247: Perception, Integrity, & Hiding the Mop.

What's your motivation? In the firehouse, there are a million "unwritten rules." From leaving "veto in the toilet" to making sure there's "water on the ground" after washing the rig, many tasks are done simply to prove they were done. In this episode, Nole and Kevin dive deep into this unique aspect of firehouse culture, exploring the line between maintaining perception and acting with true integrity. They discuss whether our actions are driven by a need for recognition or by a commitment to doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. It's a fun, insightful look at the traditions of the fire service and a challenging personal inventory for men everywhere.

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Transcript

Nole (00:14.094)
Welcome back to the Fire You Carry podcast. Today's episode was inspired by finding myself at work doing something for the explicit purpose of making sure that someone else knew that I did that thing. And the thought process that came into my brain and what I started thinking about after that was why am I doing this? Am I doing this for the recognition of others or am I doing it because it's the right thing to do? And so in this episode, Kevin and I

dig pretty deep into subjects which on the surface don't deserve the level of depth or attention paid to them. But it was a really fun conversation. And I think that the thought process and the discussion here is actually incredibly valuable. And if nothing else, it's a fun window into the firehouse culture. If you're outside of that and the ridiculousness of some aspects of that. And then if you're inside, it's also, I believe entertaining in the same way.

because we break down and go into things that a lot of us just take for granted. And maybe some of those things deserve a little bit more thought put into them as to why we're doing the things that we do and are they valuable? Should we continue to do them? We had fun recording this episode. I know you'll have fun listening to it. Enjoy.

Nole (01:38.838)
as we are lazy and as we try to find workarounds, it changes and it becomes less fun. It just isn't as fun to pretend like you did something just so the guys think you did it. That's not fun. That doesn't feel good because it's not right. And you know it in your heart. So that's probably a good, a good gauge too on like how you're behaving in your personal life, whatever you do is does this feel good and right? Or does it feel like I'm trying to skate by on less? And that's your gauge. That's the

That's the yes or no on whether or not you're doing the right thing.

Kevin (02:26.326)
Welcome to the Fire You Carry podcast. Today is Halloween, Olsoff. What are you dressing as?

Good question. Good question. So I bought a ghillie suit. Do you know what a ghillie suit is? Sniper camouflage. I one. I didn't create one. I was busy creating Indy's costume, which is kind of like Knight's armor, all made out of leather, which is rad. So I was busy with that. And I actually had some friends as a kid, Brandon Setter and Nathan Wee May.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Did you one? You didn't create one?

Nole (03:01.87)
who created their own ghillie suits and it was a long and arduous process. I didn't want anything to do that. So I bought a Chinese ghillie suit for like $40. And I gotta tell you, I'm pretty impressed with this thing. So I basically look like a green Wookie in this thing. But the idea is Heather usually chooses my costumes to coordinate with whatever her costume is.

Yeah, you guys always kind of do a family thing. Yeah, it's cool.

And so this year she's going as a mushroom. Avery made a hat years ago that's like a mushroom, know, the top of the mushroom. so Heather took that and repainted it, made it look really cool, like a mushroom that we saw in Alaska on our trip. So basically the idea is I'm, I'm Moss. I'm, I'm a mossy Noel and I'm going to background. Yeah. I'm just going to.

I'm going to go and like curl up on the ground at her feet. So she has some moscow rot. So that's the idea. I like it, but it looks actually kind of terrifying walking around in this thing. You just look like a giant. Int Bush tree thing. So it'll be fun.

Just blend in.

Kevin (04:15.21)
Did you ever see the famous, my sister is from San Francisco or she lives there and she's been there for 30 years or something. But there was the famous guy down in like the wharf who is the Bush man. And he just had like this. He just had like a Bush. He had like a branch of a Bush and he would sit there and people, you know, it's busy. It's the, you know, the San Francisco wharf there. All the tourists are walking by and he would just like remove the Bush and like this. And he was completely famous and he was.

There's videos. think it was like the start of YouTube, but before there was ever YouTube, this dude is out there with just like this branch and he would sit there. It was absolutely funny.

It's really funny. My friends who had ghillie suits when we were kids, teenagers, Brandon and Nathan, they both loved to put them on in camp because obviously we're Hume and they would just go stand on the side of the road somewhere and just see how long they could stand there before someone realized that that was a person. And no one would ever even notice because you just blend right in. And if you're not moving, people are just going about their business. So you become practically invisible.

That's great, Brandon's great.

Yeah. I wonder if he still has that thing. We should ask him. He spent weeks building it.

Kevin (05:28.366)
I mean, this is a, mean, talk about the beaties for a second, the diabetes. mean, like I'm looking at this morning, my wife made them like, know, pumpkin pancakes. She has some like form that she makes pancakes in and it comes out in the shape of a pumpkin. But then, you know, they got butter and syrup on pancakes for breakfast. Their teacher in my other daughter's class said that they're having like a donut party in the morning.

That's fun.

Nole (05:49.986)
Got a preload.

Kevin (05:57.858)
because they did well on their math test, you know? And then I can only assume what they're eating during the day. And then it's just gonna be an entire pillowcase full of candy later. You know what mean? Like, this is just, it's out of control.

It is out of control. I tell you what, Heather is already talking about limiting what Indy gets to eat. And for the past few years, she's done this where she'll go through his hoard, his hall, and remove the stuff that she considers to be particularly toxic. So she will immediately take out anything that has food coloring or dye in it. So like skittles are out, that type of thing. I know skittles are tasty, but those aren't allowed.

Yeah, those are bad. got the red 40 and the yellow, whatever. So she'll do that. And then, and then she'll limit him for whatever's left to a certain quantity per day that he's allowed to eat, which is different from how I was raised. Because when I was a kid, you got your candy, you got your hall. And then we went home with my sisters and my friends and we would all dump out our halls and compare. And then we would trade.

All right.

Kevin (07:05.346)
Yeah, you'd get a barter.

