild things that come up there.

1413
01:15:41,100 --> 01:15:45,460
And that's one thing I was not ready for union leadership because the stories that people

1414
01:15:45,460 --> 01:15:49,380
come up with or the situations like it is wild.

1415
01:15:49,380 --> 01:15:53,340
So just staying out there and make sure they were aware of the whole situation as it was

1416
01:15:53,340 --> 01:15:57,320
going, what was actually being discussed and putting out those little spot fires really

1417
01:15:57,320 --> 01:15:58,320
took care of it.

1418
01:15:58,320 --> 01:16:02,940
And then at the end of the day, like I said, the amount of time differential off like.

1419
01:16:02,940 --> 01:16:07,820
Wasn't it was just so vast that they couldn't see like, yeah, clearly this is the best way

1420
01:16:07,820 --> 01:16:08,820
to do it.

1421
01:16:08,820 --> 01:16:12,820
And then I think the other thing that some people had an issue with, we reduced the vacation

1422
01:16:12,820 --> 01:16:16,940
spots guaranteed from five to four.

1423
01:16:16,940 --> 01:16:22,500
But once again, we are allowed to do trades that's encouraged, helps over time.

1424
01:16:22,500 --> 01:16:24,260
Now there's four shifts of people that can help with that.

1425
01:16:24,260 --> 01:16:28,860
So I mean, there is definitely a somewhat built in negative to that, but also, I mean,

1426
01:16:28,860 --> 01:16:32,620
there's four shifts of people roaming around out there and you can do.

1427
01:16:32,620 --> 01:16:36,660
One thing I told Matt in my personal situation, I don't like being gone.

1428
01:16:36,660 --> 01:16:39,780
We don't have to for 48 straight hours because like a hurricane went off in my house.

1429
01:16:39,780 --> 01:16:43,140
I'm going to have to clean, do dishes, figure out the yard work.

1430
01:16:43,140 --> 01:16:45,400
Just is what it is.

1431
01:16:45,400 --> 01:16:48,740
But now with four shifts, you know, I can trade with if he's on C shift, I can go a

1432
01:16:48,740 --> 01:16:51,180
shift, take a day off, make sure it was cool.

1433
01:16:51,180 --> 01:16:53,260
There was not trying to kill each other.

1434
01:16:53,260 --> 01:16:54,380
I'm now happy.

1435
01:16:54,380 --> 01:16:55,820
Come back work 24.

1436
01:16:55,820 --> 01:16:56,820
And that's what works for me.

1437
01:16:56,820 --> 01:16:58,860
Some people working that 48 will work for them.

1438
01:16:58,860 --> 01:17:02,660
But understanding that, you know, trade times will probably come a little bit more back

1439
01:17:02,660 --> 01:17:05,500
into the equation, which settles that and you'll still be getting your time off.

1440
01:17:05,500 --> 01:17:10,500
So I think I think when we talk about it a year or two years from now, after implementation,

1441
01:17:10,500 --> 01:17:14,280
I think a lot of these fears will be alleviated.

1442
01:17:14,280 --> 01:17:17,580
And then the last one was, I mean, there's just certain people who were like, why don't

1443
01:17:17,580 --> 01:17:19,100
we give everybody a twenty thousand dollar raise?

1444
01:17:19,100 --> 01:17:21,520
And I was like, that would be great.

1445
01:17:21,520 --> 01:17:24,020
If somebody came to us, it was like, here's a pot of ten million dollars.

1446
01:17:24,020 --> 01:17:26,340
You figure out how you're going to split it up.

1447
01:17:26,340 --> 01:17:29,480
That never happened, unfortunately.

1448
01:17:29,480 --> 01:17:33,560
So like we only had so many like, you know, errors that we could actually fire off.

1449
01:17:33,560 --> 01:17:38,980
So the ten million dollar package deal never materialized for me to divide across all people,

1450
01:17:38,980 --> 01:17:39,980
unfortunately.

1451
01:17:39,980 --> 01:17:41,760
So maybe one day, maybe one in the future.

1452
01:17:41,760 --> 01:17:44,820
So on that end, that still doesn't fix the problem.

1453
01:17:44,820 --> 01:17:48,740
That may help your recruitment, you know, because you're starting to hire.

1454
01:17:48,740 --> 01:17:49,780
But that's it.

1455
01:17:49,780 --> 01:17:51,260
That doesn't help with the sleep deprivation.

1456
01:17:51,260 --> 01:17:54,340
That doesn't help with the you know, it would help with some of the mandatory overtime.

1457
01:17:54,340 --> 01:17:59,260
But again, you're still on that same 52 or 56 hour work week.

1458
01:17:59,260 --> 01:18:01,140
And overtime is never going anywhere.

1459
01:18:01,140 --> 01:18:04,980
I would argue that there's more things happening in there.

1460
01:18:04,980 --> 01:18:10,580
We are responsible now for more things than we were a decade ago of covering different

1461
01:18:10,580 --> 01:18:11,580
arts festivals.

1462
01:18:11,580 --> 01:18:15,440
And there's more SWOC call outs now than ever.

1463
01:18:15,440 --> 01:18:19,860
But I given the union as a whole, the entire board, a shout out.

1464
01:18:19,860 --> 01:18:24,260
They did a great job of the initial package that they brought for the union to vote on

1465
01:18:24,260 --> 01:18:25,520
was very good.

1466
01:18:25,520 --> 01:18:28,700
And like Brian said, that was the number one thing that I know I heard out and around the

1467
01:18:28,700 --> 01:18:31,980
stations of if it's a reduction in pay, I'm voting no.

1468
01:18:31,980 --> 01:18:34,480
That's what I that was the hard stop.

1469
01:18:34,480 --> 01:18:36,100
And they were able to do it where it was not a reduction.

1470
01:18:36,100 --> 01:18:38,540
It was the same same base salary.

1471
01:18:38,540 --> 01:18:43,580
And I think what only nine or seven members voted no to it out of our entire body.

1472
01:18:43,580 --> 01:18:44,580
I don't even know.

1473
01:18:44,580 --> 01:18:45,580
I can't remember was that high.

1474
01:18:45,580 --> 01:18:48,460
Less than I think it was five or six.

1475
01:18:48,460 --> 01:18:51,300
But there's some intricacies in there were like day staff.

1476
01:18:51,300 --> 01:18:54,020
We have kind of the same contract with car routes differently.

1477
01:18:54,020 --> 01:19:00,260
So I mean, there are unfortunately some different issues whether you're on days or on the actual

1478
01:19:00,260 --> 01:19:01,260
shift.

1479
01:19:01,260 --> 01:19:02,260
But so and I don't so I don't know.

1480
01:19:02,260 --> 01:19:04,060
Obviously, it was a blind vote.

1481
01:19:04,060 --> 01:19:07,700
But I'm assuming that probably came in because they do have they had some legitimate concerns

1482
01:19:07,700 --> 01:19:09,440
that came out of that.

1483
01:19:09,440 --> 01:19:15,540
But overall, like I said, I do believe that once again, we as union representation, like

1484
01:19:15,540 --> 01:19:17,780
we are the union and the members of the union.

1485
01:19:17,780 --> 01:19:19,260
There's no like I in there.

1486
01:19:19,260 --> 01:19:22,900
So like we wouldn't take a reduction in pay either because I like to eat also.

1487
01:19:22,900 --> 01:19:24,580
So yeah, well, that's the thing.

1488
01:19:24,580 --> 01:19:25,580
That's the thing.

1489
01:19:25,580 --> 01:19:29,220
I think I think where people thought there'd be a reduction in pay is the number of hours

1490
01:19:29,220 --> 01:19:30,820
per week has gone down.

1491
01:19:30,820 --> 01:19:33,980
But I always tell people if you go to training, do they cut your pay?

1492
01:19:33,980 --> 01:19:36,780
No, your hourly weight shifts.

1493
01:19:36,780 --> 01:19:38,140
And you know, your salary stays the same.

1494
01:19:38,140 --> 01:19:42,580
And the good thing about making money is you want the overtime to go away.

1495
01:19:42,580 --> 01:19:43,580
You do it's healthy.

1496
01:19:43,580 --> 01:19:45,420
You're supposed to go home to your children.

1497
01:19:45,420 --> 01:19:47,060
That's your real currency.

1498
01:19:47,060 --> 01:19:50,820
But when you do work in overtime, now your overtime rate is actually higher.

1499
01:19:50,820 --> 01:19:54,260
So per hour, you're making more money, but you're saving the city money by not having

1500
01:19:54,260 --> 01:19:55,920
so much overtime.

1501
01:19:55,920 --> 01:20:00,700
And the other thing we touched on before we hit record is that extra day also, I think

1502
01:20:00,700 --> 01:20:06,760
forges entrepreneurial ship, you know, for another passion.

1503
01:20:06,760 --> 01:20:11,340
You could be a painter, you know, massage therapist like yourself, you know, a landscaper,

1504
01:20:11,340 --> 01:20:12,340
whatever.

1505
01:20:12,340 --> 01:20:15,140
But if you're doing that, firstly, you're going to be in your own bed every night.

1506
01:20:15,140 --> 01:20:18,820
And secondly, it's a very powerful transition tool.

1507
01:20:18,820 --> 01:20:22,140
You might hit eight years and go, I don't think I want to do the fire service anymore.

1508
01:20:22,140 --> 01:20:26,440
Or you might hit 25 with a retirement and now you've lost your tribe, but you've got

1509
01:20:26,440 --> 01:20:30,180
purpose because you're also coaching or you know, whatever your other thing is.

1510
01:20:30,180 --> 01:20:33,860
And to piggyback on that, that's a zero cost perk to the city.

1511
01:20:33,860 --> 01:20:35,460
Also I am now making more money.

1512
01:20:35,460 --> 01:20:38,980
I'm happy that didn't cost you any money in your budget.

1513
01:20:38,980 --> 01:20:41,020
And so it was a win win for everybody.

1514
01:20:41,020 --> 01:20:42,020
Exactly.

1515
01:20:42,020 --> 01:20:46,460
And then people say, well, I'm losing overtime, but what there are other ways of making money.

1516
01:20:46,460 --> 01:20:49,740
And I know that you have another passion outside of fire service.

1517
01:20:49,740 --> 01:20:51,460
And if you don't, that's super unhealthy.

