People you work with

Been at my department about 15 years. Been in public safety in some capacity a little over 20 years so I have worked with more than a few folks at my job. I will preface this by saying all in all we have a very solid group of guys on our department. No real jackasses or anything like that. We have very little turnover and probably 3/4 of our guys have been there over 10 years department wide. I am #3 overall seniority wise at my FD for firefighters and also the senior FF at my station. Being a smaller department we simply do not have a ton of admin/officer spots so you can literally be a FF almost your whole career if you stay.

We are broken down over 3 shifts at a couple of stations so at any given time we have 5-8 people at our station. I can say without a doubt that in the 4 years I have been on this shift without questions its the best group overall I have ever worked with. Makes coming to work something i do not dread. We are all middle aged just about with families. There is zero drama or bickering. We have a great company officer who treats you like a man and backs you up when needed. We do our jobs plus a little extra every shift and try to leave things better than when we got there. No one is a slacker and everyone is extremely competent. Very little BS and all of us are friends away from work and know and care about each other's families. We don't have any slugs and just believe in doing the best we can do. We also believe in laughing a lot and staying loose.

I guess the thought hit me as I was at shift change this morning just how lucky I was. You see a lot of negative comments about jobs or coworkers on here but having a job you love plus getting to work with good people makes a big difference. I may never get rich doing what I am doing but I am more than thankful for the work and those I work with.

The people you work with really makes or breaks your job. We spend most of our time with our co-workers and if they are not good people it can bleed over into our personal lives and effect our families. We have a couple guys that are not worth a crap and drive me nuts. We have lost a few good guys that I really enjoyed working with. I run a service truck now so I do not have to deal with them as much, but if I were back in the shop I would not be working for the company any longer.

Mark that is where I am at my job. I am 3 in seniority, and the people I work with are all good people who do their job's as well as what needs to be done. We are like a big family. My biggest complaint is generally about the companies we do work for and not the people here at the work shop. By the way I am the Production manager at a sheltered work shop and over see the work of about 100 handicapped employees. It is a very rewarding job, but I know I will never get rich doing it.

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Originally Posted by fxdwgkd

The people you work with really makes or breaks your job. We spend most of our time with our co-workers and if they are not good people it can bleed over into our personal lives and effect our families. We have a couple guys that are not worth a crap and drive me nuts. We have lost a few good guys that I really enjoyed working with. I run a service truck now so I do not have to deal with them as much, but if I were back in the shop I would not be working for the company any longer.

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Most definitely. Good people make a good job better. Just kinda nice to have so many good guys all on one shift like we have.We had a new guy start last week that really seems like he is gonna fit right in. We told him off the bat that we will not let him fail. We can work with him to get him up to speed on anything except laziness. We can't fix that and we don't tolerate it. So far he has been a good hiring decision. You can just tell that he is gonna be a good one.

You are very lucky. Cherish the moments you have in a work environment like that because I think they are becoming less and less common. Back when I worked in the trades, I worked for a company that was like that. There was six of us and work was enjoyable. I would help and support everyone I worked with. For the last seven year I have worked in a very different setting. There are over 50 people and honestly I have never seen a more entitled and lazy group in my life. I enjoy certain aspects of my job, but on certain days the people I work with can make the job miserable. I try my hardest to stay positive around them, but one of my biggest flaws in life is I often have zero tolerance for laziness and needless drama.

The people I work with are great. We are like a family.
On the other hand some of the people I work for suck.

Good for you. I wish it were the same where I'm at. Management has taken a hands off approach to the slackers and eff ups and rides the productive guys harder. This is a relatively new approach, it wasn't always this way. It's definitely a corrosive atmosphere here, which is a shame as it wasn't this way until the last 5 years or so. Morale is just about non existent. I guess HR is trying to avoid conflict at all costs ?

In the big picture though, it's a job and I treat it like that - I'm conscientious of my performance but the days of going above and beyond are over. I won't compromise my work but I refuse to play clean up for the slackers.

As fxwgkd mentioned, the saving grace in my position is I work out of a service truck, most of the time alone. On assignments where multiple guys are required, we more or less use what little influence we have left to avoid working with certain guys. It suck it has to be that way but it is what it is.

I'm not a FF by trade but do spend alot of time around them,and without a doubt some of the most enjoyable experiences in my career. I alway make sure to stick around for breakfast and lunch and when the wife asks me what I want for dinner and I reply nothing I worked at the Fire house today she understands.

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Originally Posted by Mark Perry

Most definitely. Good people make a good job better.