Yeah, you got a barter, which is super fun. You can try to get what you want and, you know, give away the bad stuff, but that never works. You had to make reasonable trades. But then it was kind of just like I was on my own. I could do whatever I wanted, which is not ideal, especially for somebody like me. Maybe that's why I have the problem I do now where I just

But I noticed this was like, my wife will try to ration it, you know, and it's just, it's way too much candy for any child who weighs like 60 pounds. But my daughter is just, my youngest is pretty sneaky. She'll like hide it under her bed and we'll find like butterfingers wrappers months, months down the line, you know.

Last year, Indy, at some point we were cleaning out under his bed and there were tons of candy wrappers under there. I'm like, where'd these come from? Of course we knew he had been into his stash the year prior, but we throw a lot of it away to be honest with you and it's tough on the kids, but I mean, you you've got kids, you understand what happens when they eat that quantity of sugar. They freak out. It's not good for their brains. But at the same time,

It is.

Nole (08:12.878)
It is but at the same time I'm not in a place where I'm gonna say a We're not doing it because it's a really fun tradition that we enjoy and then B I'm not gonna say you can't have any of it because I believe that it's not healthy for you, but that in Reasonable quantities, it's not really gonna do any permanent lasting damage So you got it and you got a you know, you at some point you got to live you can't just in my opinion You can't just cut everything out. I mean that

That's just not fun. Life is...

It is amazing to think about whatever these corporations, the Mars company or whoever it is that said every holiday we're going to tag towards massive amounts of, you know, like think of Easter. It's our the holiest day of the year. It's now about Peeps chocolate bunnies. Are you a Cadbury head guy? You can't be friends if you are. But they're around.

Cadbury eggs and

No, I don't like those, but they're.

Nole (09:08.782)
No, I don't really like them. I love the we can't talk about Easter right now. We're only talking about Halloween. We'll discuss that when it comes.

I was, I was laughing with a buddy reminiscing about like when we went to my dad's house, know, with the divorced families, but he lived in a rough neighborhood in LA and we'd have to transport. We'd have to, we were like the poor kids that would go to the nice neighborhood. And then park blocks out because our car, obviously the, you know, the 28 Dodson, you know, did not blend in, you know what mean? So we had to park way out and walk in, you know, with our, it was pretty funny.

Yeah, you go to the nice neighborhood.

Nole (09:35.862)
It didn't belong.

Nole (09:43.852)
That is funny. When I was growing up at Hume, you know, it's everybody lives far away from each other because it's a mountain community. It's like where I live now. And so you couldn't walk from house to house. I mean, you could, but it just wasn't reasonable. So we would all, we would all get into one of the big vans that one of the families owned and we would drive around because there only 10 or 12 of us kids total in the whole place. And then we would drive to each person's house that said they would have candy. And because there were so few of us kids trick or treating, cause the staff was small and because there were

so few houses to visit. Most people would buy like full size candy bars. we love that. It was amazing. where we're at now, we can't trick or treat in our neighborhood because it's so spread out and there's so many vacant homes because they're vacation homes. So we go to the Arrowhead village and walk around to the businesses, the businesses give away candy. And then there's one neighborhood and we haven't actually ever visited it, but there's one neighborhood in Arrowhead that has semi flat streets.

Nice dude.

Kevin (10:32.142)
You

Nole (10:41.58)
And that neighborhood is really into Halloween. They'll decorate and people go there from all over the mountain. It's, it's the neighborhood that you can trick or treat in. So Indy has requested to do that this year. So we'll see how that goes, but we've driven past it before and it's chaos. Like there's people parking like a mile away to go walk through it. Cause it's the only neighborhood you can treat and unless you go down the hill. So

New

Kevin (11:03.818)
Yeah, I wonder, do they get a disclosure when they move into that neighborhood? They're like, Halloween's a thing here, bro. Like, you better have full bars, decorate, and get ready for madness.

I hope so. know that those, those neighborhoods that do like the really big Christmas things where it's like an established everybody comes and drives through, they have homeowners associations for those places and you can't buy a house unless you're willing to sign a document stating that you will decorate your house. they wish. No, you can't. else.

Yeah, after we visit. The HOA Nazis will come after you.

They'll get you. don't want Karen coming after you.

We'll have fun tonight. think that should be a blast.

Nole (11:39.852)
Yeah, you guys are going out.

Yeah. Yeah, we're going out. You know, it's never been my thing, dude. I'm definitely, I like being in front of people, but I don't know. It's never been my thing dressing up. I think my daughters are going as like minions or something for all those movies. And do you know who El Macho is from one of the movies? Yeah. El Macho. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to the model family. They want me to be grew, but I'm going to probably surprise them and just be El Macho or something.

Are you dressing up?

Kevin (12:12.14)
Just to embarrass them.

That's proper. That's appropriate. That's funny.

Yeah, so we'll see how goes. What do we got today? You had something you were telling me on the drive home this morning.

Yeah, dude. So I was, I was at work recently and a couple of things happened in rapid succession that made me think, man, I need an episode about this. And some of this stuff we've mentioned on the podcast before, but basically what I want to talk about this morning is veto in the toilet and water on the ground, which you will immediately understand when I'm talking about another County guys will as well. But, for those that don't, let me just, let me just tell you a little story, a little narrative. So I'm at work and

I'm working with an overtime captain and he is talking about another individual that he's worked with that doesn't do what this captain perceives and really what is his, his bare minimum job, checking out a piece of apparatus. And so he's talking about this at lineup, how this guy doesn't do this and how he needs to be corrected and somebody needs to step in and make sure that he at least pulls the rig out and checks it out. And so he's talking about this and I'm listening to it.

Nole (13:23.322)
And that morning, because I'm at my station, I'm working with this guy. go out and I've been there for a couple of days in a row and we have a patrol at our station that's unmanned. So we have our frontline engine and then we have this unmanned patrol. And as the fireman, it's my job to take care of the patrol. So I have, I do the checkouts, I wash it, I keep it clean. I make sure it has fuel and dev, you know, all the things that you do and full disclosure.

If I'm there for multiple days and I do that on day one, I don't usually do the full regalia checkout the next day because the rig hasn't moved. I know that the day before it was good. And so I'll fill out the log book and I'll look at the BAS I'll do the basics, but I won't usually pull it out and wash it. won't do the whole thing.

The old pencil whip, yeah.