1518
01:20:51,460 --> 01:20:55,860
Here's your sign as they say, but yeah, whatever it is that you love to do on the side, you're

1519
01:20:55,860 --> 01:20:59,060
a musician, whatever, you know, dive into that.

1520
01:20:59,060 --> 01:21:03,580
Now you've got enough time to rest and recover and create this other tribe so that you can

1521
01:21:03,580 --> 01:21:07,860
have a healthy transition or a plan B, you know, your pension goes to shit.

1522
01:21:07,860 --> 01:21:10,060
Now you've got some way of supporting yourself.

1523
01:21:10,060 --> 01:21:14,620
God forbid, you know, there's a explosion that wipes out your entire city.

1524
01:21:14,620 --> 01:21:20,860
So well, and as Matt pointed out, the reality is I'm with you on the health part of that,

1525
01:21:20,860 --> 01:21:23,980
but the overtime there is going to be some element of overtime there.

1526
01:21:23,980 --> 01:21:26,780
And it just, it might not always be the 24 hour shift.

1527
01:21:26,780 --> 01:21:30,980
It might be our community resource medicine program or something else, but like there's

1528
01:21:30,980 --> 01:21:34,340
a ton of opportunities and you used to do SWAT medic, for instance.

1529
01:21:34,340 --> 01:21:36,380
I mean, there's call outs if I'm not mistaken all the time.

1530
01:21:36,380 --> 01:21:38,260
A lot of training, a lot of call outs.

1531
01:21:38,260 --> 01:21:41,220
So there's opportunities for you to find your passion and get in there.

1532
01:21:41,220 --> 01:21:46,020
And like I said, it's just, it's a healthier way of doing that, you know, so hopefully

1533
01:21:46,020 --> 01:21:47,020
getting everybody there.

1534
01:21:47,020 --> 01:21:52,420
But like I said, that was our biggest things and it really wasn't communication goes a

1535
01:21:52,420 --> 01:21:53,420
long way.

1536
01:21:53,420 --> 01:21:56,580
It turns out that if you actually talk to people and you have honest conversations with

1537
01:21:56,580 --> 01:21:58,880
them, you can actually get somewhere most of the time.

1538
01:21:58,880 --> 01:22:00,700
So that's what worked out for us.

1539
01:22:00,700 --> 01:22:01,700
Yeah.

1540
01:22:01,700 --> 01:22:06,340
I mean, you have to create the narrative of how it's going to be because if you don't,

1541
01:22:06,340 --> 01:22:09,300
people are going to create their own narrative of, oh, what's going to happen.

1542
01:22:09,300 --> 01:22:13,060
And I, you know, a lot of people are saying, oh, now we're just going to be working 48,

1543
01:22:13,060 --> 01:22:14,060
48.

1544
01:22:14,060 --> 01:22:17,860
But that's, that's not what the studies have shown or the speaking to other departments

1545
01:22:17,860 --> 01:22:18,860
that went to it.

1546
01:22:18,860 --> 01:22:22,700
They've shown that the, cause, cause when you take vacation, you take sick leave, call

1547
01:22:22,700 --> 01:22:25,100
in the morning of that's what creates that mandatory overtime.

1548
01:22:25,100 --> 01:22:28,860
Well, if you are doing trades, you're not creating that mandatory overtime because it's

1549
01:22:28,860 --> 01:22:30,240
just a one for one.

1550
01:22:30,240 --> 01:22:31,540
Somebody's covering your spot.

1551
01:22:31,540 --> 01:22:35,700
So, so it should, should help alleviate that a good bit.

1552
01:22:35,700 --> 01:22:40,180
I was speaking of that because I've heard this from Dixon in Pasco.

1553
01:22:40,180 --> 01:22:43,620
I heard this from Hugh in Boynton beach.

1554
01:22:43,620 --> 01:22:46,420
Talk to me about the recruitment and retention.

1555
01:22:46,420 --> 01:22:48,500
I know Matt, there's some kind of nuances.

1556
01:22:48,500 --> 01:22:50,860
We talked the other day, but what have you seen?

1557
01:22:50,860 --> 01:22:52,500
You've got all these surrounding departments.

1558
01:22:52,500 --> 01:22:56,820
All of a sudden the word on the street is Gainesville is going to 24 72.

1559
01:22:56,820 --> 01:23:00,940
I would argue that there's probably people that were thinking of retiring that may be

1560
01:23:00,940 --> 01:23:02,340
going to stay a little bit longer.

1561
01:23:02,340 --> 01:23:06,220
And then, you know, I mean, there's a funnel right from the fire college here, right into

1562
01:23:06,220 --> 01:23:07,220
you as well.

1563
01:23:07,220 --> 01:23:12,060
So what are you seeing as far as a shift from, from the worst, the most dire to now?

1564
01:23:12,060 --> 01:23:18,100
So I don't know if we really necessarily know that yet, except for the recruitment side,

1565
01:23:18,100 --> 01:23:21,140
I can get that a little bit.

1566
01:23:21,140 --> 01:23:22,860
People staying longer.

1567
01:23:22,860 --> 01:23:25,860
This is kind of bizarre, but I still think people are kind of convinced it's not happening

1568
01:23:25,860 --> 01:23:26,960
even though it's happening in two months.

1569
01:23:26,960 --> 01:23:31,660
So once it occurs, I think we'll get a better lock on that over the years and see if that

1570
01:23:31,660 --> 01:23:32,660
is actually doing a better.

1571
01:23:32,660 --> 01:23:36,780
I mean, I would theorize that it's going to help people stay.

1572
01:23:36,780 --> 01:23:40,220
I will say from my standpoint, because I can only really speak for myself.

1573
01:23:40,220 --> 01:23:43,580
I have looked at it, but like, I really hope it is everything it's cracked up to be because

1574
01:23:43,580 --> 01:23:45,860
it's going to be a career extender for me.

1575
01:23:45,860 --> 01:23:47,820
But I am waiting like cautiously, optimistically.

1576
01:23:47,820 --> 01:23:51,700
Like, let me, let me see first before I like commit to like, I'm going to do 30 more years.

1577
01:23:51,700 --> 01:23:52,700
This is great.

1578
01:23:52,700 --> 01:23:55,460
You know, so we'll have to see that after the implementation.

1579
01:23:55,460 --> 01:23:58,420
And I also think we'll get into it later, but like the research study that we're going

1580
01:23:58,420 --> 01:24:01,020
to be a part of, I think it's going to go a long way towards also proving to people

1581
01:24:01,020 --> 01:24:02,660
like how much better this is for you.

1582
01:24:02,660 --> 01:24:06,220
And it's OK to stay around because you don't have to worry about some of those end of life

1583
01:24:06,220 --> 01:24:12,300
diseases occurring so quickly if we can be healthier recruitment.

1584
01:24:12,300 --> 01:24:14,260
Our last couple hiring classes were very low.

1585
01:24:14,260 --> 01:24:15,940
I don't remember the exact numbers.

1586
01:24:15,940 --> 01:24:22,860
I want to say they had like 200 or 300 applicants for this particular hiring class and then

1587
01:24:22,860 --> 01:24:23,860
for 22 spots.

1588
01:24:23,860 --> 01:24:24,860
I think we ended.

1589
01:24:24,860 --> 01:24:28,420
Was it somewhere around the neighborhood of 40 people interviewed for the 22 spots that

1590
01:24:28,420 --> 01:24:30,620
they went with?

1591
01:24:30,620 --> 01:24:36,380
The timeline was very quick and you're probably better able to talk about this because I don't

1592
01:24:36,380 --> 01:24:39,700
know as much about Pascoe County's, but I think there's like one or two years out before

1593
01:24:39,700 --> 01:24:42,020
they would implement 2026 ours.

1594
01:24:42,020 --> 01:24:44,860
We were kind of like, cool, done.

1595
01:24:44,860 --> 01:24:45,860
Let's go ahead and go for now.

1596
01:24:45,860 --> 01:24:48,100
We've even moved it up another month.

1597
01:24:48,100 --> 01:24:52,460
I do believe going forward is going to continue to be a massive like boom for us and be very

1598
01:24:52,460 --> 01:24:53,460
helpful.

1599
01:24:53,460 --> 01:24:54,460
I don't know.

1600
01:24:54,460 --> 01:24:58,540
Like it was just very it's a very shortened timeline to try to get that message out.

1601
01:24:58,540 --> 01:25:00,980
Unless we did it around November correctly.

1602
01:25:00,980 --> 01:25:03,500
Anyways, around the holiday sometimes.

1603
01:25:03,500 --> 01:25:06,140
We were also kind of fighting that a little bit.

1604
01:25:06,140 --> 01:25:10,180
That was kind of, it was a weird timing and we were like, okay, go like promotional exams

1605
01:25:10,180 --> 01:25:11,740
now go, go, go.

1606
01:25:11,740 --> 01:25:12,740
I do know.

1607
01:25:12,740 --> 01:25:19,500
I talked to a guy who he said he applied to GFR back when just the rumors of 24 72 started

1608
01:25:19,500 --> 01:25:24,180
last year because he said, oh, if this actually happens, I want to be ahead of because once

1609
01:25:24,180 --> 01:25:27,660
we go to it, the whole idea is, well, it's going to be even more competitive because

1610
01:25:27,660 --> 01:25:32,100
you're going to have people that are working 24 48 in the local communities around us and

1611
01:25:32,100 --> 01:25:33,980
be like, I want that schedule.

1612
01:25:33,980 --> 01:25:35,940
I, you know, that sounds, sounds awesome.

1613
01:25:35,940 --> 01:25:37,300
Cause it's the same job.

1614
01:25:37,300 --> 01:25:38,300
That's the point.

1615
01:25:38,300 --> 01:25:39,300
Yep.

1616
01:25:39,300 --> 01:25:42,340
Both people, the firefighters just one has worked in a different way.

1617
01:25:42,340 --> 01:25:43,340
Yeah.

1618
01:25:43,340 --> 01:25:44,340
Yep.

1619
01:25:44,340 --> 01:25:45,340
Yeah.

1620
01:25:45,340 --> 01:25:46,340
That's a good point.

1621
01:25:46,340 --> 01:25:47,340
Yeah.

1622
01:25:47,340 --> 01:25:53,660
So, so I, I, I know that has helped with that, but it's like, it's like Brian said, I mean,

1623
01:25:53,660 --> 01:25:57,540
it's we're implementing here in a few short months and that'll give us a lot better

1624
01:25:57,540 --> 01:25:58,540
idea.

