ATTITUDE VS. APTITUDE

ATTITUDE VS. APTITUDE
Which is more important? Obviously you need to have both, but where should your attention be.
You are the best fire-fighter in the world. They could make an IFSTA manual by just following you around all day. You eat breath, and sleep fire service. But you aren't the nicest most personable guy. This will get you a front row seat to watch the guys with minimum skills with a good attitude, get and keep the good jobs.
We can take just about anyone off of the street and make them into a fire-fighter in a year, as long as they can go into a burning building and see someone bleed. But we don't have good luck hiring someone with the skills and a poor attitude. Usually a poor attitude is a long-term thing. Attitude is your rudder through life.
Be aware most departments already have enough people working there with an attitude problem, and don't need any more. My department met its quota of Asses in 1983 and we don't need any more.
Let me paint a picture for you. I am working with a newly hired fire-fighter. He's working through his probation and has a great attitude. He won't sit in the recliners in front of the T.V. Never. If we watch a training video he brings in a kitchen chair. You see he is aware that perceptions of others are very important to your reputation in the fire service.. An engineer, from another shift was working with us and told him to relax nobody would care. Not 15 seconds latter he began telling us that someone else just hired was spending all their time in the easy chairs. I asked him if he'd seen this. He said no, he'd just heard about it. He proved the point right there.
You could do something once and have someone see it, tell someone else, and suddenly your “Easy chair Charlie". Probation is hard enough. Don't make it harder than it has to be. As Captain Bob says “You can do hard time or easy time. The choice is really yours".
Also understand, they will start talking about you long before you start on shift, and long after your off probation.
"Attitude is such a small thing that can make such a huge difference."