You not even test the pump, right? Because it worked yesterday and it didn't move. So it should still work. Now that's not really the correct thing to do, right? You should check out your gear a hundred percent every day regardless. But that's how I operate. But because this captain mentioned this about this other person, right? He's not talking about me. Then now I feel like, okay, I need to pull this rig out and I need to do the full regalia because now this captain, he cares about this stuff. He's been watching this other guy and his

verbally complaining about how he's not doing it. And I don't want to get thrown into that boat. I pull it. I pulled the rig out and it doesn't need a full bath. And you and I have talked about this a lot, right? You got, you got your different ways to give an engine a bath full on water everywhere. So you know, for when it's really dirty and then you got the light misting that we can do right to knock just dust off. And then you got the wet towel where you don't even bring the hose out. You just get some water and a towel and you just kind of polish the paint.

Kevin (14:41.634)
living.

Nole (15:08.076)
because it really doesn't need it because it was clean the day before. So you kind of got this gamut and the patrol is clean. I cleaned it the day before I gave it a bath, but I pull it out and I'm like, well, I could wet towel it, but then the captain isn't going to know that I washed it. So I need to get the hose out and put water on it and make sure there's water on the ground so that he knows I washed the rig. And then I stopped, I stopped myself and I go, this is ridiculous. What am I doing? And

That's so that whole thing. And then I thought back to a conversation that I had when I was just a brand new fireman. And I know I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but it bears repeating. was a brand new fireman and I was working somewhere over time and a salty old fireman told me this little bit of wisdom from him. He said, kid, as a fireman, you don't even have to clean the bathrooms.

He's like, we're required to do it every day, but you don't even have to actually do it. He's like, if you just go into the bathroom and take some veto, which is the cleaning spray the county provides for us or liquid, it's not a spray. It's like a, I don't know.

Death Chemical.

If you just take that and spray it in the water, the bullet looks like you clean the toilet because then now the water in the bowl is blue. And now it looks like you clean the bathroom. And now when you're, when you're captain or your engineer, whoever goes into use restroom, they think you cleaned it and you're good. And at the time I was like, that's, that's cheating. But, but you know, I heard him, I understood what he was saying. And that is something that in our culture, like fully exists that there are certain things that are done.

Kevin (16:32.088)
Yeah.

Nole (16:46.998)
in a visible way to make sure that the rest of the team knows that you did them. And the veto in the toilet and water on the ground from washing the rig are the two biggest examples of that.

This is hilarious. I want to back up. First, what I have learned is if somebody mentions something to you like questioning how they do things, it means that they want you to do that. It's like a passive aggressive thing, at least in our fire department. Like we had a fire the other day. They used one of the stinger lines off the bumper line off the front. And the guys washed it down and did the things and then started putting it back. And then a captain came around and said, hey,

Do you guys roll the hose normally after you do? And then a couple of guys are like, no, we're good. We're just going to put it back. And I'm like, that means he wants you to roll the hose and it's Joe Barrios. My boy was famous for this. He'd be like, do you normally put butter in that? And then that means he doesn't want butter.

See you

Nole (17:37.152)
Right, that's right, rule.

Nole (17:48.206)
Right. That's very, that's very astute.

Right. And so like, think, but so many people just that just goes way over their head. But you know, if you've been on for a little bit, you start to realize that, this is their way of trying to not like control you, but also say this is what we should do.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is an interesting tactic. And I do see that used all the time. I don't know this over time captain well enough to know if that's what he was doing, but it's likely what he was doing. You're totally correct. And it's interesting because like from a captain's perspective, I think it's totally appropriate not to micromanage your crew, but there are certain things that certain captains like. And so you're right. When they ask about that stuff or when they talk and jam up someone else who's not present about something that can be a very subtle or unsubtle way.

of saying, Hey, make sure you do this today because I care about it without directly telling you.

Yes. Yeah. you're the things like, or the compliment that's not actually a compliment, like, sweet mustache, bro. That means he doesn't like it. You should probably trim it or like, like, all right. Like I written like sweet hoodie and you guys wear that all day or that's a, that means probably you need to put on new uniforms.

Nole (19:00.47)
Yeah, that's not appropriate attire.

Well, there's a, there's a thing, right? mean, I have to assume that, you know, lot of these fire stations have been open since the 1940s, right? And that they're, they've never closed. It's 24 seven operations that there has to be come from it. And I'm assuming it's the military. Yeah. Because this household runs 24 seven that there has to be some, like, if we give the guys leeway to say, you don't have to clean them every day, then we would take a mile and then.

you'd have disgusting bathrooms. But if we say like, it just has to be done every day, this is what you do, right? Then at least we know that like it has to be done. Now, do you clean your toilets at your house every day? No, and I don't either, right? And it doesn't need to, right? But in a fire station, if you don't clean the toilets and you don't spray the things and you don't take out the trash, somebody will say something like, oh, what the hell are these guys doing? You know what mean?

Yeah. So I think there's probably value in it, but you're right. mean, sometimes it seems absurd.

It does. And it's interesting. So I feel like there's kind of two angles to come at this. And one of them is the cultural angle and the reality of the fire service. And the other one is who are you as a man? What's your system of belief? What's your integrity? Why are you doing these things? And what's your motivation? And does that, does that really matter from a cultural standpoint? I've heard similar advice given to brand new guys.

Nole (20:31.872)
many times about how to clean the bathrooms and how to wash the rig and how to do all kinds of things around the station in order that the rest of the crew knows that you did it. Like leaving a bread trail or leaving a of bread crumbs, right? And the veto left in the toilet bowl after you clean the toilet is the best example because our bathroom is just like you just highlighted. They're all old. They're beat up. So when I come in in the morning,

and I look at the bathroom, it looks old and beat up. And when I clean it, it looks old and beat up. You usually can't tell unless it's been a week in between cleanings, which sometimes happens, then you usually can't tell that it was done. And so the only thing is that the trash is taken out and that there's veto in the toilet bowl, right? That's like the, the sign I did this. And I've done that my entire career. I religiously clean the bathrooms.

almost every shift. are some shifts where I've skipped it for sure, but I try to do it every day that I'm at work. And I've always just left the veto in the toilet bowl, but because that's just what you do, right? As a County fireman, that's what you do. And thinking through this recently, I started thinking like, should I flush the toilet after I clean the bathroom? What's my motivation behind that? Am I cleaning the bathroom so that the other guys know that I clean the bathroom or am I cleaning the bathroom because that's part of my daily routine and my job?

and it's the right thing to do. And does the motivation there matter? And when you come out into the world of washing the rig, which again is part of your daily routine, it's part of your daily tasks is doing so in such a way that other people will know is that somehow negative because you're seeking other people's approval instead of just doing the right thing because it's the right thing, which is back to the, you know, the classic thing we've talked about a million times and so

So of every other podcast or in the space, the shopping cart test, right? Do you take the shopping cart back? No one's ever going to know. You're not going to get any accolades, but do you do it?

