This audiobook was a project of Combustible to produce an audiobook version of one of the most important documents in fire service history.

This audiobook was a project of Combustible to produce an audiobook version of one of the most important documents in fire service history.

This audiobook was a project of Combustible to produce an audiobook version of one of the most important documents in fire service history.

This audiobook was a project of Combustible to produce an audiobook version of one of the most important documents in fire service history.

This audiobook was a project of Combustible to produce an audiobook version of one of the most important documents in fire service history.

Often, the longer you are with an organization, the more your responsibilities increase. Get enough responsibility and this means you are now carrying a personal and work phone. And you’re required to be available by phone, text, and email 24/7, which basically means your spouse and family are also available.

This episode with our wives covers a lot of ground. We get their opinions on whether we see ourselves as we are, or do we see ourselves as we want to be? We talk at length about how work impacts the home in ways that only our spouses might perceive. Not just stress or bad calls that we bring home with us, but how our decisions at work affect them. Did you ask your spouse before you put in for that promotion? For that new station assignment? Have you considered how it will affect him/her?

When we recently opened up the podcast to questions from our listeners, we never suspected that we would receive such a good question from a listener Samuel’s age. We can’t be positive, but we think he’s officially our youngest listener.

Do you consider yourself a glass half-full or half-empty person? What would others say about you?

In this episode we discuss the nature of optimism versus pessimism. We debate whether the fire service is an inherently optimistic occupation. Or is a pessimistic view of the world an unavoidable by-product of the line of work we do and the suffering we see? Can you be optimistic and still face the realities of a situation? How seductive is the allure of pessimism, and how hard it is to maintain optimism?

For this episode, Mike Chester calls in with a question for the group. Chester asked, “What do you tell a good, and I mean good, Fireman/EMT who is so jaded with the departmental politics that it affects their passion for the job?” We all probably know someone on the job who fits that description, and each of the group has a suggestion for Chester on how to approach this particular problem. (In keeping with Combustible tradition we avoid offering anything that might resemble a clear-cut solution.)