1625
01:25:58,540 --> 01:26:02,860
Cause right now it's, it's, and I've talked to people personally and I'm in the same boat

1626
01:26:02,860 --> 01:26:08,360
of this could absolutely be a career extender for me, you know, cause before this of with

1627
01:26:08,360 --> 01:26:12,180
all the mandatory overtime, you know, I say to my wife, I'm like, I don't think I can

1628
01:26:12,180 --> 01:26:13,180
do longer in 20 years.

1629
01:26:13,180 --> 01:26:18,980
You know, I think I got a couple more years left in me because it just, you, you feel

1630
01:26:18,980 --> 01:26:22,780
it, you know, especially now that I'm in my forties, like I'm not, you know, when you're

1631
01:26:22,780 --> 01:26:26,380
20 years old, you can, you can be up all night and the next day, you know, you're, you're

1632
01:26:26,380 --> 01:26:30,500
good to go and go work out and go play golf or whatever it is you do go fishing and it's

1633
01:26:30,500 --> 01:26:33,980
good, but it catches up with you as you start getting higher, higher in age.

1634
01:26:33,980 --> 01:26:36,180
But I mean, I didn't even have a mustache.

1635
01:26:36,180 --> 01:26:37,180
That's how much has caught up with them.

1636
01:26:37,180 --> 01:26:40,660
That's all grown in the last three years.

1637
01:26:40,660 --> 01:26:41,900
I just gave up on shaving.

1638
01:26:41,900 --> 01:26:42,900
So here it is.

1639
01:26:42,900 --> 01:26:48,580
But yeah, I know I'm hopefully I'm very hopeful and I think this will be a thing that we're

1640
01:26:48,580 --> 01:26:53,980
going to be able to come back to you even in six months and explain a lot of that.

1641
01:26:53,980 --> 01:26:57,580
Because there was also this weird moment where it's like, cool, we got 24 72s and then you're

1642
01:26:57,580 --> 01:27:01,100
like, here's all the things that need to happen for 24 seven two.

1643
01:27:01,100 --> 01:27:04,420
You're like, well, shit, I didn't really completely think about like, you know, there's a lot

1644
01:27:04,420 --> 01:27:07,020
of things that, like I said, promotion, right?

1645
01:27:07,020 --> 01:27:10,820
So even who's going to be on these shift, you know, which we still know, right?

1646
01:27:10,820 --> 01:27:11,820
We're working on that.

1647
01:27:11,820 --> 01:27:14,340
I believe our chief officers have almost completed that.

1648
01:27:14,340 --> 01:27:15,660
So we should find out soon.

1649
01:27:15,660 --> 01:27:18,260
But so it's just hard.

1650
01:27:18,260 --> 01:27:19,260
It's weird.

1651
01:27:19,260 --> 01:27:23,140
Like I said, we got to implement it and we got to get to the implementation also because

1652
01:27:23,140 --> 01:27:27,180
I laugh, you know, somebody's going to end up getting their last K-Day on whatever the

1653
01:27:27,180 --> 01:27:28,180
day is before.

1654
01:27:28,180 --> 01:27:31,140
However, the pay cycle ends and then not have to work until the fourth day of is they're

1655
01:27:31,140 --> 01:27:33,500
going to get like four days off, five days off right off the ribbon.

1656
01:27:33,500 --> 01:27:36,500
Somebody else like in your whole shift to stay here tomorrow.

1657
01:27:36,500 --> 01:27:38,700
So but it's a positive law.

1658
01:27:38,700 --> 01:27:40,380
And I'm sure they're positive.

1659
01:27:40,380 --> 01:27:42,140
I'm sure they're trying to avoid that.

1660
01:27:42,140 --> 01:27:43,140
But beautiful.

1661
01:27:43,140 --> 01:27:44,140
All right.

1662
01:27:44,140 --> 01:27:48,660
Well, you mentioned a study.

1663
01:27:48,660 --> 01:27:54,260
Dr. Ben Abo just messaged me today and said, James, you're getting Brian O on the show.

1664
01:27:54,260 --> 01:27:56,340
He's going to talk about the study.

1665
01:27:56,340 --> 01:28:02,160
So I think one of the most beautiful things is when people say, oh, the research, I send

1666
01:28:02,160 --> 01:28:03,740
them these conversations.

1667
01:28:03,740 --> 01:28:07,500
This is as close to the actual research you're going to get departments that are actually

1668
01:28:07,500 --> 01:28:10,600
done it and the things that work, things that didn't, the challenges, you know, selling

1669
01:28:10,600 --> 01:28:15,060
the money, all this stuff, because we haven't got research in the fire service.

1670
01:28:15,060 --> 01:28:20,980
But what a beautiful place to start is now you've got guys working, guys and girls working,

1671
01:28:20,980 --> 01:28:26,740
you know, 24 48 and now we're going to get to see hopefully this beautiful uptick.

1672
01:28:26,740 --> 01:28:30,900
So talk to me about the study, who's behind it and you know, what is it that you're hypothesizing?

1673
01:28:30,900 --> 01:28:34,980
Well, starting at the beginning, I'm kind of jealous because I don't ever get Dr. Abo

1674
01:28:34,980 --> 01:28:35,980
just to text me.

1675
01:28:35,980 --> 01:28:38,980
So congratulations takes me four or five times call.

1676
01:28:38,980 --> 01:28:42,140
But we'll bury that school.

1677
01:28:42,140 --> 01:28:50,620
So I want to say about two months ago, FSU approached from their exercise science department

1678
01:28:50,620 --> 01:28:55,420
Institute of Health, something they approached our department and asked if we'd be willing

1679
01:28:55,420 --> 01:28:59,420
to study because they found out they were doing a study, I believe, in like Walton County

1680
01:28:59,420 --> 01:29:02,100
or something on sleep around their area.

1681
01:29:02,100 --> 01:29:05,780
And then they were like, oh, we've never been able to get 24 72,000.

1682
01:29:05,780 --> 01:29:10,380
Like, wait a minute, we have a department that isn't on it going to implement it and

1683
01:29:10,380 --> 01:29:13,180
also have a year's worth of data.

1684
01:29:13,180 --> 01:29:16,300
So this is one of those weird universes aligning things.

1685
01:29:16,300 --> 01:29:21,140
So years ago, I got my master's degree in exercise science and I didn't really have

1686
01:29:21,140 --> 01:29:22,140
any idea.

1687
01:29:22,140 --> 01:29:23,140
And this isn't my idea.

1688
01:29:23,140 --> 01:29:24,220
This is all FSU, not me.

1689
01:29:24,220 --> 01:29:29,060
But I was wanting to be able to leave something kind of behind where we could move the conversation

1690
01:29:29,060 --> 01:29:30,060
forward.

1691
01:29:30,060 --> 01:29:31,060
I didn't quite know what that was.

1692
01:29:31,060 --> 01:29:33,420
I'm not a research scientist in any way, shape or form.

1693
01:29:33,420 --> 01:29:37,740
They came and talked to us and what they laid out for us is going to be a very exciting

1694
01:29:37,740 --> 01:29:38,980
study, I do believe.

1695
01:29:38,980 --> 01:29:46,420
So what they're going to do, so it's Dr. Kyle Smith at FSU, Dr. Kelly O'Dare at Florida

1696
01:29:46,420 --> 01:29:47,420
A&M University.

1697
01:29:47,420 --> 01:29:52,180
And I believe she is one of the people for the second alarm project, if you're familiar

1698
01:29:52,180 --> 01:29:54,140
with that.

1699
01:29:54,140 --> 01:29:57,900
So they're for what I understand, talking to him, they're looking at kind of the same

1700
01:29:57,900 --> 01:30:01,380
metrics, but she's going to be more of the mental health side of it.

1701
01:30:01,380 --> 01:30:03,660
And then he's going to be more of the physical part of it.

1702
01:30:03,660 --> 01:30:07,260
Dr. Abo is also piggybacking on that and trying to help push that forward.

1703
01:30:07,260 --> 01:30:11,860
He said that he had a mentor named Daniel Patterson, Dr. Daniel Patterson at Pittsburgh

1704
01:30:11,860 --> 01:30:16,740
EMS, did a lot of EMS research studies while he was there and he thought this was a great

1705
01:30:16,740 --> 01:30:19,780
opportunity for him to also be able to give back and it kind of walked in.

1706
01:30:19,780 --> 01:30:25,180
So what we're going to do on an accelerated timeline now, we're going to start out, they're

1707
01:30:25,180 --> 01:30:27,060
going to have three layers to this.

1708
01:30:27,060 --> 01:30:32,420
There's going to be a questionnaire or multiple questionnaires, but they're going to do perceived

1709
01:30:32,420 --> 01:30:40,180
work stress and stress in general, sleep and burnout and the feelings of burnout, stuff

1710
01:30:40,180 --> 01:30:41,180
like that.

1711
01:30:41,180 --> 01:30:43,420
They're going to take that, I want to say five times over the next year.

1712
01:30:43,420 --> 01:30:46,100
So we should be starting this month and then five times over the next year, they're going

1713
01:30:46,100 --> 01:30:51,060
to get that and people can jump in on any part of this and do just one section.

1714
01:30:51,060 --> 01:30:52,060
So they're cool doing a questionnaire.

1715
01:30:52,060 --> 01:30:54,100
They'll get to do it.

1716
01:30:54,100 --> 01:30:58,940
Then they're going to take saliva sampling and that's for cortisol and inflammatory cytokines

1717
01:30:58,940 --> 01:31:02,220
testing and they're going to do that this month.

1718
01:31:02,220 --> 01:31:06,020
So we're going to get that done and then we will have a couple of months after implementation

1719
01:31:06,020 --> 01:31:07,660
and then after one year.

1720
01:31:07,660 --> 01:31:12,100
And the really exciting part is they partnered with who we're still not 100% sure how many

1721
01:31:12,100 --> 01:31:15,340
bands we're going to get, but they're going to track the people who are involved in that

1722
01:31:15,340 --> 01:31:20,780
part also are going to track one straight year of wearing that band every single day,

1723
01:31:20,780 --> 01:31:25,300
our sleep recovery on shift, off shift, and we're going to start pretty much immediately,

1724
01:31:25,300 --> 01:31:29,140
get some 24 or 48 data and then move forward.