Kevin (22:38.562)
Dude, it's interesting. Perception is everything, right? Yeah. You have to like, especially when you're on probation, you know, like guys are trying to figure you out and see what you're all about. But I remember somebody telling me like, we have those red rags that you work on the rigs with stuff. Yeah. And there's fire departments that I know in SoCal that the probationary guy always has a red rag on them. Right. And you just walk in with a purpose.

and he's always just moving around. Is there anything going on? No, but he has a red rag and he's walking around and this is the percei- That something's going on, right? And we value that, right? It's ridiculous. Everyone knows that he's not doing anything and he's just walking around aimlessly, but it's like a perception that he's doing something, right? And you have to do that for the entire year or else you're the bum. You're a complete bozo and guys will write you off, right? I remember this one instance too, like-

It's like he's up to something.

Nole (23:28.248)
Yeah.

Kevin (23:31.606)
we have to give drills, right? You have to give drills and that if you don't know what it is, it's like you have to give a 30 minute presentation, orally on whatever tool or whatever tactic or whatever thing that you're doing. Well, I get on my first spot in probation was up in the desert. I got sent to different fire stations every day for me to get experience. That's what the captain wanted me to do. And so these are guys that I don't know that don't know what drill I have given. They don't know what it is.

And so over and over again, I gave them the same SCBA drill that I memorized and I had dialed. And I knew it was just perception. was like, man, I can do this over and over again. And people were like, the kid's dialed. And I learned that I could just give this drill over and over again to these random firemen. You know what mean? They don't know the difference. Am I learning anything? No. But I was keeping up the facade or the perception that, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do on probation. So there's these unsaid rules, right?

I know our buddy Brian Noss talks about that. There's like a million unsaid rules that are culture. It's culture in the fire department of where you sit and you don't look at the TV and you're supposed to make coffee. And we used to put the paper out and you put the flag up, you do all these things that are not written down. I don't think they're written down, but if you don't do them, you're the bomb.

written down anywhere.

Nole (24:48.718)
Dude, and that brings up such an interesting point because I received that same advice early on in my career about the drill. The guy called it your hip pocket drill and that you always had it ready. So when you went and worked overtime somewhere or got assigned somewhere else, you could always give a really good drill and no one knew that it was the same drill because you were working with different crews all the time. I have given that advice to other new guys because it served me so well. It served you really well. And it's really interesting.

in the context of our cultural system because

as was illustrated with this captain complaining about this other guy. When you're not executing, you're usually not going to have someone come to you, at least not early on and say, Hey, why aren't you doing this? It's going to be talked about around the table with other people and other crews. And they're going to be, you're, they're going to be building your reputation without your knowledge. And if they think that you're not cleaning the bathrooms or you're not putting the flags up or whatever it is that you're not doing,

You may not hear about that until well on down the road when your reputation is already established as being the guy who doesn't do his job. And maybe you were doing it, but you just didn't leave the signs and the telltale trail for them to follow. But by, but at this point that's now your reputation. It's already known it's too late. there is, there is a necessity to engage in this stuff, at least early on, because your reputation does matter deeply.

in this job. And of course, we're assuming that you're doing the right thing, right? If you're not doing the right thing, then you deserve that reputation and you have to deal with the consequences of that. But it is an interesting thing because if I'm talking to a brand new guy, I'm not going to tell him, Hey man, I want to make sure that you're doing these things for the right reason and not for the recognition because no one's going to ask you, Hey, did you clean the toilet today? And

Nole (26:47.862)
you shouldn't be in a position where you're sitting there at lineup and Cap goes, hey, you got anything today, kid? And then you give him a list of the things that you did. Like no one's going to appreciate that. And they're going to go, what are you talking about? Yeah, okay. So what you clean the toilets? Like, why are you telling us that? Like, you're not going to do that. So you have to let them find out another way. So in a cultural context, you kind of have to do those things.

It's important, but I think it goes down to routine, right? Like, and in with men, think routine is important because routine is habits. And we talked about like our buddy Chris Juano says like, Hey, what's this guy's program? And we will value, I will got like, there's guys like Billy McDougal or Josh Nessa who I have, who have a very strict routine, right? And they go and they do a thorough checkout no matter if they're on the day before. And I really respect that. Right.

And I lean towards lazy, right? I lean towards, don't always do that, right? I want to, I've got other things in my mind or whatever, but I really value their routine. And it's, and I think that routine in an emergency setting says, Hey, I routinely do this thing over and over and over again. So I know exactly where my radio is. know what channel is on. I know where my equipment is. I know it's working and you and I have found things. I remember we, we have found things that aren't right, that don't work.

that maybe the bottle is empty or this is a, and so there's absolute value in routine. And I think even in your personal life, right? I know that like you are your habits, right? If I routinely read the Bible daily, if I routinely work out, if I routinely do different things, like I'm going to be a better person down the line. So I think there's a ton of value. I think when we, I definitely am guilty of cutting corners because I'm like, I already did that, I already did that. Or it seems like.

you know, my ADD kicks in and I'm like, get distracted or I go do something else. But I think that routine is actually, it's pretty beneficial.

Nole (28:44.45)
Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. When I was thinking about this, I, there were a couple of not, not direct quote verses in my brain, cause I don't have these memorized, I knew peripherally that there were some verses that addressed doing things for the awareness of others. And that's your, primary purpose. And so I went and found them and there's a few others, but just for the context of this episode in Matthew chapter six, basically verses one through five,

Jesus is talking about this and I'll just read the first verse. He says, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them for then you will have no reward from your father in heaven. And he goes on to talking, to talk about giving to the needy, but doing it so that other people can see and how we should do that sort of thing in such a clandestine manner that we're not letting our right hand know what our left hand is doing.

