It's That Time Again

I can tell that it's that time of year again, christmas trees are seen strapped to the roofs of cars, houses have strings of lights affixed to them and my phone is starting to ring with fire fighters looking for a new home.

Yup, it's SILLY SEASON again and already I have had several inquiries as to the actions of my present crew and possibilities of openings at my station. I took one this morning as I sipped coffee from my Omni-mug while basking in the desert sunshine.

As soon as I saw who the caller was, I knew what the call was about. It was from a friend of mine who has had a few issues this year and would like a change of venue. I don't think that I was his first choice, but the station where he would really like to work has a specific mission which requires a high degree of flexibility from it's personnel. My friend can be rather inflexible and may have been told that perhaps he should seek another spot.

I ran into a firefighter and his wife at O'Malleys a few weeks ago. He mentioned that he might like to give the healing place a try for a year or so. As there were numerous members of the K.B.F.P.D. in attendance that evening, there was a lot of mingling going on and I found myself in conversation with the firefighters wife about how good it would be for the firefighter to come up to 226's and prepare for the engineer's exam. Not a typical conversation I can assure you.

I have had a few captain's call me and ask about the availability of members of my current crew. It's getting kind of old, I don't speak for my crew on these matters. What they want to do is up to them, though I will support them and represent them at the winter meeting.

Frankly, I am getting rather tired of the whole process. With any luck, I only have to go through this two, maybe three more times. It's not that it's difficult, it's just more petty B.S. to contend with. The older I get the more redundant crap like this becomes.  

As I am on vacation, perhaps I should have let this morning's call go to voice-mail. That's the problem with not being out far enough in the desert, though the internet access is nice.

Thanks for reading,
Schmoe