1725
01:31:29,140 --> 01:31:35,580
And we have we're very uniquely situated because we have a lot of young fathers, young mothers,

1726
01:31:35,580 --> 01:31:36,700
older guys who are retired.

1727
01:31:36,700 --> 01:31:38,540
So we have a really good blend in our departments.

1728
01:31:38,540 --> 01:31:42,060
I think they're going to be able to get good cross sections of data everywhere.

1729
01:31:42,060 --> 01:31:46,500
So it's very exciting and it seems like it's going to be a pretty cool thing to actually

1730
01:31:46,500 --> 01:31:48,060
be able to move what you're saying.

1731
01:31:48,060 --> 01:31:50,900
I'm going to have hard data.

1732
01:31:50,900 --> 01:31:52,140
Fortunately that's going to come out of this.

1733
01:31:52,140 --> 01:31:56,300
I can be like, no, literally here's the same people, same people been here the whole time.

1734
01:31:56,300 --> 01:31:59,340
Here's our study forward talking to Dr. Smith.

1735
01:31:59,340 --> 01:32:02,900
What I was saying was, you know, as you talked about earlier, when we're doing the mental

1736
01:32:02,900 --> 01:32:07,940
health stuff or an organism, this all runs together somewhere.

1737
01:32:07,940 --> 01:32:11,820
And you know, what I said is looking long term, if I want people to work for 33 years,

1738
01:32:11,820 --> 01:32:16,500
it's just like the mental health stuff, the physical health stuff, the sleep.

1739
01:32:16,500 --> 01:32:19,740
Is there a way for me down the line once you start pulling some of the static and kind

1740
01:32:19,740 --> 01:32:22,660
of like, what's the optimal way for you to be training?

1741
01:32:22,660 --> 01:32:23,660
How are you recovering?

1742
01:32:23,660 --> 01:32:26,700
I'm a quarter soul now like you might be great at doing a crossfit workout when you're on

1743
01:32:26,700 --> 01:32:27,700
shift and be sleeping.

1744
01:32:27,700 --> 01:32:28,700
Fantastic.

1745
01:32:28,700 --> 01:32:31,300
Matt, a little older, not make fun of you for that, but just saying.

1746
01:32:31,300 --> 01:32:34,900
But you know, he might be more of traditional bodybuilding style or whatever his split comes

1747
01:32:34,900 --> 01:32:35,900
out to.

1748
01:32:35,900 --> 01:32:39,860
But we can actually like look at those metrics and, you know, kind of start maybe helping

1749
01:32:39,860 --> 01:32:43,260
prescribe stuff like that to where we're like, we can actually match it with where the people

1750
01:32:43,260 --> 01:32:46,680
are at and like improving their health, moving that forward.

1751
01:32:46,680 --> 01:32:48,780
So that's something we're looking forward to.

1752
01:32:48,780 --> 01:32:51,680
So that's going to be after this.

1753
01:32:51,680 --> 01:32:55,620
So the first part of the skin, the inflammatory markers and the sleep tracking and all that.

1754
01:32:55,620 --> 01:32:57,420
So we'll be doing that.

1755
01:32:57,420 --> 01:33:00,940
Like I said, we should be starting at the end of this month, which is I guess this week.

1756
01:33:00,940 --> 01:33:02,940
So we'll be starting soon.

1757
01:33:02,940 --> 01:33:03,940
Brilliant.

1758
01:33:03,940 --> 01:33:04,940
Yeah.

1759
01:33:04,940 --> 01:33:07,740
Now I'm going to have to reach out to them, I guess probably a few months into when there's

1760
01:33:07,740 --> 01:33:12,100
24 72 if they're starting to gather data so we can kind of get the either side.

1761
01:33:12,100 --> 01:33:17,220
But I know the whoop, some of those aren't super accurate when it comes to actual sleep.

1762
01:33:17,220 --> 01:33:18,220
Correct.

1763
01:33:18,220 --> 01:33:22,380
And some of those ones are are imperative, so you're going to get some incredible data

1764
01:33:22,380 --> 01:33:23,380
from that.

1765
01:33:23,380 --> 01:33:24,740
Yeah, I think it was one of those.

1766
01:33:24,740 --> 01:33:26,140
This is what we have and this is what we can get.

1767
01:33:26,140 --> 01:33:27,140
So this is what we're going with.

1768
01:33:27,140 --> 01:33:31,620
So and especially because, like I said, we came to us a month or two months ago, kind

1769
01:33:31,620 --> 01:33:32,620
of out of the woodwork.

1770
01:33:32,620 --> 01:33:36,420
So I mean, this is really like kudos to them for getting their IRB used to get the funding

1771
01:33:36,420 --> 01:33:37,700
together and get moving on.

1772
01:33:37,700 --> 01:33:38,860
But it's kind of it's happened.

1773
01:33:38,860 --> 01:33:42,820
I don't my understanding research is normally a slow drawn out process.

1774
01:33:42,820 --> 01:33:46,340
This is seemed to have moved pretty quickly based off of their desire to actually want

1775
01:33:46,340 --> 01:33:47,540
to do this and get it done.

1776
01:33:47,540 --> 01:33:51,660
So yeah, I love the cortisol testing to that's going to be huge because I mean, they're right.

1777
01:33:51,660 --> 01:33:55,980
You know, your HRV is is a poor variability.

1778
01:33:55,980 --> 01:33:57,720
You're in a high stress state.

1779
01:33:57,720 --> 01:34:00,660
That's not the time that you need to be doing mirth the next morning and gear.

1780
01:34:00,660 --> 01:34:01,660
Right.

1781
01:34:01,660 --> 01:34:05,340
You know, it's just not, you know, but you know, you've had now, let's say 24 72.

1782
01:34:05,340 --> 01:34:10,100
So you've had, you know, you're on day three, that might be absolutely a day to smash it

1783
01:34:10,100 --> 01:34:12,420
and get in the red zone and be uncomfortable.

1784
01:34:12,420 --> 01:34:16,900
And so that, you know, two shifts later, you're in that structure fire and you have been in

1785
01:34:16,900 --> 01:34:20,660
a horrible place and it gets you out safely or it gets you to that kid.

1786
01:34:20,660 --> 01:34:24,220
So there's, you know, it goes back to the it's just when should we be doing it?

1787
01:34:24,220 --> 01:34:25,220
Right.

1788
01:34:25,220 --> 01:34:26,220
That goes back to that cost saving.

1789
01:34:26,220 --> 01:34:28,900
Like you're saying, too, if you reduce soft tissue injuries and time with people on light

1790
01:34:28,900 --> 01:34:32,860
duty because we now know when the right time to do these things are.

1791
01:34:32,860 --> 01:34:36,540
We're actually I believe you referred to it as an industrial athlete before.

1792
01:34:36,540 --> 01:34:38,660
Oh, so we're tactical tactic, tactical.

1793
01:34:38,660 --> 01:34:39,660
Yeah.

1794
01:34:39,660 --> 01:34:45,340
So I've I've worked with a lot of high level athletes and like it's very it's very measured

1795
01:34:45,340 --> 01:34:48,220
everything they do from the amount of sleep to the amount of food to the amount of like

1796
01:34:48,220 --> 01:34:50,340
and obviously some of that's not realistic for us.

1797
01:34:50,340 --> 01:34:55,420
But if we can start moving in that direction, we then get people into a place where now

1798
01:34:55,420 --> 01:35:00,760
they get to retire and live healthy and can walk and enjoy their pensions and get everything

1799
01:35:00,760 --> 01:35:02,540
they should have been getting out of this the whole time.

1800
01:35:02,540 --> 01:35:04,060
That's what I hopefully will get to.

1801
01:35:04,060 --> 01:35:07,460
It'll be a process, but that's hopefully where we're heading.

1802
01:35:07,460 --> 01:35:08,460
Absolutely.

1803
01:35:08,460 --> 01:35:09,460
Yeah.

1804
01:35:09,460 --> 01:35:12,740
It's funny when you're talking about both of you receiving, extending your career.

1805
01:35:12,740 --> 01:35:16,020
I've always had this this realization that we can do one of two things.

1806
01:35:16,020 --> 01:35:21,420
We can do what you guys are about to do and have veteran firefighters on on force.

1807
01:35:21,420 --> 01:35:26,740
So when you arrive, you've got maybe one new guy, a guy with five years, a female firefighter

1808
01:35:26,740 --> 01:35:29,580
with 10 and a female LT with 20.

1809
01:35:29,580 --> 01:35:31,620
So you've got a massive combined experience.

1810
01:35:31,620 --> 01:35:35,180
But the problem is at the moment, the way it's going, you might have three or four people,

1811
01:35:35,180 --> 01:35:38,320
each of them only have four or five years on.

1812
01:35:38,320 --> 01:35:40,640
So who do you want arriving?

1813
01:35:40,640 --> 01:35:43,180
And the way that we work people at the moment is going to end up being the military.

1814
01:35:43,180 --> 01:35:45,620
I'm going to do four and I'm out.

1815
01:35:45,620 --> 01:35:54,040
So the way that we create real maturity and kind of what they call that term journeyman

1816
01:35:54,040 --> 01:35:59,140
in the fire service is you create an environment for people to stay and then ultimately have

1817
01:35:59,140 --> 01:36:00,140
a healthy retirement.

1818
01:36:00,140 --> 01:36:06,260
This is the other thing of the fitness bar being high in the fire services.

1819
01:36:06,260 --> 01:36:10,220
There's a lot of pushback on annual fitness standards, but that's performance and that's

1820
01:36:10,220 --> 01:36:11,220
longevity.

1821
01:36:11,220 --> 01:36:14,980
So I hope that down the road, you know, especially when people are more well rested, because

1822
01:36:14,980 --> 01:36:18,100
I get it, people are exhausted at the moment, we get them well rested.

1823
01:36:18,100 --> 01:36:21,820
Now we can look at that bar as well and be that look, the CPAT, you should be able to

1824
01:36:21,820 --> 01:36:22,820
do with your eyes closed.

1825
01:36:22,820 --> 01:36:23,820
I don't care how old you are.

1826
01:36:23,820 --> 01:36:27,180
I just smashed it at 48 years old, you know, a couple of years ago.

1827
01:36:27,180 --> 01:36:32,060
So if I can do it, my old ass, you know, injuries and everything, then you should be able to.

1828
01:36:32,060 --> 01:36:33,060
So that's a beautiful thing.