He talks about praying on the street corner so that people can see you praying and that that, recognition by the other people around is your reward in full, that there's no other further reward because you've got it here on earth instead of later on in heaven. So there's that whole idea. But of course that is all referring to things that are done in service to God, right? Those are all righteousness. So does that then have any bearing on what we're talking about where you would do something

in order to let the crew know that you did it. And I think you can make the connection to Colossians 3 23, where it says, whatever you do work hardily as for the Lord and not for man. And then a couple about a sentence later, it said for you are serving the Lord Christ. And in that, in that first sentence, whatever you do,

That's everything, right? That's cleaning the toilets, that's washing the rig, that's checking out your gear, whatever. It's this idea that all the mundane stuff that we do that you wouldn't normally look at and go, that's my service to the Lord. This is saying actually everything that you do should be treated that way. And so if that's the case, then I think the connection can be made that Noel should clean the bathroom.

Nole (31:00.32)
And when he's done cleaning the bathroom, he should flush the veto down the toilet because it doesn't need to sit in there. And I shouldn't worry about the perception of the guys around me. I don't need their recognition that I clean the bathroom, right? I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do. It's part of my, it's part of my personal integrity. It's part of my service to the Lord and that this is where he's got me and this is what I'm required to do. I believe that and I'm probably going to start flushing the toilet when I clean it. But, but, but

I've been on for 16 years. I'm not untouchable, but I have established a reputation. It is what it is at this point. I'm not the new guy and I can probably get away with that. I can get away with checking out the rig and doing a wet towel wipe down because I know that's all it needs and not worry about putting water on the ground so that the guys think I washed the rig. And so I think there's a weird dichotomy here where the culture that we're in

And in certain circumstances, there are absolutely things that you're going to need to do to make sure that other people know that you are shouldering your part of the burden. But there's also other places I think where I personally need to adjust the reasons I'm doing things because my motivation is wrong. And it's not a huge deal because one way or another, I'm still doing the task. Right. But I do think that once this kind of thing comes into at least my brain, now I'm thinking about.

And I'm going, why am I cleaning this toilet? Am I cleaning this toilet so my captain knows that I cleaned the toilet or am I cleaning the toilet because it's the right thing to do? And it does that distinction matter. And I kind of feel like it does.

Yeah, that's deep and that's heavy. know, I don't think I'm at the point of I'm going to flush it down because I still want people's approval to know that like, but you're right. We do. I love the routine that we have is after lineup, we go do Wim Hof breathing and we pray over the day. And many times in the guy's prayer, whoever the cook is for the day gets to do the prayer. There's a reminder that we work for, we're working for God today. We're not working for the county, you know, or, or. And that I love that sometimes that reminder to say, Hey, I'm.

Kevin (33:05.036)
I'm going to do things with joy and I'm going to try to do things for him, not for anything else, because there's a lot of mundane, ridiculous things that we might have to do for the day that I don't necessarily agree on, but maybe there's a purpose. And so I think that's important to remember like who we actually work for, right? Like that's who are you working for today? And whatever you do, you should do with joy, however mundane that is.

And I think I'm probably going way too deep in the thought process on this and I'm probably going too extreme. It's something I've been known to do. So there probably is a middle ground here, which is more along the lines of what you just espouse, which is that you're going to do your routine. You're going to do your job because it's the right thing to do, but you're also going to conform to the cultural expectations and you're going to, you're going to be a part of that system as well. And because it's established that

we do these things and your captain and your engineer aren't always standing there holding your hands. So you got to let them know that you're doing your thing without verbally going and reporting to them every morning. Cause that's just annoying. Who did this? What did this? You know, no one wants that. So there's probably more of a nuanced balance here, but I just found the thought process really interesting and thinking about it in the context of going back to your personal life. Like you just brought up,

The shopping cart thing is the, it's just the epitome of this idea. So, and we've talked about that ad nauseam, but it's interesting for me to reflect on the rest of my personal life and go, are there other places in my life where I'm doing things strictly for the recognition that I did them? And what is that and why am I doing it? And is it important? Is it something that I need to keep doing? Because it's important that my wife knows I'm doing

you know, whatever it is taking out the trash or is that something that I should probably adjust and think differently about.

Kevin (35:06.998)
Well, it's interesting because this is a daily fight for me. I think I tend to go lazy. tend to default to selfish and self-centeredness, right? Same. And I know that there's value in some of the physical things that we do, like, going into the ice bath, that's never been a thing I want to do. But you kill that little bit of something that it's like, I don't want to do this, but I'm going to do it anyways. And I think making your bed.

You know what mean? Sometimes I don't want to do this, but I'm going to do it anyways. And like, I'm now by full disclosure, I don't do these things often, but I think those do transfer into something I'm working on recently is like, we've been married for 19 years in the beginning of relationship. I courted my wife, but selfishly I want, I want this woman. So I'm doing all the things with the roses and compliments and gifts and all those.

little notes and all those different things. Now, 19 years in, do I do that often? No. And so recently I've been trying to do the little things like setting her coffee cup out and writing her a little note, telling her butt looks cute, like whatever it is, is trying to continue that recording. And those, sounds ridiculous, but I have to remind myself to do those little things that maybe don't come naturally to me to go outside of my comfort zone a little bit to continue to do this. Now I want her to know

that I left the coffee cup out for her. I want her to know that. right. You know what mean? like we had Rick Cook on, he said, it's like, you got the crock pot, you're just getting it started, you know, so that later on that can bring fruit to our marriage later. But there are these ideas, like even in sobriety about they're talking about somebody who is an addict is very selfish and self-centered. all what it doesn't matter. Your addiction takes over your life. It doesn't matter what anyone else care. And they challenge a lot of addicts

early on in sobriety to do something for somebody else without being found out about. And daily, like it might as well be just taking the newspaper that's on the driveway and putting it on the front porch or, mean, little things, right? And I do think that there's value, a lot of value in that kind of thing, because we always want to be grandiose and get the vataboys for doing the right thing and having perceived from other people that he's a good moral person, right? But I like...

