Conflict Resoultion

Since I was young boy , I love making money and lots of it . But for little kids the only way to really get money was either from your parents , or doing small odd jobs for people , and from birthdays. Well when I turned 11 years old , my dad got me a job as a baseball umpire and I love it . It was a pretty hard job because you have to know all the general and safety rules for youth baseball . The rule book was over 225 pages long and that is a lot of information to memorize for a 11 year old boy , and the truth is I did not learn all of the rules until about my fifth year umpiring . The job is very hard because you have to deal with very very angry people yelling at you all day long . The job of umpiring baseball teaches you several very valuable life skills that will come in handy in the future . Umpiring baseball will teach you to be able to keep your cool and to think clearly understressfull situations . It also helps you create very good judgement so that when you are confronted by a situation you can think what happened over and you will be able to react very quickly and react the right way. But the most important life skill you learn from being a youth umpire is very good conflict resolution skills. You learn how address a problem and how to deescalate the situation so that all parties involved in the argument will be happy . My dream job is to be a firefighter and several skills that will help me be a good firefighter would be good judgement so that I will be able to react quickly and react the right way , and also good conflict resolutions skills.

Physical Ability Test

To become a firefighter , one must pass several different test including a physical fitness test  and .This saturday on 9/25/10 I am going to take the california candidate physical ability test also known as the CPAT test.  The purpose of the CPAT test is to see if a firefighter has the physical abilities to perform all necessary tasked needed for the job. The CPAT test is composed of eight job- specific job areas . The eight exercises including these following : Stair Climb  (climbing stairs while carrying an additional 25 lb. simulated hose pack)  , Hose Drag ( placing a ground ladder at the fire scene and extending the ladder to the roof or a window ) , Equipment Carry (removing and carrying equipment from fire apparatus to fire-ground) , Ladder Raise ( placing a ground ladder at the fire scene and extending the ladder to the roof or a window) , Forcible Entry  ( penetrating a locked door, breaching a wall), Search ( crawling through dark unpredictable areas to search for victims), Rescue Drag ( removing victim or partner from a fire building), Ceiling Breach and Pull (locating fire and checking for fire extension). During these test you either have to were full firefighting gear  or you wear a 50-pound vest to simulate the weight of self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) and fire fighter protective clothing. Every single event is timed and graded by senior firefighters . To pass the CPAT test , a firefighter must finish all the events in under 10 minutes and 20 seconds . Once a person pass the CPAT test , they will receive a back-round and drug test . After those test they will have to take a written test and will go though several oral interviews. If a candidate passes all of the following test , then they can be hired as a firefighter .

The Cost of Firefighting

Lately I have been doing a lot of research on all aspects of firefighting and I am honestly surprised about how much information is available to the general public.   Firefighters pay a very heavy price to perform their job emotionally and physically. For examples firefighter usually have to buy all of their protective clothing including the following: fire retardant pants, boots, jacket, and helmet. These items can cost to thousands of dollars, also firefighters have to use their own money to buy food for them selves. Firefighters also use their own money to buy cleaning supplies so that there equipment will look clean. But the biggest prices firefighters pay would be the emotional toll their jobs take on them. Depending on which fire department they work for, firefighters could be on duty for 48 straight hours, and if there is a big disaster some were they could be gone for months at a time. Being away from their family plays a big emotional toll on the firefighters themselves and their families. The children of the firefighters probably don’t get to see that parent to often and if a child has an absent parental figure they may develop social problems in the future. If worse comes to worse a firefighter may die in the line of duty and that will destroy a family. But firefighters know that they might not come back home that night from work,  but that is just the job and all firefighters know that they might have to pay that very high price. 

Volunteer Firefighting

My dream is to become a urban firefighter and in the past couple of days the opportunity to become one has  come up. The Acrata Volunteer Fire Department is looking for some new firefighters and I jumped on that opportunity the very first chance I got because I knew this was a once in a life time opportunity that I could just not pass up . A volunteer firefighter does the same jobs that normal firefighters such as the following : emergency medical services , rescues , and putting out all different types of fires. The good thing about this volunteer program is that they are going to give me the training I need to become a career firefighter for free , if they didn't pay for it then it would cost me thousands of dollars. Also the Volunteer program will giving the experience needed to get hired as a full time payed firefighter right out of college. As of right now , I am going though the mandatory application and interview process . The next step will be to pass a comprehensive drug and medical screening along with a comprehensive back round check.  Then I have to pass a very hard physical test to see if I have the physical requirements needed for the position .After I complete all of those steps , I can start my districts recruit orientation program which will teach  me all of the skills i need to become a successful firefighter. Even though the volunteer firefighter position is a very big commitment , I am willing to commit to it because I know that if I do this , it will open many different career paths for me