This morning I have my very first oral interview and physical agility test at a fire department. It is an internship for while I'm in school (working on my paramedic and fire science/fire protection technology aka firefighting degrees) and if I get the position it would be an awesome opportunity.
I've done interviews before and I've done physical agility tests before, but this is a new world. It's a standard process within the Fire/EMS fields but it has it's learning-to-ride-a-bike moments. To add to the fun I'll be competing against 18,19,20,21 year olds for the position. While in reality I am still young at 26, in firefighting that might as well be called middle aged.
Overall I'm excited and really hoping that I get the internship.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Five Hour Hold
Getting put on hold can be boring. Waiting on hold when you’re broken down makes things feel worse. So what could a person do while waiting on hold for five and a half hours? Stare into space? Swirl around in a chair? I can tell you exactly what to do…go bonkers from boredom. I had the unfortunate opportunity to wait on hold for five and a half hours at a winery in Sunnyside, Washington on one beautiful day. I was excited for the load because it was my first load to Nashville, Tennessee and I had always wanted to go there for a visit. The company I worked for hauled a lot of loads for this winery and it had become a drop and hook facility (bring an empty and pick up a preloaded). I arrived for my appointment, checked in, then took the empty trailer I had brought to the empty yard. I came back around to the shipping office and they told me that my trailer was just finishing being loaded and it was in one of the docks. So I backed my truck up to the trailer but didn’t hook up. I ran the pretrip function on the reefer unit (reefer units have a computerized self inspect function) and did a walk around inspection of the trailer while I waited for the warehouseman to finish loading. After he was done loading my trailer I hooked up to the trailer and went back into the office to pick up the paperwork for the load. Because the nature of the loads out of the winery (wine is liquid and it’s heavy) the drivers slide the trailer axles to the rear of the trailer so that when the forklift goes over the tail of the trailer the trailer does not tilt up and cause an accident. I came out of the shipping office and closed and sealed the trailer doors . Then I went to slide the tandems back to a better driving position but I couldn’t get the tandems to slide and the brakes to release. After rocking the trailer to try and release the tandem pins a couple of times I discovered that the airline to the tandem pins was broken and no amount of rocking was going to loosen the tandem pins, but I was able to get the trailer brakes to release. So I went back into the winery to use their phone to call my company’s road service department. That is when the real fun started. I was on hold for four and a half hours without speaking to anyone within my company. Then, while I was on hold at the four and half hour mark the winery’s phone system crashed for about 45 minutes. Once the phone system was back up I called into my company again and was on hold for another hour before reaching someone in the road service department. They finally sent someone out to the winery to help me get the tandems moved if not able to complete the repair on the pins. When the mechanic arrived he fought with the sliding pins for an hour before determining that he wasn’t going to be able to fix the problem or even get the pins to move temporarily. By this time the winery has closed for the day, but the mechanic thankfully had cell phone coverage at the winery. So back on the phone I went and again was on hold but nowhere near as long as the five and a half hours I had spent on hold just to get the mechanic out to the winery. The mechanic was never able to fix the pins but figured out a trick to get the pins to release long enough for me to get the tandems to slide to where I needed them. He followed me to the truck stop to make sure the brakes weren’t going to lock up again (the other part of the problem) when I stopped to fuel and I got back underway.
Manhattan
To me, February 2007 feels like it was just yesterday. It was the day I got to be there, the day I saw the wreckage of Ground Zero in the center of Manhattan— the thousands of missing person fliers, the torn turnout jacket, and the videos that listed the victims. My trucking journeys had brought me to Newark and I had an unexpected day to wait. So being the adventurous person that I am, I grabbed a pullover and headed for the subway. What I saw next would rock my world back to the day, September 11th, the day that took 343 of my brothers and sisters.
I had to grab a city bus from my truck to the subway station and found out that I would have to take the World Trade Center line into Manhattan. I got to Grand Central Station and hopped onto the subway, and within 15 minutes my heart was in my throat. I was there. I was at Ground Zero. Nobody had told me that the line would drop me off right in the middle of where the towers once stood. My feet felt like concrete as I walked through the station. There I was, looking through the chain fence where two massive buildings once stood, where thousands of people are now buried. An indescribable feeling wouldn’t leave me.
In spite of the feeling, I was in New York City for the first time, and first on my “to do” list was to get warm. I quickly discovered that the fleece I had brought was no match for the dry New York cold. This was my first taste of the city, buying mittens from a street vendor at the World Trade Center for three dollars. He wanted a Hamilton but quickly changed his mind and settled for the Washington’s.
I didn’t even get two blocks away after that before getting ambushed by another vendor. But hey, carpe ibidem, seize the moment. He had a South African ruck sack for $20, and I had been looking for one for quite some time. It was pretty funny to talk to him. The whole young American chicky truck driver novelty paid off. I only had seven bucks in my pocket so I asked him where an ATM was. He told me I could have it for the seven dollars, and I told him I’d be right back. He wasn’t going to let me out of his sight without selling me the bag. So for seven dollars I got my ruck sack.