1829
01:36:33,060 --> 01:36:36,820
I think this will open up putting that bar back up where it needs to be, which I also

1830
01:36:36,820 --> 01:36:40,100
argue is the real secret of recruiting.

1831
01:36:40,100 --> 01:36:43,180
If people see that you actually take care of your people and you hold your standards

1832
01:36:43,180 --> 01:36:45,220
high, you attract people.

1833
01:36:45,220 --> 01:36:50,940
If it's 18 and a heartbeat, you know, I think you dissuade the good employees usually.

1834
01:36:50,940 --> 01:36:55,480
Yeah, it's establishing a healthy culture, you know, each and every firehouse and department

1835
01:36:55,480 --> 01:37:00,700
wide of, and I think that'll come back of as people aren't being, you know, beaten

1836
01:37:00,700 --> 01:37:04,380
to the ground with mandatory over times and whatnot, and they have more time off, they're

1837
01:37:04,380 --> 01:37:09,580
going to be happier, better rested, healthier when they come on shift.

1838
01:37:09,580 --> 01:37:14,780
And that's just that benefits everybody benefits the entire city or county, wherever you're

1839
01:37:14,780 --> 01:37:18,940
at, you know, the citizens that you're responding to these calls, you're going to be more awake

1840
01:37:18,940 --> 01:37:24,540
and more ready to go, go assist them in whatever, whatever elements they have.

1841
01:37:24,540 --> 01:37:25,540
So absolutely.

1842
01:37:25,540 --> 01:37:29,300
Well, I got one more area for you and then we'll wrap up.

1843
01:37:29,300 --> 01:37:35,580
Matt, your wife, Kat, is one of the most powerful voices in this area when it comes to the political

1844
01:37:35,580 --> 01:37:36,580
side.

1845
01:37:36,580 --> 01:37:40,380
Tell me about who she is and then some of the interesting things that I didn't know

1846
01:37:40,380 --> 01:37:44,700
about as far as what's happening behind closed doors to try and advocate for our health.

1847
01:37:44,700 --> 01:37:45,700
Yeah.

1848
01:37:45,700 --> 01:37:50,180
So Kat came mixed my wife and she's she represents Florida's third congressional district, which

1849
01:37:50,180 --> 01:37:52,500
is north central Florida.

1850
01:37:52,500 --> 01:38:00,220
So there's a lot of legislative issues that she's working on.

1851
01:38:00,220 --> 01:38:04,940
For instance, one of them was they just recently fully funded the cancer research.

1852
01:38:04,940 --> 01:38:10,020
So before it had to be reauthorized every year to get the money for it.

1853
01:38:10,020 --> 01:38:12,200
So the money wasn't permanently allocated to it.

1854
01:38:12,200 --> 01:38:17,580
So it could have if if if Congress decided to vote no to it, then it would drop off and

1855
01:38:17,580 --> 01:38:22,360
then we wouldn't be doing any tracking of cancer and fire service, which is pretty scary

1856
01:38:22,360 --> 01:38:23,360
to think about.

1857
01:38:23,360 --> 01:38:27,920
You know, but they but they are they're now fully funded on that.

1858
01:38:27,920 --> 01:38:33,580
And the big thing her that she's working on, she's super excited about is a prehab rehab

1859
01:38:33,580 --> 01:38:35,580
mental health block grant.

1860
01:38:35,580 --> 01:38:40,140
So as it as it works right now, most people in the fire service, you know, for the safer

1861
01:38:40,140 --> 01:38:41,820
grants or the AFG.

1862
01:38:41,820 --> 01:38:46,660
So the safer grants traditionally that's used by departments to try to help with staffing.

1863
01:38:46,660 --> 01:38:51,420
If they're having that, that generally helps to get a fourth person on the engine, for

1864
01:38:51,420 --> 01:38:52,420
instance.

1865
01:38:52,420 --> 01:38:57,900
So you have more more firefighters on the on the fire ground.

1866
01:38:57,900 --> 01:39:00,860
One of the big issues with that is you have to reapply to it.

1867
01:39:00,860 --> 01:39:02,980
I believe it's every two years, say for two years.

1868
01:39:02,980 --> 01:39:03,980
Yeah.

1869
01:39:03,980 --> 01:39:08,260
So you can get it for two years or even four years and then you could miss out on it for

1870
01:39:08,260 --> 01:39:09,260
the following two years.

1871
01:39:09,260 --> 01:39:13,620
So now you're stuck in a position of, oh, now we have to come up with more money to

1872
01:39:13,620 --> 01:39:14,700
pay for these people.

1873
01:39:14,700 --> 01:39:17,660
So it's not a perfect system, but it does help.

1874
01:39:17,660 --> 01:39:18,660
It's very beneficial.

1875
01:39:18,660 --> 01:39:21,100
And then the AFG grant, that's more for equipment.

1876
01:39:21,100 --> 01:39:22,100
Right.

1877
01:39:22,100 --> 01:39:29,060
So that's that's, you know, for replacing old air packs, replacing radios, you know,

1878
01:39:29,060 --> 01:39:30,380
thermal imagers, what have you.

1879
01:39:30,380 --> 01:39:34,900
It just helps to kind of replace that life safety equipment so it's at a higher standard

1880
01:39:34,900 --> 01:39:36,740
and it's and it's, you know, better.

1881
01:39:36,740 --> 01:39:42,760
So the block grant, it would be they would have to have a certain and they're still working

1882
01:39:42,760 --> 01:39:48,180
through it based on on FTEs, which is full time employees and how many that state has.

1883
01:39:48,180 --> 01:39:53,100
And so it goes to the state and then the state can differentiate or send out that money to

1884
01:39:53,100 --> 01:39:55,180
each department.

1885
01:39:55,180 --> 01:40:00,700
And that is that money will be specifically used for mental health and wellness.

1886
01:40:00,700 --> 01:40:05,420
So because right now what's happening with AFG is people will get grants and they'll

1887
01:40:05,420 --> 01:40:07,140
they'll they're trying to play catch up.

1888
01:40:07,140 --> 01:40:10,860
A lot of departments trying to play catch up of how do we fund the mental health park

1889
01:40:10,860 --> 01:40:15,700
is like we said, our union did a great job of establishing a counselor for us to go talk

1890
01:40:15,700 --> 01:40:16,700
to.

1891
01:40:16,700 --> 01:40:18,760
Well, not every department has that has that benefit.

1892
01:40:18,760 --> 01:40:22,080
So they have to pay for that out of their own out of their own pocket.

1893
01:40:22,080 --> 01:40:23,620
And that generally will take away.

1894
01:40:23,620 --> 01:40:27,100
Maybe that means their bunker gear, they have to wear it for two more years, you know, while

1895
01:40:27,100 --> 01:40:32,080
it's falling apart or it means their trucks can't get repaired as well.

1896
01:40:32,080 --> 01:40:33,080
So that's really exciting.

1897
01:40:33,080 --> 01:40:34,080
And that's going through that.

1898
01:40:34,080 --> 01:40:35,780
They're still working through all the formulas.

1899
01:40:35,780 --> 01:40:38,100
And as we know, nothing nothing happens quickly in government.

1900
01:40:38,100 --> 01:40:39,620
And I mean, that's how it's built.

1901
01:40:39,620 --> 01:40:40,620
Right.

1902
01:40:40,620 --> 01:40:43,300
So but that's currently in the write ups.

1903
01:40:43,300 --> 01:40:48,180
And so what they're going for there is is the training and treatment of resilience.

1904
01:40:48,180 --> 01:40:54,380
It's kind of the the broad picture and and finding a way because because we all know

1905
01:40:54,380 --> 01:40:57,580
we can all come up with ideas of how to fix things.

1906
01:40:57,580 --> 01:41:01,980
But unless you can fund it or come up with a way to fund it, doesn't really you know,

1907
01:41:01,980 --> 01:41:05,220
it's just an idea.

1908
01:41:05,220 --> 01:41:09,320
And one other issue that she had just mentioned to me and I hadn't even I haven't heard this

1909
01:41:09,320 --> 01:41:10,320
in the news.

1910
01:41:10,320 --> 01:41:11,320
I haven't heard it anywhere.

1911
01:41:11,320 --> 01:41:13,740
And I don't know if many departments know this is happening.

1912
01:41:13,740 --> 01:41:19,340
But OSHA actually just mandated that every firefighter in America now has to have a full

1913
01:41:19,340 --> 01:41:24,820
second set of bunker gear, which is great because as we know, if we go on a fire, we

1914
01:41:24,820 --> 01:41:29,420
wear the bunker gear, we get all the you know, the smoke and the toxins in it.

1915
01:41:29,420 --> 01:41:32,900
And we don't have a chance to wash that bunker gear until we get off shift.

1916
01:41:32,900 --> 01:41:37,420
What if we're working the following day on mandatory overtime or trade or what not?

1917
01:41:37,420 --> 01:41:41,100
Now every time every fire alarm you get every vehicle accident you get, you're putting back

1918
01:41:41,100 --> 01:41:44,700
on that bunker gear that's exposing you to carcinogens.

1919
01:41:44,700 --> 01:41:49,380
So a second get a gear second set of gear would allow us to have a clean set of gear

1920
01:41:49,380 --> 01:41:54,100
so we can launder our dirty one, of course.

1921
01:41:54,100 --> 01:41:58,420
This is obviously very well intended, seemingly well intended, and it will have a positive

1922
01:41:58,420 --> 01:41:59,580
impact.

1923
01:41:59,580 --> 01:42:00,940
The issue is the funding.

1924
01:42:00,940 --> 01:42:02,600
Again, it goes back to the funding.

1925
01:42:02,600 --> 01:42:06,200
So that's this is a brand new thing that OSHA just just came through.

1926
01:42:06,200 --> 01:42:11,100
So everybody's in kind of in discussion right now because there's plenty of departments

1927
01:42:11,100 --> 01:42:14,540
out there that they don't they're not going to have the money to buy because bunker gear

1928
01:42:14,540 --> 01:42:15,540
is very expensive.

1929
01:42:15,540 --> 01:42:20,220
I I know it used to be maybe $4,000 for said I believe a chief was telling me the other

1930
01:42:20,220 --> 01:42:22,860
day maybe up to even $6,000 a set.

1931
01:42:22,860 --> 01:42:27,260
I don't know how much the ones are that supposedly without PFAS but I would imagine that's probably

1932
01:42:27,260 --> 01:42:28,260
an added expense.

