Life Through the Eyes of an Ambulance Driver

My brother sent me a link this week relating to the insane deal that C.C. Sabathia got for signing with the New York Yankees. C.C. is a starting pitcher that went from Cleveland to Milwaukee last year and is now a free agent. He just signed with the Yankees in a record deal of 7 years and aproximately $160 million. It is rediculous how much people are getting paid to play a game. Anyway, the link he sent me lets you enter your anual salary and how long it takes for him to make your salary. At $21,000 a year that I make, he only has to throw 2 strikes, not even one out. I don’t understand how on Earth anyone could ever be worth that kind of money for a game. How about teachers, EMT’s, Police officers, military folk, or anyone who actually makes a difference in people’s lives and have some real value for what their efforts provide. Entertainment should not be that lucrative, but that is what our society has decided is important.

Ever since I resigned from my job with Aurora Fire Rescue, I’ve been trying to get back on to a fire department. My latest endeavor is West Metro Fire Rescue. 

Starting earlier this year they opened up their applications for entry level firefighter. I tried to get on with this department when I first moved out to Colorado, but never got anywhere with it. They have the most difficult physical test of all the departments I’ve tested with. Their test isn’t difficult in the elements that you have to do, but your score is weighted based on your time. This means you have to go as hard as you can to get as low of a time as possible to get a better score. I got a 90% on the test, which is much better than the last time I did it.  I was really happy with that score. Last time I did it I barely passed somewhere in the low 70′s.  This time I had really trained hard to try to get a good score. The written test, I scored a 79. Not as good as I had hoped because I thought I knew almost all of the questions that I answered. Careless mistakes is all I can figure. The oral boards I had never done with this department. When I finished the oral board, I felt really good. I never feel good coming out of my oral boards.

This week I got my score for the oral boards and I scored somewhere in the low 70′s. This puts me #75 on the hiring list. I’m sad that this is my ranking. I want to leave my current job and get on with a fire department really bad. West Metro is a great department, and I would love to work for them. The hiring list is good for 2 years. Normally, I would think OK, I have a chance. But with the economy in the tank like it is now I don’t really think I have a good chance of getting hired. I don’t know how much hiring is going to go on if departmetns are not hiring to expand, but just to replace retirees.

I think what disapoints me the most is that once again, my life is still going to be on hold. Driving an ambulance, I don’t get paid much of anything. Basically all I can afford to pay for is food, rent, gas, and my car payment. There’s really not much I can do with my life. I rent a room in a house from a friend of mine. I really want my own home so I can have a dog and do what I want with my house. I have nothing to show for what I’ve done so far. I’m 32 years old and still living like a college student. Its very depressing to think that this is the best I can do when I know I’m capable of much more. My girlfriend lives in Salt Lake. She enjoys where she is living and I enjoy where I am living. She has more to keep her in Salt Lake than I have keeping me in Denver. She enjoys her job and I am sick of mine. If I can’t ever have a fire department job here, then there is nothing that can really hold me here. Getting a fire job for me is more than just getting a job, its about being able to start living my life the way I want to.

Ordinarily, getting the opportunity to sing “Start your day with DOA, doo dahh, doo dahh…” (sung to the tune of Camptown Races) is funny. But not today. Its supposed to be the day when families drive from around town to a family member’s house to enjoy each other’s company and have a wonderful piece of Granny Schikelgroober’s pumpkin pie. But that isn’t what happened. Instead, today was the day when Granny Schiklegroober wakes up dead only to be found by family. Its sad. I feel bad for the family who is having to cope with the lost of their loved one today.

It’s comical how many fire alarms that the fire dept went on today. The majority of them were in the first half of the day, which is when people are cooking. It appears there are a number of people that don’t know how to cook without trying to burn down their house. My personal favorite is when the fire dept got called on a structure fire. It turned out to be an oven fire. I can just picture it. People are panicking as they watch flames erupting INISDE their oven. I emphasize inside. Lets think about this. The inside of the oven is nothing but metal. Its designed to withstand a lot of heat. You know, if you close the door, there’s a great chance that the fire won’t get outside of the oven and it might just extinguish itself because it will burn the oxygen in there. This isn ‘t rocket science people.

There was a somewhat good dinner for us to eat today. Surprisingly, there was no Turkey. How do you have Thanksgiving without Turkey? There was some tasty honey baked ham that the company sprung for. It wasn’t a Thanksgiving dinner like mom makes, but it was better than the ham sandwich I packed in my lunch box.

I looked at my paycheck stub that was in my mailbox today, only to find how disappointing the pay rate was for one of my shifts. I picked up a 24 hr shift last pay period and discovered that I was only paid the state minimum wage of $7.02/hr.  Ordinarily my regular wage is a paltry $10.04/hr. I don’t understand how my company can justify to pay me less money per hour to do the exact same work. Not only that, how they can justify paying me minimum wage. Uneducated, unskilled idiots get paid minimum wage to do mindless tasks with shovels and dirt. I am an educated skilled worker doing a job that requires me to have a 3 certifications, a driver’s license, and a clean criminal background to do my job.