Next on my New York City experience was to get a real New York hotdog. But as I turned away from the clothing vendor, I was stunned. There at Ground Zero, were hawkers. People had gone onto media websites, printed pictures, and were selling them for $20. That was beyond low. It’s something you just don’t do, and I was furious about it. Thankfully, the responsibility for a $110,000 semi truck helped keep me back from doing something I would regret. I ended up finding a Subway before a hotdog stand, and my stomach was allies with my legs. So I quickly downed a sandwich and carried on with my adventure.
With a full tummy and warm fingers, my mind could start taking in all that Manhattan is again. If you have ever seen a movie that is set in New York City, chances are you have seen the bellhops in their top hats and tuxedos. Guess what, they’re real! Some of them are even good looking. The only problem is that I couldn’t find one that wasn’t married. Maybe next time. One of the bellhops was kind enough to point me in the direction of the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, located across the street from where the towers once stood. It was very quiet in the building, I didn’t even hear a whisper. But why would I? The second you enter the center, you see the names and faces of the lost. Walk a little further and you see the charred remains of a window from one of the airplanes. Next to it is the split-in-two turnout jacket and the SCBA (air) pack that experienced such a forceful blow that it made the air bottle explode, forming a large hole in it. This is where I nearly fell. As I felt like I needed to sit down, there was a presence. It felt like I was being held up. It felt like a firefighter was picking me up. After I left the center I could not shake the image from my mind. Even Times Square all lit up seemed dimmed. Three hundred and forty three ran into the buildings that day and never came back.
A year goes by, and people by the tens of thousands attend memorial services; some for family, for coworkers, for complete strangers. The emotionally wounded are still trying to make sense of it all. Two years and one less memorial service, three years and one less wreath laid. Six years and it’s as if it happened a hundred years ago. I know that I will never forget. Never.
I had to grab a city bus from my truck to the subway station and found out that I would have to take the World Trade Center line into Manhattan. I got to Grand Central Station and hopped onto the subway, and within 15 minutes my heart was in my throat. I was there. I was at Ground Zero. Nobody had told me that the line would drop me off right in the middle of where the towers once stood. My feet felt like concrete as I walked through the station. There I was, looking through the chain fence where two massive buildings once stood, where thousands of people are now buried. An indescribable feeling wouldn’t leave me.
In spite of the feeling, I was in New York City for the first time, and first on my “to do” list was to get warm. I quickly discovered that the fleece I had brought was no match for the dry New York cold. This was my first taste of the city, buying mittens from a street vendor at the World Trade Center for three dollars. He wanted a Hamilton but quickly changed his mind and settled for the Washington’s.
I didn’t even get two blocks away after that before getting ambushed by another vendor. But hey, carpe ibidem, seize the moment. He had a South African ruck sack for $20, and I had been looking for one for quite some time. It was pretty funny to talk to him. The whole young American chicky truck driver novelty paid off. I only had seven bucks in my pocket so I asked him where an ATM was. He told me I could have it for the seven dollars, and I told him I’d be right back. He wasn’t going to let me out of his sight without selling me the bag. So for seven dollars I got my ruck sack.
Next on my New York City experience was to get a real New York hotdog. But as I turned away from the clothing vendor, I was stunned. There at Ground Zero, were hawkers. People had gone onto media websites, printed pictures, and were selling them for $20. That was beyond low. It’s something you just don’t do, and I was furious about it. Thankfully, the responsibility for a $110,000 semi truck helped keep me back from doing something I would regret. I ended up finding a Subway before a hotdog stand, and my stomach was allies with my legs. So I quickly downed a sandwich and carried on with my adventure.
With a full tummy and warm fingers, my mind could start taking in all that Manhattan is again. If you have ever seen a movie that is set in New York City, chances are you have seen the bellhops in their top hats and tuxedos. Guess what, they’re real! Some of them are even good looking. The only problem is that I couldn’t find one that wasn’t married. Maybe next time. One of the bellhops was kind enough to point me in the direction of the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, located across the street from where the towers once stood. It was very quiet in the building, I didn’t even hear a whisper. But why would I? The second you enter the center, you see the names and faces of the lost. Walk a little further and you see the charred remains of a window from one of the airplanes. Next to it is the split-in-two turnout jacket and the SCBA (air) pack that experienced such a forceful blow that it made the air bottle explode, forming a large hole in it. This is where I nearly fell. As I felt like I needed to sit down, there was a presence. It felt like I was being held up. It felt like a firefighter was picking me up. After I left the center I could not shake the image from my mind. Even Times Square all lit up seemed dimmed. Three hundred and forty three ran into the buildings that day and never came back.
A year goes by, and people by the tens of thousands attend memorial services; some for family, for coworkers, for complete strangers. The emotionally wounded are still trying to make sense of it all. Two years and one less memorial service, three years and one less wreath laid. Six years and it’s as if it happened a hundred years ago. I know that I will never forget. Never.
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