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Without a doubt. I seem to be working with a great group of guys at this job.

Mark I've seen a lot of your posts and some of the comments about work, I'd say looking from the outside you should feel very "fortunate" to work with the group of people you're around. I work in an industry that is full of cynicism, probably due to working for clients that are quasi government or State/Federally funded, that has a trickle down effect to those like myself that are in the industry. Negativity runs rampant and that can make work a real chore. Especially when there isn't enough gratifying work to go around. Lots of people in positions that aren't qualified, lots of people with "managers' titles but without the people skills to "manage" a dog kennel. Money only goes so far and you have to feel like you're accomplishing something each day otherwise you give the negativity an opportunity to grow on yourself.

My own career path, I look back at my days in college (and a couple after graduating) and I found much more gratification in swinging a hammer and being around a gang of guys that worked for what they produced in a days time. Not a great commentary on the white collar world.

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Originally Posted by Alan S

Without a doubt. I seem to be working with a great group of guys at this job.

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On the other hand, they say if you cannot spot the a-hole, you're it. :laugh:

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Originally Posted by krindgen

Mark I've seen a lot of your posts and some of the comments about work, I'd say looking from the outside you should feel very "fortunate" to work with the group of people you're around. I work in an industry that is full of cynicism, probably due to working for clients that are quasi government or State/Federally funded, that has a trickle down effect to those like myself that are in the industry. Negativity runs rampant and that can make work a real chore. Especially when there isn't enough gratifying work to go around. Lots of people in positions that aren't qualified, lots of people with "managers' titles but without the people skills to "manage" a dog kennel. Money only goes so far and you have to feel like you're accomplishing something each day otherwise you give the negativity an opportunity to grow on yourself.

My own career path, I look back at my days in college (and a couple after graduating) and I found much more gratification in swinging a hammer and being around a gang of guys that worked for what they produced in a days time. Not a great commentary on the white collar world.

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My wife works in the white collar world and I can say its not for me. I respect the heck out of what she has to go through at times but she is good at it and now that she is fairly entrenched in the upper management levels she seems to be able to handpick her employees more and her stress level has went down a bit.

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Originally Posted by 188Musky

On the other hand, they say if you cannot spot the a-hole, you're it. :laugh:

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I just go to the mirror and I can find the one I work with.....:laugh:

:thumb up2:

The people I work with are great for the most part. What sucks are managers that are more worried about their bonus twice a year than they are giving us what we need to get the job done right. I don't mind killing myself to work a miracle every once in a while, but when you push yourself too hard work gets sloppy and accidents happen. I'm the resident stickler for safety. Right now my boss is out for a while from his motorcycle wreck, another guy is out recovering from a fully knee replacement, and one guy had issues at home and is moving back home out of state. They're being stingy with hours and 72 hours got wasted this week because the guy that's no longer with us and the knee replacement guy both got a combined 72 hours. With my boss that was in the wreck out management isn't trusting the department heads filling in to make the schedule. There's been a lot of stupid mistakes made by management and we're getting sick of it. One thing I'd love to see a manager do is call a meeting to say they messed up. The day one of them does that will be the day hell freezes over.

Boy are you ever lucky. I'll just leave it at that.

When I retired, I was on the top of the seniority list, in our 6 state area. Closest one behind me was 8 years back. "Most" of the guys were on their game, of course there are the ones that aren't. The ones that aren't, just cause problems for the good ones.

Like Bilgerat mentioned---- management is to blame for not taken care of the problems. The boss that hired me, was a very fair guy, but work came first. And no one got by slacking. After he retired, the next boss was a great guy, do your job, and he went out of his way for you. The next 2 were over their heads, had no people skills, had no control. After I was forced to retire, the bosses were chit canned.

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Originally Posted by Mark Perry

I just go to the mirror and I can find the one I work with.....:laugh:

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What goes around comes around. Birds of a feather flock together.

It doesn't surprise me at all that you've got a great bunch of guys to work with.:thumb up2:

I think the keys to a good workplace are a sense of humor about human behavior, a positive attitude where venting is allowed, but someone always shifts the focus to the positive afterwords, and leadership with accountability among everyone employed.

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Originally Posted by Mark Perry

We can work with him to get him up to speed on anything except laziness. We can't fix that and we don't tolerate it. So far he has been a good hiring decision. You can just tell that he is gonna be a good one.

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good deal, Lazy/sorry people are my biggest pet peeve....they also tend to be the biggest complainers

I agree I am worried about retiring. My Firehouse family will be missed I have spent 1/3rd of y life with tem for over 25 years.