Does this joker have a job?
Does this joker have a job?
I teach in the fire/EMS service, met "that guy" (if I had a nickel...), and sympathize.
We have three locals that show up to every training event. All three answer every question, know everything, have done everything, ask everything in spite of it, and have war stories aplenty from their years of service, despite having low individual call volume.
They're plentiful.
No offense to the fine folks at ARC, but they seem to congregate there. ARC classes are open enrollment, widely available, low cost, and cognitively accessible to the lowest common denominator. As it should be, but they get more riff-raff as a result.
Unfortunately, higher HQ allows...actually requires...more tolerance of these types because they add reportable stats, pay on time, and show up in the field. Single voices complaining to HHQ are louder than they would be in other venues or pursuits.
There are ways to give them tasks or divert them so that they have less opportunity for input. I like to make them my training mannequins. They get the attention they crave, but I can more easily focus it where I need it to go. Having them wear an O2 mask helps keep them quiet, but you obviously can't do it all week.
Good news on your BBP contamination: Transmission rates for exposures that are "not significant exposures" (as defined) are virtually nonexistent. Little comfort, but it might help. Get your shots, some 1:100 bleach dilution or some quat, and you'll be fine.
I know little-to-nothing about first aid (and in fact did not know that blood was so dangerous, so clearly I need to start taking courses), but as an instructor in a few things and student in many things, I do know a little about Indy and his many cousins.
There isn’t a lot you can do about the guy whose opinion of his skills/knowledge vastly exceeds his actual abilities. What this guy is actually trying to do is teach the class. He knows he can’t do that, so he makes sure that he is the first to answer every question, volunteer for every assignment, and generally attempt to make himself the center of attention. As an instructor, I have been known to politely ask him, with a smile on my face, to give the others an opportunity to participate. As a student I have on rare occasion in class looked him directly in the eye and said in a loud voice, “Indy, we all know you know it all, but the rest of us are here to learn, so how about shutting up and letting the rest of us get in a word edgewise?” That tactic has never made me popular with the Indies of this world, and generally results in me being rebuked by the instructor (who suddenly realizes that he should have said/done something several classes ago), but it achieves the desired result. For a while, anyway.
If this bozo is “patrolling” your local roads, I hope that Maryland hasn’t enacted a Good Samaritan law.
I had his sister in my class. 100 lbs. overweight, slightly older than me even, and a complete pain in the butt. When the younger folks, especially women, were doing scenarios, she'd roll her eyes at the slightest misstep, talk to them like they were idiots, and then when we were doing exercises in class (ie: recognizing things like shock in a patient) she'd come up with disease diagnoses that would make Dr. House proud (cause they expect basic students to not only diagnose, but probably treat rare genetic illnesses, right?) We constantly got to hear her tales of brilliance and valor in her daytime medical assistant job.
Funny thing is, she failed part of her final..because she doesn't "do well under pressure."
Deeds, not words.
Understood. It wasn't so much the odds as the unmitigated stupidity of how he risked everyone's health. If I'd been paying attention to my "patient" who'd supposedly just taken a header out of a 3-story window instead of watching Indy, we could have all been rained on. I'm not worried that I was contaminated. I'm worried that next time I may be contaminated.
Ditto. The thing I like about what I teach is that it's put-up-or-shut-up very early in the process. The first thing I do in a class, before talking about how-to or why-to, etc., is give a shooting test. Which I demo first. So everyone has a fair idea of where we are in relation to one another on the skill scale.
I still get the occasional "but my way is tactical'er" but otherwise, the Indianas of the world tend to weed themselves out pretty quickly.
You hit the nail right on the head with that. At one point, the instructor actually told him to sign up for the instructor certification program if he wanted to teach the class so badly. The next time we met, his brain translated that into, and I quote: "[Instructor] even thinks I should get my certification and start teaching this class."What this guy is actually trying to do is teach the class. He knows he can’t do that, so he makes sure that he is the first to answer every question, volunteer for every assignment, and generally attempt to make himself the center of attention.
ignorance is bliss, stupid people are happy because they don't know they are stupid.
.....
Last edited by dsmguy7; 02-06-22 at 10:21.
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