Hiring fairly the candidates in order of score is racist and sexist, guess the exam know when you’re answering if your a minority or woman.


https://www.fireengineering.co..._campaign=2021-12-15

I lived in Worcester for a few years. The FD Houses there were very busy - and the city has had more than its share of tragedy with lost firefighters. Too bad they are taking this direction.

Funny thing about fire. It doesn't care about your race, your sex, your background, how tall or short you are. If you can't do meet the minimum standard and do the job it will hurt or kill you.

That may sound bad, but what is worse is it is more likely you'll get someone else hurt or killed if you can't meet the minimum standard and do the job.

Reducing requirements to fill quotas based on anything other than being able to do the job at the base level will hurt or kill people.

With that said, if someone can prove to me that 51% of the people that fail to meet basic requirements can preform the job successfully, then requirements should be re-evaluated.

I'd imagine that hiring policy should have some rather negative effects on the city's insurance costs as claims go up markedly because people can't do the job.

I stopped by one of the local fire houses when I was younger and asked if they were hiring white guys again. The guys at the house told me not yet.

quote:

Originally posted by berto:
I stopped by one of the local fire houses when I was younger and asked if they were hiring white guys again. The guys at the house told me not yet.

The problem is in Massachusetts a lot of women and minorities don’t take the exam or want the job.

Interesting that I just watched this video from London a couple days ago.

Way back when I was attempting the selection test for a special role in the Army, for a unit that had both sexes in it, there were three female candidates - one officer and two ORs.

There were a total of twenty-one candidates, who would then go on to undertake the full course.

As you might imagine, we were all fit, we thought, and had, in any case, been undertaking a lot of pre-course training - and I mean a lot, all in addition to our normal routine soldiering.

All three women dropped out at day 2. None of them could carry each other, let alone a 180# man, a hundred yards, or even drag him. None of them could singlehandedly get them over a two-metre high wall either.

Out of the whole bunch, only seven passed through it all, and I was not one of them.

From what I've seen around here, they hire women as firefighters, then promote them almost immediately to Engineer to get them in a place where they (probably) won't get anyone killed.

I'm not sure what the video TMat posted was trying to prove. In my entire time in the fire service I never breached ANYTHING like that. If I had and didn't get injured I'd likely have been reprimanded if someone saw me.

Proper door breaching techniques wouldn't have budged that game show door, but would have done some damage to it.


I worked with three female firefighters in my time. The first didn't last more than a few months after training. The second was competent, she knew the job, but seemed more interested in being upset about things. Some were legit, many seemed to just be attention getting. She didn't last either.

The third definitely pulled her weight, often more than her weight as she was what many would call petite but I have no doubt he could drag my 200+ lbs. out of a building. She did it in training more than once. She knew the job, was dedicated, she could trade barbs with the best of us, was never offended by anything, and quite honestly I'd rather go interior with her than about 1/3 of the guys. Granted there were some guys who couldn't see past her being a woman. The rest of us..... she earned our respect just like anyone else had to in that job.

FWIW.... she scored over 95% on the civil service exam and set a department record for the physical test with no accommodations for gender.