Birth of a Nickname; or more adventures with new guys

***Full disclosure alert***

I do my best, most clear headed, creative thinking in the bathroom.  Too much information?  Sorry, but you were warned.  I'm also sorry about the visual.  #sorrynotsorry

As the random firing of synapses started working their magic this morning, I sorted out two distinctly different post topics.  One seriousish, one, not so much.

Guess which one I chose.

Regular readers will recall my chronicling the madcap (an under appreciated word imho) misadventures of Shawn and Wes over the last several months.  Well, the steady stream of replacement parts has delivered unto us at the high-rise district (High-Rise District?) yet another new guy.

Meet Mike.

Mike comes to us with plenty of experience at his previous employer, a far south suburban FD.  So Mike knows how to be a firefighter/paramedic.  That's not to say he's entirely comfortable here.  I mean, after all, he is still an "at will" employee while he's on his twelve month probation, so if he displeases us, he can be terminated at the drop of a hat without cause.   So he watches his hat very carefully.

Metaphorically speaking, that is.

We were on a patient assist call a couple weeks into his tenure and, after getting the woman squared away and comfortable in the chair of her choice, Mike started gathering information for the refusal.  The woman told him her name was "Joan" and as he entered that into the tablet, paused, looked up at her and said-

"Is your name, by chance 'Joanathan'?"

This drew head swivels from most of us in the room and as she snapped back "No, it's JOAN!"  we all fought the giggles.

So, Joanathan was hatched, at least from a couple of the guys.  It didn't feel quite right for me though.

Moving right along...

Having worked with him for the last month or two (or three?) he does (I really don't remember how long we've had him) a fine job on EMS calls, not afraid to take charge when needed, even with a senior medic if need be.  Not me, btw, just sayin... I was just mentioning that to him the other day, as I told him we hadn't had much in the way of fire calls to judge him on.  Lo and behold we caught back-to-back "fires" last shift.  I use quotation marks because, while they technically were fires, any reasonable firefighter on the planet would never count them among the notches on his proverbial fire belt.  And, as a kicker, I didn't get the chance to do anything with him since I was the only on-duty investigator that day so I was re-assigned pretty early on.

But that's a story for another day.  Probably not.

Mike is a likable kid, around thirty years old, pretty easy going, doesn't seem to get flustered by much, really.  At first blush anyway.  I think because he presents himself well and because he knows the technical aspects of the job, we haven't gone crazy with the minutiae of the job.  Mike was off the other day and I was talking to our Lieutenant, Bob, about him.   Bob mentioned that he'd gone over the six month probate review with Mike during a previous shift.  I asked how he'd done and Bob said that Mike knew things like the hose loads, nozzle pressures, EMS SOP's and the like.  But that on the test overall Mike had crashed and burned.  I asked why, what had he done so poorly on and Bob pulled up a copy of the test to show me some of the questions.

In addition to containing questions of a technical nature, it also contained many, many questions specific to our fine Village and our equally fine FD.  Like addresses and phone numbers to the firehouses.  Addresses to the schools in town.  The name of our EMS System and the like.  Nothing too dramatic in there, but it's on the review and he's going to have to know it at some point.  So the next shift, which was last Friday for those scoring at home (or even if you're by yourself) (s/o to Patrick and Olbermann) I barn bossed the other two guys first thing in the morning and requested Mike go on the engine with me so I could go over stuff with him.

Now, one of our regular Friday duties is the weekly engine check.   We go through each compartment making sure everything is in it's proper place, is clean and functioning as it should.  That also helps teach you where everything is in the vehicle so, if you need something at a call, you don't go wandering around the vehicle opening and shutting every. single. compartment. until you find what you're looking for.  Bad image to present to the public, that one.  And, as we walked around doing the check, I would randomly ask Mike the phone number to a specific firehouse.  This was a struggle.  More so than it should have been and, while I didn't see beads of sweat breaking on his forehead, he was clearly uncomfortable trying to come up with the answers.  I reminded him the Area Code and the prefix are the same for all.  I also pointed out the first two digits of the last four are the same for each station.  So really, he only needed to learn the last two digits in the phone number for each house.

This turned out to be more challenging than I thought.  For example, Station #3 became 8111 instead of 81 and Station #1 became 7111 instead of 71.  By the end of the day I think he got a little more clear on the concept though.  Progress!

We also worked on the name of the Mayor and the Village Manager, both questions from the review.  I shit you not, they're both review questions.  I'll make no further editorial comment on that particular topic...

He struggled the first time or three with the Mayor's last name, mispronouncing it a few times before nailing it (I think) down.  But for some reason when asked the Mayor's first name, Mike kept answering

"Kevin"

Pro tip- that's NOT the Mayor's first name.  Not even close.

We moved on to the Village Manager.  Similarly, Mike struggled with it early, but after a few tries over the course of the day, was able to correctly identify the VM's last name.  He also confidently declared the VM's first name to be...

Any guesses from the crowd???

That's right!

"Kevin"

Pro tip- that's NOT the Village Manager's first name.  Not even close.  Again.

So, as we sat at the dinner table, all five of us, and I asked Mike to name the Mayor, he flawlessly pronounced the last name of Hizzoner and, again, attached Kevin to it.

smdh.

New guys.

Whatta ya gonna do?

So, heretofore, by the power vested in me by no-one in particular, I hereby do resolve and declare "Mike" shall know be known as "Kevin" forever and ever Amen.

Peace