1933
01:42:28,260 --> 01:42:29,260
Yeah.

1934
01:42:29,260 --> 01:42:33,660
And I mean, you know, we have 165 ish, you know, frontline firefighters now.

1935
01:42:33,660 --> 01:42:36,900
So I mean, that's going to be upwards of close to a million dollars just for a second set

1936
01:42:36,900 --> 01:42:37,900
of gear.

1937
01:42:37,900 --> 01:42:41,500
And what's what's crazy is before we hit record.

1938
01:42:41,500 --> 01:42:42,700
Now this is this is the problem.

1939
01:42:42,700 --> 01:42:43,700
We're so reactive.

1940
01:42:43,700 --> 01:42:45,220
We're so far on the back foot.

1941
01:42:45,220 --> 01:42:50,620
If you imagine you work for a uranium company or a biohazard company, they're going to have

1942
01:42:50,620 --> 01:42:51,620
two sets of gear.

1943
01:42:51,620 --> 01:42:53,500
Yeah, they're going to you know what I mean?

1944
01:42:53,500 --> 01:42:57,940
So we're the only profession, I think, that deals with the kind of exposures that we have.

1945
01:42:57,940 --> 01:42:59,680
They're like, oh, just you'll be fine.

1946
01:42:59,680 --> 01:43:01,100
Just hose it down and you get back.

1947
01:43:01,100 --> 01:43:02,100
Yeah, yeah.

1948
01:43:02,100 --> 01:43:06,260
So when we look at it now, we're having to mitigate these problems because we really

1949
01:43:06,260 --> 01:43:08,620
dropped the ball several generations ago.

1950
01:43:08,620 --> 01:43:09,620
Yep.

1951
01:43:09,620 --> 01:43:14,900
And and the PFAS, it's it's you know, it's a it's unfortunate, but it's at least we're

1952
01:43:14,900 --> 01:43:19,220
finding it now that that's a you know, I think it's just got classified as a type type one

1953
01:43:19,220 --> 01:43:20,420
carcinogen, I believe.

1954
01:43:20,420 --> 01:43:21,860
And it's in all of our gear.

1955
01:43:21,860 --> 01:43:24,060
And every time we put on we begin to sweat.

1956
01:43:24,060 --> 01:43:25,060
It's soaking into us.

1957
01:43:25,060 --> 01:43:30,540
And so that's another there another bill that they're working on the next generation turnout

1958
01:43:30,540 --> 01:43:35,060
gear bill, and they're allocating twenty five million dollars to research to start helping

1959
01:43:35,060 --> 01:43:42,020
these companies find ways to create and to make our bunker gear that's not exposing us

1960
01:43:42,020 --> 01:43:43,140
to these carcinogens.

1961
01:43:43,140 --> 01:43:48,220
So it's it's we're kind of in the beginning, not even the beginning stages.

1962
01:43:48,220 --> 01:43:51,640
There's been plenty of companies that have been trying to figure it out.

1963
01:43:51,640 --> 01:43:56,520
But as we all know, it takes funding and it takes time, you know, to to to create the

1964
01:43:56,520 --> 01:43:58,880
materials and then to test them out in the field.

1965
01:43:58,880 --> 01:44:02,920
So so there's definitely a shift there.

1966
01:44:02,920 --> 01:44:04,940
And so, yeah, there's there's a lot of good things happening.

1967
01:44:04,940 --> 01:44:06,340
It's just just like anything else.

1968
01:44:06,340 --> 01:44:07,860
It just, you know, takes time.

1969
01:44:07,860 --> 01:44:08,860
But yeah.

1970
01:44:08,860 --> 01:44:12,620
Well, again, if we're talking about financial side, hopefully what's going to happen is

1971
01:44:12,620 --> 01:44:16,180
we're going to see a lot of savings through the health of our people that can be applied

1972
01:44:16,180 --> 01:44:18,380
to the areas that you just talked about.

1973
01:44:18,380 --> 01:44:24,580
I had a gentleman on Rob Bellot, who is the real lawyer in the film Dark Wars, which is

1974
01:44:24,580 --> 01:44:28,400
the kind of origin story of discovering PFAS and what it does.

1975
01:44:28,400 --> 01:44:32,180
But again, you know, that's that's become a kind of buzzword in the fire service and

1976
01:44:32,180 --> 01:44:33,820
absolutely needs to be addressed.

1977
01:44:33,820 --> 01:44:37,820
But what I realized is it's very easy for a fire department to point fingers away from

1978
01:44:37,820 --> 01:44:40,460
them if you just talk about PFAS.

1979
01:44:40,460 --> 01:44:45,440
But the resilience of the human being against carcinogens is the shift work.

1980
01:44:45,440 --> 01:44:49,140
So that's why we have to turn that finger back towards us.

1981
01:44:49,140 --> 01:44:54,180
Absolutely try and address the PFAS conversation, but not negate the shift work.

1982
01:44:54,180 --> 01:44:56,060
All right.

1983
01:44:56,060 --> 01:45:01,660
Well, Brian, one one more question that I meant to put in there.

1984
01:45:01,660 --> 01:45:02,660
Parental leave.

1985
01:45:02,660 --> 01:45:07,220
When I did a Google search on you, there was a conversation about that.

1986
01:45:07,220 --> 01:45:11,100
You hear this a lot about certain places in Europe, you know, where mothers or fathers

1987
01:45:11,100 --> 01:45:15,380
get quite a lot of time because, you know, those first few months with a child are extremely

1988
01:45:15,380 --> 01:45:19,300
important and they're very traumatic, you know, and people have, you know, postpartum

1989
01:45:19,300 --> 01:45:22,940
depression and all kinds of things around the birth of a child as well.

1990
01:45:22,940 --> 01:45:26,980
So talk to me about what Gainesville has done as far as supporting parents.

1991
01:45:26,980 --> 01:45:27,980
Yeah.

1992
01:45:27,980 --> 01:45:30,260
So I was one of the first ones to get it.

1993
01:45:30,260 --> 01:45:32,140
I want to say it was two contracts ago now.

1994
01:45:32,140 --> 01:45:35,900
So roughly like 60, well, rather as for so they've been about four and a half years ago,

1995
01:45:35,900 --> 01:45:37,860
somewhere in there.

1996
01:45:37,860 --> 01:45:43,220
They were very progressive in wanting us to be able to have that initial phase off with

1997
01:45:43,220 --> 01:45:48,780
the child, which turned out to be a godsend, just like you said.

1998
01:45:48,780 --> 01:45:52,820
I didn't do a whole lot, but also go into the grocery store, cleaning the house, making

1999
01:45:52,820 --> 01:45:57,540
sure everybody was OK and not freaking out was actually doing a lot, not having to be

2000
01:45:57,540 --> 01:45:58,540
on shift.

2001
01:45:58,540 --> 01:45:59,780
I also had a covid baby.

2002
01:45:59,780 --> 01:46:03,540
So not bringing that home constantly at that particular time.

2003
01:46:03,540 --> 01:46:07,060
You know, I mean, I know we have a different look of it now, but at the time you're like,

2004
01:46:07,060 --> 01:46:11,140
oh, God, I don't have to like have to scrub it out in the garage before I actually get

2005
01:46:11,140 --> 01:46:12,140
here, you know.

2006
01:46:12,140 --> 01:46:15,300
But yeah, so it's been it's been a godsend.

2007
01:46:15,300 --> 01:46:18,940
I know everybody really, really enjoys it because it's just great being home to be able

2008
01:46:18,940 --> 01:46:20,180
to support their spouse.

2009
01:46:20,180 --> 01:46:25,120
One thing that I didn't realize would be as positive about it, because I don't think we

2010
01:46:25,120 --> 01:46:30,220
think about this as much anymore, but a lot of us dads and moms at the fire service, but

2011
01:46:30,220 --> 01:46:33,580
dads, especially in the modern age, we are actually kind of like Mr. Mom when we're home

2012
01:46:33,580 --> 01:46:39,820
because all of our spouses are working in that bonding time did go a long way to helping

2013
01:46:39,820 --> 01:46:41,940
me be comfortable because I don't know anything about babies.

2014
01:46:41,940 --> 01:46:45,020
I mean, I'm kind of OK with it now, but like, you know, I'm good.

2015
01:46:45,020 --> 01:46:47,540
Like I can walk in a febrile seizure, be like, it's just a febrile seizure.

2016
01:46:47,540 --> 01:46:48,540
You're good.

2017
01:46:48,540 --> 01:46:52,340
I mean, then the world's ending and I'm like, we got to go like any kind of Dr.

2018
01:46:52,340 --> 01:46:53,540
Ava was a good person to ask.

2019
01:46:53,540 --> 01:46:56,500
I spoke with him quite often during that time period.

2020
01:46:58,180 --> 01:47:00,980
Yeah, one percent for a poor wife, poor everybody.

2021
01:47:01,460 --> 01:47:04,260
So I'm really strong until it comes to my kids and it's all over.

2022
01:47:04,340 --> 01:47:07,560
But so and I think that was very helpful.

2023
01:47:07,560 --> 01:47:12,340
Now, one of the things that did have to happen with 24 72 is that that reduced from three

2024
01:47:12,340 --> 01:47:15,140
months is what you got off before to now we're going to have six weeks.

2025
01:47:15,140 --> 01:47:19,060
But there is a little bit of positive in there, too, because originally the three

2026
01:47:19,060 --> 01:47:23,900
months you had to do from the birth date for three months, which is great.

2027
01:47:23,900 --> 01:47:26,380
Not looking to give tours in the mouth under any circumstances.

2028
01:47:26,380 --> 01:47:30,300
But, you know, wife goes back to work at the three month market, still go into daycare.

2029
01:47:30,580 --> 01:47:34,380
So having that three months piggybacked at the end of that would also be very helpful.

2030
01:47:34,620 --> 01:47:38,460
So now the six weeks you can actually use floating whenever so that that'll help out a lot.

2031
01:47:38,460 --> 01:47:43,260
But that bonding time, one of our district chiefs who was sent retired,

2032
01:47:43,260 --> 01:47:45,780
I don't remember why he called me because he never calls me.

2033
01:47:45,780 --> 01:47:46,780
And I remember him talking.

