Is it a stupid question?

It was my first day going to the fire station and I was nervous as could be I only knew three or four people at the department and I didn’t really have a clue about firefighting but I knew I wanted to learn anything I could and work my hardest to get it right. It was a sunny Saturday morning, the fire department was doing their annual hose testing to make sure that all the fire hose was able to hold the pressure of the water that the trucks could pump and so they knew that if there were at a fire that the hose wouldn’t break on them and they would be down a hose. I walked over to chief and gave him my application to the fire department and he said sweet and introduced me to a few people including my two lieutenants Nick and Brandon. He had Nick take me to get some gear to wear when we get calls and he got it all into the system and then he had me go and help out with the hose testing and told me if you have any question don’t be afraid to ask there is no stupid questions. At that moment I was thinking yeah okay no stupid questions and said okay and went to the chief and he had me go and help one of the other junior firefighters and we dragged a 2 1/2 inch hose into the field and that’s when I asked what I thought was a stupid question, what are we doing dragging the hose out here. He looked at me and smiled and said well we are dragging the hose out here and flowing water through them to make sure the hose has no holes and won’t burst for our safety and for the safety of others. I thought to myself makes sense to do that. I asked a little later what kind of calls does the department usually get like fire calls and car accidents or is there a bunch of different things? and he looked at me a little weird but then explained to me how they go on a bunch of different calls from fires, car accidents, powerline down calls, just about anything that you can think of for calling 911 for is what we go to and I thought what about a cat stuck in a tree? He laughed and said if we get toned out for it we will. The day went by pretty fast and by the end of it I was sweating and exhausted from packing up hose and dragging hose into a field. I went over to one of my lieutenants and asked what do you guys usually do on your free time? He said nothing really we sit down in the rec room and relax but most people go back home and do their own things, but if you have any questions about anything don’t be afraid to ask. I said thanks and decided to go home, that night I thought about what they kept saying that there isn’t a stupid question and to just ask and it made sense. for someone who has never done this kind of work before and to know about the way they do things and how they work was to ask questions because any information that I would get would give me an idea of what I needed to do.

That was almost a year ago, I have been to many training’s now and have even gone though a basic fire class and am now SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus) certified and can go into burning buildings but I still ask questions no matter how “stupid” they may seem it helps clarify what I need to do and clarify how to do the job i am supposed to do. Every time I go to the station I learn something new for example the other day I made it to the station because there was a fire in Greene and I missed the truck so I decided to stay at the station and make sure things were ready for them when they got back from the call. They had taken Engine 31 and tank 33 and left Engine 32 behind so I decided to check all the compartments and test myself of knowing where things were I found a few things I had questions on and when they got back and were done cleaning up I asked my lieutenant how to fix what I had found because I didn’t know how to do it and he told me that I did a good job making sure things were in line when they got back and for looking over the truck to familiarize myself with the trucks. That proves that there is no such thing as a stupid question the only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.

Photo by andrewmalone on Foter.com / CC BY