Nole (37:03.47)
Hmm.

Kevin (37:28.332)
a lot of the intentions. I think that we're terrible human beings by nature and that forcing ourselves to do something that doesn't feel comfortable is okay.

Yeah, I agree. All right, let me ask you this. So if in the past,

know if so in the past, I've been a part of a scenario where

I was working and we knew that the engineer wanted to wash the rig every single day and that he wanted to do a full water everywhere, soak the rig, soap it up every day. Yeah. Yeah. You might've been around. I don't know. Maybe you were there and perhaps, perhaps we wanted to avoid this entire watching because we had just done it the day before and it was completely unnecessary. And we had other things that we wanted to do, workout podcast nap, whatever.

I there.

Nole (38:26.656)
And so in order to preempt that while the engineer is busy having his coffee with the captain, doing whatever we go outside and no, we don't do it. And so there's two different ways to handle this. One is you go out and do it, right? You knock it out. Okay. That's right. And that's good. But if you go out there and because the rig is clean, you wet towel it. So you knock the dust off and then you take a hose and you put water all over the ground to make it look like you wash the rig. And then when he comes out, you're like, Hey, we already watched three. What else do want to do? And he's like, wow. Awesome. Well, we're good. Is that wrong?

I don't know. I really don't know. I think it's to me, that's the, this is the workaround, right? Like we're going to find the easier, the right.

Rigs clean. The rigs clean. I think when you take it to the, the, the place of being the guy who takes out the trash and squirts veto into the toilet water, but doesn't actually clean the bathroom. think, I think in that context, you're not doing the job. The job isn't done, but you're making it look like you did the job. So I think that is deceptive, but if the rig is clean and you dusted it off and it didn't need a full soap and wash,

then the only thing you're really doing is subverting this other guy's desire to use soap and copious amounts of water because you don't want to do it because it's extra work. takes longer and it's unnecessary. And for me personally, whenever I'm doing work that is unnecessary, it's hard for me. I want a reason that we're doing something. And so if I have a brand new clean shiny rig that was washed and he maybe even waxed the day before and we're now going to go out and soap and wash and wax it. I'm like, well, we just did this. This is totally unnecessary. That's difficult for me. I,

I get frustrated at that kind of stuff. And there's a lot of that that happens in our line of work. There's a lot of that that happens if you're in the military or law enforcement or any kind of government job. We do a lot of that kind of stuff, which maybe is why it frustrates me so much is I've been in those worlds forever. it's an interesting question.

Kevin (40:18.03)
It is an interesting question. one of the things I thought was interesting coming from the corporate world to the fire service is that the new guy would fight for dishes or fight to take out the trash or fight to hide the mop so he'd be the person to be the mop and do majority of the chores. But I finally had a senior salt dog fireman say, hey, man, like, this is a pride thing. You fought.

There's 10,000 guys waiting in line for your position. And this is your house. You take a pride thing that it's almost gratitude, right? Like you earned it. This is your station. This is your mom. These are your dishes. These are your trash cans that you earned a right to be here and that you should take pride in all the little mundane tasks. And this is yours. And I get it. We want to see that new guy hide them up. We want to see him be first in dishes. We want them to see like, and it comes to like almost a gratitude. And I think

Now, years removed, I think sometimes we don't feel as grateful for the job, right? And as grateful for the things that it's done and we forget how often we forget how hard we tried to get it, you know what mean? And so I think that's a good reminder. I think it's sometimes it's a good reminder to see those young kids, but I think you're right. Your intentions are, if you intend to be a POS and you're doing things and you know it doesn't feel right, well then it's not right.

Yeah. It's the motivation behind it.

It's the motivation.

Nole (41:48.866)
Dude, let me tell, let me, let me explain the mop hiding the mop thing because I used to have so much fun. We, did too. We all did when we were brand new on the job. So for those of you who aren't in the fire service, when you're brand new in your own probation, you're trying to do everything then just for the reasons that Kevin just talked about. So after a meal, usually dinner, you're going to be the first one up and you're going to be trying to do the dishes. You're going to do the dishes. You're going to physically fight so that you're the one doing the dishes because it's the right thing to do. But while you're doing the dishes, somebody else on your crew,

is going to go get the mop and they're going to mop the floor. But you don't want that because you want to mop the floor. You want to do everything because you're the new guy and you're trying to earn your way and you're trying to prove that you work hard and you want to be part of this. And the crew wants to take away your ability to mop the floor because they can see that it bothers you. So what you do is around three o'clock in the afternoon or whenever you go out and you take the kitchen mop and you hide it somewhere.

so that as you're doing the dishes, they go out and try to find it. They can't find it. They're looking for it. You finish the dishes, you go to where you hit it, and then you can mop the floor because now you physically have the mop in your possession. And of course the crew is going to go to where the mop normally hangs and it's not there. They know you hit it. They're frantically looking for it. So it's like this game and it's a blast. And people will like, they'll like you mentioned, they'll throw it on the roof. They'll put it in the closet with the water heater, you know, whatever they'll put it in their car. There's all kinds of different ways you can do it.

But when you succeed at that as the new guy and you do the dishes and then they're all like, you can see them, they're all running on the station, trying to find the mop. You surreptitiously go to where it is and then you mop the floor. Everyone laughs. They appreciate it. It's a, it's a good time. And that's just, that's just fun. It's good culture. And that's where this kind of stuff originates out of. And then it changes over time as you know, as we are lazy and as we try to find workarounds.

it changes and it becomes less fun. It just isn't as fun to pretend like you did something just so the guys think you did it. That's not fun. That doesn't feel good because it's not right. And you know it in your heart. So that's probably a good, a good gauge too on like how you're behaving in your personal life, whatever you do is does this feel good and right? Or does it feel like I'm trying to skate by on less and that's your gauge. That's the, that's the yes or no on whether or not you're doing the right thing.

Kevin (44:07.79)
Yeah, that's good culture. It's one of those things that I appreciate. And when you hang around off duty with firemen that you realize that a culture transfers over, you know, like they will not show up to your house without something without some treats or some LaCroix or something. Right. And that's, that's cool. When you walk into somebody's house, you should bring something that's part of our culture. When the dinner is over, the fireman, the first one up to start cleaning the kitchen. And I've been to family parties or whatever.

