White Boxes

The rumors had been flying through the organization for weeks. Ever since the election, a sense of unease had fed them, the uncertainty of new leadership along with budget woes and a hostile board of supervisors uniting to form the perfect storm of discord and speculation.

Although it was no surprise, the sight of the white storage boxes stacked outside the directors office did little to calm the fears of the supervisors and of the support staff. "Who's next?" and "Is this a budget issue or is it retribution?"  were the questions of the day.

Most of the likely targets had at least made an effort to look for other positions. Some had actually received offers elsewhere, but had balked at the lower salaries, ridiculous commutes and unknown situations at the potential new employers. They now doubted their decisions as they walked into the office and saw the white boxes tacked at the director's door.

A lucky few had found new positions and had already left, sparing them the trauma of the forced separation process. Everybody else stared at the boxes and pondered their fate.

When the people from supply showed up to load the packed white boxes onto dollies and truck them downstairs, even the protected ones - the members of the union, felt the unease rise in the pits of their stomach. They knew that even though they were protected, they were still at risk. Their protection was merely words on paper, requiring a process to be followed before being let go.

While returning from lunch, some of the staff couldn't help but notice a few investigators with armfuls of flattened white boxes stepping into the elevators. This further fueled speculation as no one could remember the investigators ever carrying anything upstairs unless it was directly related to the cases that they were working on. The white box symbolism didn't help matters either.

The afternoon was filled with conversation about how many, who and when. Someone with a contact on the fifth floor said that the rumors were flying up there as well. The most prevalent ones involved the procedures that were going to be followed for the unlucky ones.

The fourth hand scoop was that the affected employees would learn their fate when on Monday when they tried to use their access card and enter the building through the staff entrance. Their cards were to be inactivated over the holiday weekend. Should they enter the building through the public entrance, their now inactive card would not allow the elevator to go past the second floor. If they should somehow make it to their desk, their passwords would no longer work and they would not be able to log on to their computers. It was surmised that would be about the time an investigator would show up at the unlucky one's desk with the white boxes.

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Needless to say, it is going to be an uncomfortable weekend for some employees of this unnamed law enforcement agency. Civilian employees, primarily management and supervision, are at risk. The new guy in charge has made it clear that blood will flow.

Some of the survivors will likely jockey for position and try to fill some of the vacated positions, especially ones that are a little higher in pay or authority. I would advise caution in this, there is a certain level of risk in being an "at will' employee. Just ask the people with white boxes sitting outside their cubicles.

I respect the new guy's authority to make changes, though I hope it is for budgetary and efficiency purposes rather than retribution for some people supporting the old guy. I suspect that the motivation for the purge is a little of both. Time will tell on that.

Although this little tale really isn't about a fire service organization, this and other law enforcement agencies occasionally work with us in various endeavors. Besides, we are all affected by what happens in the criminal justice system.

Thanks for reading,
Schmoe

Secrets Revealed

You might recall the post last week where I described an UNUSUAL FLYING OBJECT and my promise to track down the operator of the unusual flying machine.

Well, as I was headed to the hardware store for the third time today, I saw the lights soaring above a neighborhood and decided to track the operator down. It took about two minutes.

I met Gary and his friend Fred. They were busy flying two radio controlled airplanes, both lit with up LEDs. When I spotted them, they were standing in the driveway of Gary's house on a quiet residential street.

 

After assuring them that I meant no harm and was merely curious about their models, they agreed to answer some questions and to let me shoot a few pictures. In the above photo, Gary is holding the model I saw the other night. You can see that it is modeled after a bird-of-prey. Gary hand cut the model out of Styrofoam and painted the plumage onto the foam. The engine and controls are off the shelf RC parts. The LEDS were wired into the bird by Gary.

Here it is with the LEDS on. The top are blue, the bottom are white. All of the LEDs are wired through a switch allowing Gary to shut them off from the ground.

As the bird is made of Styrofoam, it is very light weight and is launched by turning on the electric powered motor and throwing the model into the wind.

With relatively new batteries, the bird can fly for up to half an hour on a charge. The radios have a range of a couple of miles and the bird can climb to an altitude of 900 feet. It does all of this almost silently, the electric power plant is almost silent.

Gary landed the bird in a space about twelve feet long. As it requires very little space to operate from, Gary likes to fly it from his house. He has built several of them and is thinking of a way to make and sell them as a business. He is kind of secretive about flying it from his house he doesn't want to piss anyone off - or at least he doesn't want to get caught pissing anyone off. Apparently, he likes to fly over a nearby baseball field and get the spectators there wondering about his bird. Sometimes, they get a little fired up.

I am grateful Gary allowed me to take pictures and that he answered my questions. It made it worth it to track him down. I think his product is cool and I wish him well with it. At least now, when I see weird lights maneuvering in the hood, I will know what I am seeing.

Thanks for reading,
Schmoe

Priceless

One Triple Combination Fire Engine - $400,000

One highly trained professional firefighting crew (three persons - 1 hour) $125

One well involved car, parked next to a fruit stand - value unknown

The sound of the stressed-out Fire Captain's voice over the radio as he calls for a full structure response when the engine won't go into pump - priceless!

All I can really say is that I'm glad it wasn't me and sometimes, shit happens. For a fire engine to go into pump, a series of things need to happen, and sometimes (rarely) they don't.

Sometimes something breaks and the pump won't engage. Sometimes, the engineer screws up and doesn't use the proper amount of finesse when shifting or doesn't have a valve in the proper position and can't get water. Sometimes the transfer case just farts, the gears don't align and the collar doesn't slide over the output shaft, causing the transfer case to stay in the road position.

I don't know what happened in this case, I never will.

I can guess that the firefighter was standing near the car, ready to attack the inferno with a limp hose in his hand. He probably was looking toward the rig and giving the signal for water - maybe repeatedly. He might have even been shouting for water while giving the hand signal. The Captain probably ran to the unit, hollering at the engineer, asking what the problem was. I am sure the Captain did his own trouble shooting session and may have even manipulated a few controls to make sure that they were in the right position. Regardless, the engineer had a few pairs of impatient eyes on him as he tried to get water.

At some point, the Captain realized that the likelihood of rapidly getting water was low and he requested the additional units. Meanwhile, the fire got bigger and the chances of it extending into the fruit stand grew. 

I  heard the tension in the Captain's voice and frankly I found it a little funny. I, as well as most firefighters, have had something similar occur on scene and though it it isn't funny when it happens to you, it does have a humorous component when it happens to someone else. I don't feel too guilty in this case, the fire didn't extend into the fruit stand. The first-in engine was able to resolve whatever issue that was causing the problem in the first place and got the wet stuff on the red stuff.

That is the sign of a properly trained engineer, the ability to trouble shoot the problem and come up with a solution. That is also the sign of an engineer that has a firm grasp of mechanical principles.Troubleshooting is an area which fails a lot of driver-operator candidates during test time, many don't have the background to make this area easy for them to master.

I was glad to hear this poor bastard Captain come back over the scanner and announce that they had resolved their issue and had extinguished the fire. I am sure the other responding units were laughing to themselves as they were canceled and returned to quarters. I am also sure that they were all secretly glad it didn't happen to them.

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Sorry for being a little lax in posting over the last few days, I am in the middle of a cleaning/reorganizing project and have been on a roll. I am trying hard not to get distracted.

Thanks for reading,
Schmoe