2034
01:47:46,780 --> 01:47:51,180
It was right after my oldest started walking and just randomly at the end of the conversation,

2035
01:47:51,180 --> 01:47:55,580
he asked me, he goes, do you ever feel like you didn't hold her enough?

2036
01:47:55,580 --> 01:47:58,660
And she's running around in the garage or in the yard.

2037
01:47:58,980 --> 01:48:02,380
And as you know, once they start walking, they don't really have as much to do with

2038
01:48:02,380 --> 01:48:03,740
you and it keeps building for that.

2039
01:48:03,740 --> 01:48:06,140
I was like, yeah, no, you're completely correct.

2040
01:48:06,140 --> 01:48:07,140
Yeah, I completely must.

2041
01:48:07,140 --> 01:48:10,580
Because I, you know, I didn't spend that bonding time as good the first time.

2042
01:48:10,580 --> 01:48:11,580
Second time, I definitely did better.

2043
01:48:11,580 --> 01:48:14,180
But those are actually those are moments you don't get back.

2044
01:48:14,180 --> 01:48:15,180
The job will still be there.

2045
01:48:15,180 --> 01:48:20,180
And as we've stated this entire time, I go to work for my family.

2046
01:48:20,860 --> 01:48:22,220
I want to be a good dad.

2047
01:48:22,220 --> 01:48:24,620
I have to take care of them a lot when my wife is working.

2048
01:48:24,620 --> 01:48:28,660
So I need to be able to be in there and focused and be the best version of myself I can be.

2049
01:48:28,660 --> 01:48:30,220
And this all kind of goes together.

2050
01:48:30,220 --> 01:48:33,620
But I will say the city of Gainesville, given that parental leave that was.

2051
01:48:35,060 --> 01:48:37,580
It's a game changer, and I wish I hope more people get it.

2052
01:48:37,580 --> 01:48:40,140
But it's definitely it's a very positive thing.

2053
01:48:40,140 --> 01:48:42,740
I would never I thought it was kind of weird when we got it.

2054
01:48:42,740 --> 01:48:43,740
So I'm like, I'm a guy.

2055
01:48:43,740 --> 01:48:46,940
I'm not going to be breastfeeding anytime soon, you know, until I did it.

2056
01:48:46,940 --> 01:48:51,140
And I was like, oh, me, even if it's one diaper at two o'clock in the morning, because the

2057
01:48:51,140 --> 01:48:54,740
baby was already fed like that, that made a huge difference to my wife and her ability

2058
01:48:54,740 --> 01:48:58,540
to recover and have somebody to bounce ideas off of when you're both sitting there.

2059
01:48:58,540 --> 01:48:59,740
Like, I don't know what to do with it.

2060
01:48:59,740 --> 01:49:00,740
It won't stop crying.

2061
01:49:00,740 --> 01:49:04,540
Like, you know, we all we all have our limits, you know, so just handed over to me and like

2062
01:49:04,540 --> 01:49:05,540
let it spin up on me.

2063
01:49:05,540 --> 01:49:06,540
We're good, you know.

2064
01:49:06,540 --> 01:49:08,140
So so it was awesome.

2065
01:49:08,140 --> 01:49:11,540
But it's a really awesome benefit that we we have.

2066
01:49:11,540 --> 01:49:13,940
I don't think I got any with with Anaheim.

2067
01:49:13,940 --> 01:49:15,540
If I did, it was a very short time.

2068
01:49:15,540 --> 01:49:16,940
So, yeah, I would be in there.

2069
01:49:16,940 --> 01:49:18,740
We were mandatory all the time.

2070
01:49:18,740 --> 01:49:19,740
We were 56.

2071
01:49:19,740 --> 01:49:20,740
No, Kelly.

2072
01:49:20,740 --> 01:49:23,140
So you come in 24, not sleeping.

2073
01:49:23,140 --> 01:49:25,740
And then the next night he was colicky a lot.

2074
01:49:25,740 --> 01:49:27,340
So you're up all that, you know what I mean?

2075
01:49:27,340 --> 01:49:31,540
So even just the fact that you get to sleep, you know, being a better parent, I screamed

2076
01:49:31,540 --> 01:49:32,540
at him.

2077
01:49:32,540 --> 01:49:34,940
I told him to shut the fuck up when he was about two weeks old.

2078
01:49:34,940 --> 01:49:38,340
And I didn't touch him or anything, but I was like, what is wrong with me?

2079
01:49:38,340 --> 01:49:39,740
But it was just sheer exhaustion.

2080
01:49:39,740 --> 01:49:40,740
Yeah.

2081
01:49:40,740 --> 01:49:41,740
Well, so you avoid that.

2082
01:49:41,740 --> 01:49:42,740
Yeah.

2083
01:49:42,740 --> 01:49:44,140
And to your point, that's the mental health stuff.

2084
01:49:44,140 --> 01:49:49,140
You know, I tell everybody a pivotal moment for me was my oldest daughter, who, you know,

2085
01:49:49,140 --> 01:49:52,740
she makes me a much better version of myself because I'm learning, I think, more from her

2086
01:49:52,740 --> 01:49:55,940
at this point than like, you know, I'm actually able to teach her because she's already smarter,

2087
01:49:55,940 --> 01:49:57,740
strangely enough, which Mac can vouch for.

2088
01:49:57,740 --> 01:49:58,740
She's smarter than you at two.

2089
01:49:58,740 --> 01:49:59,740
Yeah, that's fair.

2090
01:49:59,740 --> 01:50:03,940
But, you know, I remember coming home one day and I was like, I'm going to go to the

2091
01:50:03,940 --> 01:50:08,740
home one day and just not having the resources anymore to deal, you know, just being tired.

2092
01:50:08,740 --> 01:50:10,020
Like we all get I mean, we all get there.

2093
01:50:10,020 --> 01:50:11,020
It's nothing.

2094
01:50:11,020 --> 01:50:13,140
But I just remember like yelling at her and her just starting to quiver.

2095
01:50:13,140 --> 01:50:15,420
And I wasn't yelling at her because it was a life threatening emergency.

2096
01:50:15,420 --> 01:50:18,540
It was literally like, why can't you pick up your room or something stupid like that?

2097
01:50:18,540 --> 01:50:21,900
And like, understanding at that moment, I was like, OK, time out.

2098
01:50:21,900 --> 01:50:24,740
Like if this job isn't for me, this job isn't for me.

2099
01:50:24,740 --> 01:50:26,020
However, we're not going to do that.

2100
01:50:26,020 --> 01:50:27,780
Like, I'm going to have to interact with them better.

2101
01:50:27,780 --> 01:50:31,700
So whatever we have to figure out, we're going to have to figure out because it's not her

2102
01:50:31,700 --> 01:50:35,820
fault that we can't staff a truck or it's not her fault that we get five calls after

2103
01:50:35,820 --> 01:50:36,820
midnight.

2104
01:50:36,820 --> 01:50:37,820
So I have to figure out and interact with that better.

2105
01:50:37,820 --> 01:50:39,500
So parental leave helps with that.

2106
01:50:39,500 --> 01:50:41,300
The 24 72s are going to help with that.

2107
01:50:41,300 --> 01:50:44,340
You know, hopefully figuring out how to be the healthiest version of ourselves with the

2108
01:50:44,340 --> 01:50:45,740
research study is going to help with that.

2109
01:50:45,740 --> 01:50:50,740
And we're going to be able to also once again, move hopefully the entire service forward.

2110
01:50:50,740 --> 01:50:55,500
So we're uniquely situated to hopefully give back to the entire service by sheer luck of

2111
01:50:55,500 --> 01:50:59,380
where we were sitting in a seat when this happens.

2112
01:50:59,380 --> 01:51:03,500
One more area that I meant to put in earlier and then we'll close up one thing that Sarah

2113
01:51:03,500 --> 01:51:06,820
talked about and I've heard people touch on it before, but actually makes perfect sense

2114
01:51:06,820 --> 01:51:12,740
to me only if it's done after you've moved to a 24 72 or, you know, when you make the

2115
01:51:12,740 --> 01:51:13,740
move.

2116
01:51:13,740 --> 01:51:20,180
But the when shift change occurs because I've always lived like 75 minutes from most of

2117
01:51:20,180 --> 01:51:22,020
the fire stations I worked at.

2118
01:51:22,020 --> 01:51:26,100
So I'm up at five a.m. to get to work that day.

2119
01:51:26,100 --> 01:51:27,460
Anaheim was amazing.

2120
01:51:27,460 --> 01:51:28,460
They had it right.

2121
01:51:28,460 --> 01:51:30,220
They would just let you sleep.

2122
01:51:30,220 --> 01:51:34,300
We'd get take our partner's rig off gear off the rig.

2123
01:51:34,300 --> 01:51:37,460
You know, if there was anything needed to be done, we just write on the whiteboard the

2124
01:51:37,460 --> 01:51:39,660
night before, you know, and so they can sleep.

2125
01:51:39,660 --> 01:51:42,100
There was no tones waking everyone up.

2126
01:51:42,100 --> 01:51:45,100
The last place I worked at doesn't matter how shitty your night was.

2127
01:51:45,100 --> 01:51:46,260
The lights would come on.

2128
01:51:46,260 --> 01:51:49,500
Dispatch would scream at the bunk room at seven in the morning.

2129
01:51:49,500 --> 01:51:51,360
It was absolutely backward.

2130
01:51:51,360 --> 01:51:54,620
But I do love that conversation of a different shift change time.

2131
01:51:54,620 --> 01:52:01,660
Now, some people talk about p.m. to me, almost like a lunchtime early afternoon time sounds

2132
01:52:01,660 --> 01:52:05,440
like it would make the most sense because now you have the morning to get your kids

2133
01:52:05,440 --> 01:52:08,780
to school, have breakfast with your husband or wife and then go.

2134
01:52:08,780 --> 01:52:11,340
You're not in rush hour traffic.

2135
01:52:11,340 --> 01:52:15,900
And then, you know, and then the people going off, they get to do their journey and they're

2136
01:52:15,900 --> 01:52:17,540
home for dinner that day.

2137
01:52:17,540 --> 01:52:21,020
Have you had any conversations about the time of day of shift change?

2138
01:52:21,020 --> 01:52:22,380
To this point, we have not.

2139
01:52:22,380 --> 01:52:24,780
Once again, I think there's so much other stuff going on.

2140
01:52:24,780 --> 01:52:26,660
We got to get through that first.