The guy is the first to get a plate, is the sits in the best chair and expects the women to take over and clean up the whole thing. And you're like, this dude's a bozo, right? And you immediately judge them. But we're so institutionalized that that's what we're like. We are accustomed to you that it feels so abnormal and so wrong when somebody doesn't follow that fire service culture. You know? And so I do think that there's good things like, Hey, I instill that in my kids. If you're going over to somebody's house, you should bring something and.

You should do your please and thank yous and you should ship in on the dinner and then you should also help clean up. You know, and I value that. And it could be a perception. I want that family to know that my family is, you and so that's maybe the motivation isn't that great, but I, but as a society, I think we do value that. Like, Hey, that person was not being completely selfish and was thinking of others.

Dude, I'll say this too. Where we're at as a department right now, and I think this is fair for the fire service in general, we're a young department. We have a lot of new people in all the ranks. And because of that, a lot of the traditions of old are starting to pass away because they didn't get passed on. And there's two sides to that coin. One of them is that the guys who have been around for a while, they need to pass this stuff on and they need to let the guys who are newer and younger.

No, hey, this is how we do this. And this is why, but for the newer guys, when something comes up, I think it's important to actually seek that out and go, Hey, in this kind of scenario, is there something, is there any kind of tradition that we would, how would we normally do this? And ask the guys who've been around longer, because they may not always think to share with you, Hey, if you're borrowing a rig to go test on or practice on for the engineers practical, if you're borrowing a rig from a station, here's how you do it. They may not.

Nole (46:25.358)
pass that information on because they might just assume that everybody knows, of course, this is how it's done. And real world scenario, this just happened in my battalion to us. There's an established way that that was done. And when it gets done differently, it's difficult. makes everything harder. And then you're looking at the guy who's doing it and not doing it right according to tradition. And you're like, what's wrong with you? Well, probably what's wrong with him is that nobody ever taught him that that's how it was done. And so he just doesn't know. so that's

on the guys who were around longer to teach him, but it's also on him to find out, like to ask. comes down to things like, I overheard some captains talking the other day about getting an overtime in one place and then being asked by that guy to move to a different station and, and you know, so that he could stay like that type of thing. And there's deep traditions in that stuff where it matters if it's your house, it matters what your seniority is. It matters how far you got to try. Like there's all these things. And they were talking about a guy who wasn't handling it well.

And he's probably handling it well, because he just doesn't know. And they're complaining about it, but they're not addressing it with him. And so that's the other side of it is going, Hey, just so you know, this is the way that we would traditionally do this. And here's why that's important. And then the guy you're talking to trying to teach and help, he can choose to do that what he wants. He doesn't have to do that. You you can't force him, but at least giving them the opportunity to know, this is how we would handle that. And this is why, so that those things stay alive. Cause

You know comes to you?

Yeah, you probably do. I mean, they don't know.

Kevin (47:58.558)
And more than likely, this is where I would need to improve dramatically is because I feel like I've rested on my laurels, having a little bit of seniority that I'm expecting the new guys to do majority of the lion's share of some of the menial tasks. But I know that the guys that are respected would be like, no, this he's going to set the tone, set the pace and show you this is how it's done. And I always joke that the like in a big station, you have the captain's, the manager, the engineers, the assistant manager.

Right. The, uh, the medics are the housekeeping supervisors and the firemen are the, are the housekeeping, right? But as the housekeeping supervisor, we're, you know, we go on calls, we have more things to check out on the paramedic thing, but we're not as involved, but I should absolutely be more involved in the veto and the cleaning and the whatever to say, Hey, this is the time we're going to do it so that we can get all of our other things in and like set the example. But I fail at that pretty much every shift.

Yeah, I do too, except I don't have anybody else. I'm just by myself. So I can get away with it a lot easier.

One of my favorite stories of this is I was working overtime one time and there was a brand new kid and I'm just sizing him up because I had some experience training in the fight world. I looked at him and he had that hunch rounded back, traps, he's all veined out, super lean and he had just massive cauliflower ears. Right? And so I'm like, these are red signs. These are red flags, right? Like this kid's something. And so I'm asking him and I'm like, hey man, you fight, did you wrestle? He's like, oh, I was a wrestler.

I was like, cool, where'd you wrestle at? And he's like, well, I went to Iowa. And if you know anything about wrestling, this is the upper echelon. These are the toughest kids on the planet in the United States. They've cut weight and they've like done this thing and they're, these are fighters, right? And this is the best in the world. You went to Iowa or Penn State or Ohio State and you wrestled on a D1 level, you're a complete savage, right? I'm looking around the table.

Nole (49:55.463)
Yeah.

And later in that evening, so I know this, I don't say anything. They're all jamming this kid up. They're jamming them up hard and they're overweight older guys. And they start wrestling for the dishes and the kid looks at me to like, Hey, what do I do? And I just go, unleash the dragon. They want to mess with me. Like unleash the track and he proceeds to just start suplexing dudes and just ruining their lives, tossing them around like they're small children.

Yeah.

Kevin (50:28.566)
and completely manhandling dominated. And I'm like, hey, sometimes people got to learn, you know, you can't, if they don't know what cauliflower ears means, you're going to have to teach him. It was funny cause he's like, I don't want to just manhandle these guys. I'm supposed to be on probation. I'm like, well, they, they wrestled with the dragon. They're going to get what they get.

You go.

Nole (50:46.316)
They play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

And they're like, I couldn't believe I didn't know this kid was a wrestler. And I'm like, I knew within 14 seconds of looking at him, I'm not wrestling this kid.

You got to pay attention. got to pay attention. This has been good. This has been a fun conversation. Dear podcast listener, let us know if you think we went way too deep and in depth on veto in the toilets and water on the ground. I would love to hear what you think of that. This conversation.

That's all.

