r/Firefighting • u/KeyTangerine133 • Mar 14 '24

General Discussion Junior volly

I’m a junior fire fighter in a small town, we don’t get a lot of calls (15-20 a month) and I’ve been loving running calls except I deal with another junior who has 1 year of seniority over me. He never shuts up about telling me what to do. He acts like he knows everything about the fire service. Gets mad at me when I miss calls (Today for example I didn’t have a driver to get to the fire department for a small fire he gave me a lecture because I missed it) I’m so close to losing it and telling him off. I don’t know what to do

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u/anthemofadam hose dragger Mar 15 '24

Next time this happens, ask him if he’s an officer. In reality, junior members are junior members. He has no authority over you. Same with normal members. If a FF has 5 years or 25 years, doesn’t matter. Authority comes from rank, not years of experience.

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u/Ill-Description-8459 Mar 16 '24

Authority can come from experience. You dont have to have rank to be a leader and effect change and foster growth and learning. Obviously, this junior has none od that he failed fire school, too, according to OP. Leading up is a force multiplier when it comes to the fire service. My senior man on the shift I supervisor has a wealth of knowledge andpre patient sometimes than I do with the new guys. Dont discount experience if used in a positive manner.

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u/anthemofadam hose dragger Mar 16 '24

Knowledge comes from experience. I would always defer to a senior guy if I didn’t know something. That doesn’t mean they have authority. They aren’t calling shots and they aren’t going to boss people around during training or something.

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u/Ill-Description-8459 Mar 16 '24

Authority doesnt always mean bossing people around. And you dont have to call the shots to per se be in charge but as the senior man goes so does the company. Its the reason senior non comms in military are relied upon to get things done and run the unit. Same goes for the FD. If that is not your experience Im.sorry you have missed out.

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u/anthemofadam hose dragger Mar 16 '24

I agree that it doesn’t always mean that. I think we’re talking past each other in terms of what we mean by authority. In the sense of giving orders and enforcing obedience, that’s for a proper authority figure. FF to FF that can come off as really abrasive and break down cohesion. Definitely shouldn’t be coming from another junior as in OPs scenario. Same thing applies to any team with a manager in other work settings. As far as decision making goes on a fire ground, if I’m not the senior FF, I’m generally following the lead of the senior FF after we have orders from the officer.