2141
01:52:26,660 --> 01:52:31,540
We've we've had like off record discussions about Tallahassee does this or these people

2142
01:52:31,540 --> 01:52:32,540
do that.

2143
01:52:32,540 --> 01:52:36,140
But we haven't really ever had a serious conversation about.

2144
01:52:36,140 --> 01:52:38,860
But it's something good to look at, especially because, like I said, listening to Dr. Breger

2145
01:52:38,860 --> 01:52:44,260
talk those last two hours of sleep apparently are some of your most important two or three

2146
01:52:44,260 --> 01:52:45,660
hours because I'm guilty of this all time.

2147
01:52:45,660 --> 01:52:47,140
Like, hey, it's four o'clock in the morning.

2148
01:52:47,140 --> 01:52:48,140
All right.

2149
01:52:48,140 --> 01:52:49,140
The night's already been shit.

2150
01:52:49,140 --> 01:52:51,580
I'm just going to start drinking coffee because that makes me happy.

2151
01:52:51,580 --> 01:52:55,180
I'm just going to start typing reports, you know, and and I do that.

2152
01:52:55,180 --> 01:52:59,820
And they heard telling us they're like, no, those last two hours, like you still need

2153
01:52:59,820 --> 01:53:01,380
to try to get them if at all possible.

2154
01:53:01,380 --> 01:53:05,900
So even if it's five thirty in the morning, laying back down until six thirty is essential.

2155
01:53:05,900 --> 01:53:09,820
So to your point, that is something to look into.

2156
01:53:09,820 --> 01:53:11,900
And hopefully with all of this stuff we can.

2157
01:53:11,900 --> 01:53:14,060
But that's we haven't had a serious conversation about that yet.

2158
01:53:14,060 --> 01:53:16,260
But there's I mean, there's so many things going on.

2159
01:53:16,260 --> 01:53:18,420
It's just we're a little overloaded at the moment.

2160
01:53:18,420 --> 01:53:19,700
Yeah, no, absolutely.

2161
01:53:19,700 --> 01:53:21,540
But it's also a zero cost change.

2162
01:53:21,540 --> 01:53:22,540
Yeah.

2163
01:53:22,540 --> 01:53:26,540
Well, and the schedule that we have now was established because that's how we did it 100

2164
01:53:26,540 --> 01:53:27,540
years ago.

2165
01:53:27,540 --> 01:53:28,540
Right.

2166
01:53:28,540 --> 01:53:31,460
Like and it's the fire service is not what it was 100 years ago or even 50 years ago.

2167
01:53:31,460 --> 01:53:37,180
You know, we've got old log books even from the 60s from Station One.

2168
01:53:37,180 --> 01:53:41,420
And you look through there and you know, for those who aren't firefighters, you have a

2169
01:53:41,420 --> 01:53:46,580
log book of every day, the shift of who worked and then every single call that each unit

2170
01:53:46,580 --> 01:53:47,580
went on.

2171
01:53:47,580 --> 01:53:50,940
And you have three, four days in a row where they didn't run a call.

2172
01:53:50,940 --> 01:53:54,980
All they did was come in and, you know, mow the yard and check off their truck and work

2173
01:53:54,980 --> 01:53:56,420
out.

2174
01:53:56,420 --> 01:53:57,740
And it's not that anymore.

2175
01:53:57,740 --> 01:54:00,180
You know, it's it's 10, 20 calls at a station.

2176
01:54:00,180 --> 01:54:04,540
And it's so so this, you know, they used to be able to sleep through the night.

2177
01:54:04,540 --> 01:54:05,540
Now we can't.

2178
01:54:05,540 --> 01:54:12,020
And listen to Dr. Jenke that when she mentioned that it just kind of like was like a lie go

2179
01:54:12,020 --> 01:54:13,020
off.

2180
01:54:13,020 --> 01:54:14,300
Like, why do we not do that?

2181
01:54:14,300 --> 01:54:15,860
There's no reason not to do it.

2182
01:54:15,860 --> 01:54:18,100
And you can always come up with excuses why not.

2183
01:54:18,100 --> 01:54:19,460
But but you made a good point.

2184
01:54:19,460 --> 01:54:23,020
I think when she mentioned it of, well, now you're waking up in your own bed and setting

2185
01:54:23,020 --> 01:54:26,220
your alarm going to five a.m. because you have to drive, you know, seventy five, you

2186
01:54:26,220 --> 01:54:31,420
know, minutes away that you can actually get a good night's sleep coming into work.

2187
01:54:31,420 --> 01:54:34,620
So now you're actually well rested.

2188
01:54:34,620 --> 01:54:38,460
And then and then that following shift, if you had a bad night, you've got a couple extra

2189
01:54:38,460 --> 01:54:42,920
hours of, you know, Brian was saying at the very end tacked on, you can actually get some

2190
01:54:42,920 --> 01:54:45,140
good sleep before you go home, too.

2191
01:54:45,140 --> 01:54:49,420
You know, so just this is definitely interesting thing to look into.

2192
01:54:49,420 --> 01:54:52,340
Yeah, it definitely it has its caveats, but it's definitely interesting.

2193
01:54:52,340 --> 01:54:53,980
Like you said, it's no cost.

2194
01:54:53,980 --> 01:54:55,220
So it goes with all this.

2195
01:54:55,220 --> 01:54:57,780
But you know, the nice thing is about.

2196
01:54:57,780 --> 01:55:02,980
They said not knowing anything about the fire service coming into now we have podcasts,

2197
01:55:02,980 --> 01:55:03,980
all these different experts.

2198
01:55:03,980 --> 01:55:07,740
It sounds like even I'm hearing from the same people you're hearing from, we're getting

2199
01:55:07,740 --> 01:55:10,420
all this data put together like we're going to be able to start moving a lot of these

2200
01:55:10,420 --> 01:55:11,420
things forward.

2201
01:55:11,420 --> 01:55:14,900
And that might be one of them also, because we have always done everything for a hundred

2202
01:55:14,900 --> 01:55:17,660
years, not realizing that are.

2203
01:55:17,660 --> 01:55:20,620
I don't want to a lot of departments have it worse than us.

2204
01:55:20,620 --> 01:55:22,140
I mean, there's much busier departments.

2205
01:55:22,140 --> 01:55:25,420
I've met people from Baltimore City that explained to me how many calls they run a day.

2206
01:55:25,420 --> 01:55:27,100
And I have no complaints.

2207
01:55:27,100 --> 01:55:32,340
However, our slowest units are now becoming it's not abnormal for them to be up after

2208
01:55:32,340 --> 01:55:33,340
midnight.

2209
01:55:33,340 --> 01:55:34,340
And that's just the nature of the game or in a growing city.

2210
01:55:34,340 --> 01:55:39,300
And you're never going to have enough resources to be the way we should be staffed and everything

2211
01:55:39,300 --> 01:55:40,300
to work correctly.

2212
01:55:40,300 --> 01:55:45,180
So we have to start looking at those zero cost best practices and seeing how we push

2213
01:55:45,180 --> 01:55:46,180
that forward.

2214
01:55:46,180 --> 01:55:50,740
And it's interesting, hopefully all this pull together and find a way to piece that together

2215
01:55:50,740 --> 01:55:54,180
and see what the best practices of those are and maybe push the narrative forward.

2216
01:55:54,180 --> 01:55:55,180
Absolutely.

2217
01:55:55,180 --> 01:55:56,700
Well, I want to say thank you.

2218
01:55:56,700 --> 01:56:01,300
I mean, this this is such an important conversation, you know, and you're literally about to do

2219
01:56:01,300 --> 01:56:03,220
it in two or three months from now.

2220
01:56:03,220 --> 01:56:06,780
So and you've got the research that's going to be following you as well.

2221
01:56:06,780 --> 01:56:11,460
So this is one of four conversations now on this specifically.

2222
01:56:11,460 --> 01:56:16,820
And this is a roadmap for everyone else to, you know, to take it from fairy tale status,

2223
01:56:16,820 --> 01:56:21,340
you know, unicorn fart and rainbows that people think this is to putting it into reality and

2224
01:56:21,340 --> 01:56:25,260
seeing, especially as we touched on the currency is time with your family.

2225
01:56:25,260 --> 01:56:28,580
I mean, you know, if not for them, then then why are you doing the job?

2226
01:56:28,580 --> 01:56:30,500
I mean, they should be coming first.

2227
01:56:30,500 --> 01:56:32,340
So and then obviously your own health as well.

2228
01:56:32,340 --> 01:56:36,620
So I want to thank you so, so much for driving down here and having an absolutely incredible

2229
01:56:36,620 --> 01:56:37,620
conversation.

2230
01:56:37,620 --> 01:56:38,620
Thank you for having us.

2231
01:56:38,620 --> 01:56:39,620
We really do appreciate it.

2232
01:56:39,620 --> 01:56:42,780
I want to point out all of our phones are pretty much always on.

2233
01:56:42,780 --> 01:56:45,700
So any other department trying to get there, like I said, our union president does not

2234
01:56:45,700 --> 01:56:46,700
mind talking to people.

2235
01:56:46,700 --> 01:56:47,700
Obviously, I can talk.

2236
01:56:47,700 --> 01:56:51,420
Matt is OK talking most of the time, but we're willing to help.

2237
01:56:51,420 --> 01:56:52,780
And you talk enough for both of us.

2238
01:56:52,780 --> 01:56:53,780
That's fair.

2239
01:56:53,780 --> 01:56:54,780
You're the pretty face.

2240
01:56:54,780 --> 01:56:55,780
Fortunately, this wasn't recorded.

2241
01:56:55,780 --> 01:57:01,260
But yeah, so I guess for whatever we can do to help where we would like to do so.

2242
01:57:01,260 --> 01:57:02,260
Awesome.

2243
01:57:02,260 --> 01:57:03,260
Yeah, thank you for having us.

2244
01:57:03,260 --> 01:57:06,660
This is and we're excited to come back and give some updates once we very excited about

2245
01:57:06,660 --> 01:57:11,100
the research, you know, and I think it's going to show everything that we all know, you know,

2246
01:57:11,100 --> 01:57:12,980
being in the fire service.

2247
01:57:12,980 --> 01:57:14,900
It's it just it makes sense.

2248
01:57:14,900 --> 01:57:17,940
You know, it's just going to help build that narrative, like you said, of providing more

2249
01:57:17,940 --> 01:57:38,140
data.