Kevin (51:14.99)
But this is a good reminder for me because sometimes I, you know, because we do clean at the house, I mean at the station that sometimes I'm not always the best at the house, you know what mean? And there are those times where I like, my wife Harmony will say, damn it, he's in work mode. You know what I mean? Where I like put on music and I start attacking everything. You know what I mean? And then she's like, it's not even enjoyable. You just start attacking things. You know what I mean? But like, I'm just, but more than likely, cause I'm frustrated. I'm like, how come that

Yeah.

Kevin (51:43.69)
I went for four days and there's still like a poo stain on the other side of this, on the toilet and nobody did anything. know? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I can absolutely be a better human and just not say anything. Don't go into like terrorist mode and just quietly clean my own toilet at the house. haven't, we'll bitch about it at work. Like what the hell's wrong with you? Who needs to go to the GI doctor? Like what, you know, but at, at, at home, I'm like, I should probably just do what needs to be done.

Yeah.

Nole (52:13.066)
is a fascinating dichotomy. The other day at work, I came into the, to the restroom and somebody had used the last of the toilet paper and there's extra toilet paper rolls everywhere all the time. That's a good fireman. You keep that stock. Someone had taken a toilet paper roll, a wrapped one, and they had placed it on top of the toilet paper roll holder, which had the empty cardboard one on it. So they had just like, they just like put it there. So I called them out.

You know, I'm like, Hey, what are you guys doing? Like who did this? And everybody's laughing. It was one of the guys that left this morning, whatever. And I'm like, why would you do that and leave it for someone else to do? But at home, that's not, that's not the best way. so instead what I've learned to do instead of taking my frustration when I come in and there's an empty toilet paper roll, which happens with alarming frequency, what I do instead of taking it out on the families, I replace it. But before I do, I take a photograph of the empty toilet paper roll.

And I send it to my chat with my brother Edward and David Hartman because we like to document the amount of times that that happens in our lives. So we're constantly sending each other pictures of home and the empty toilet paper roll that we're taking care of as heroes. And then I just, you know, I mentioned it to my, I talked to my son about it. I'm like, Hey man, don't ever leave an empty toilet paper roll in the bathroom. Like you can't do that. But, but for everybody else, they get a pass.

Yeah. There are the jokes that the towel fairy, the dish towel fairy, a lot of the guys will just throw the dirty towels in the trash bucket and then magically the next day they're all clean. And then, you know, there's like a toothpick thing that guys use after dinner. They have like a toothpick dispenser and somehow they're always full. And somehow the dishwasher fairy, somehow every day the dishwasher is unloaded.

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nole (53:50.702)
Clean and folded.

Nole (54:00.278)
It's always full.

Kevin (54:06.518)
And so my hats off to there's, know the guys that are always the towel fairy or the toothpick guy or the dishwasher fairy who do that. And they're not, that is different. They're not looking for recognition. They just do it quietly earlier when nobody's watching. Right. And I think that's the way to go. And my hats off to them because I'm not usually that fairy. So work to be done.

work to be done.

But good reminder though, who we're working for.

Amen.

Well, it is Halloween. I hope you enjoy yourself. Hope you get full bars for Indie.

Nole (54:43.981)
All right.

And we are we're coming up. Our next fire up program is November. November 14th. We do have some spots. I'd love for you to make this thing. This is our is this our last class of the year? It is our last class of the year before we get into the holidays. man, I'm looking forward to this one. We got some guys coming from out of state. We have it. So I I really encourage you.

14.

Nole (54:59.756)
It is.

Kevin (55:12.302)
If you are on the fence, fireupprogram.com, if you have an issue financially that you can't make it, let Nola know, we'll figure it out. We just want you there. Please sign up and join us. Fireupprogram.com for a class. Is this 13 or 14? Class 14. You won't regret it. So I hope you join us and man, I hope to see you there. So sign up.

14.

Nole (55:37.388)
Links are in the show notes.

This has been the Fire You Carry Pocket.

Nole (55:53.614)
Fire Up Program Class 14. Fire Up Program Class 14. The Fire Up Program is about to run Class 14. You have heard us talk about this ad nauseum. It is the only thing that we ever put here at the end of the episode anymore. And man, man, you're just not doing what we need you to do. You're just not signing up. There's something holding you back.

Based on what we know from doing this for the past three years, the primary thing that's probably holding you back is the physical aspect of the program. You are probably concerned that the physicality of the program will be too much that you might end up perhaps feeling embarrassed because you can't keep up or that you'd like to be just a little bit fitter before you come to the program. And we've talked about it before a bunch of times before.

That's not what the program is about. Yes, we do physical things. Yes, we work out. Yes, we do. Rucks and ice baths and all those things. Of course we do that stuff, but none of it is designed in a way that it would ever injure you or embarrass you. We scale everything and we absolutely are not trying to run a bootcamp. We're not trying to run a fitness course. We are simply trying to go out as men and build some camaraderie.

and have some good times together. And that is absolutely what we have achieved at every class. And the heart behind it is not the fitness. The fitness is just an added benefit. So if that's what's holding you back, I would encourage you to know that men have come out in all kinds of different levels of fitness. Some unable to do anything based on injuries and others in peak physical health. And all of them have gotten something out of the program have been.

Challenged by it and have grown through it. So with that in mind if that's what's holding you back if that's the thing and Statistically, I just know that You're out there and that that is what's holding you back Just sign up just follow the links in the show notes. Go sign up. I promise you you will not regret it And when you're done, you will look back on that that was holding you back and you'll go man I shouldn't let that hold me back. I should have gone sooner So go sign up

Nole (58:12.462)
And we'll see you in just two weeks. It's two weeks away. Class 14, November 14th, 15th and 16th. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.

you

Kevin (59:31.822)
Check, check,

Kevin (59:36.489)
Ripping out.

Kevin (59:44.398)
Okay, there's like four Riverside Studios open. Yeah, and I don't know, it says keep this tab open when the upload is.

don't do that.

Nole (59:52.406)
don't worry about that. We don't need that.

All right, that should be it then. All right, cool. I think we're good. This mic says Samson, cam says Brio, Samson on the speaker. We're getting there.

Nole (01:00:13.678)
Mmm.

I liked your idea. I thought that was great.

Yeah, dude, it came up at work and I thought, you know what?

Let's talk about this.

That's great.

Nole (01:00:29.366)
All right, are you ready?

Ready.

Lead us out.