Its a phrase heard throughout the fire serve - those guys. Many times the phrase sthose guys are used in a negative manner to describe those firefighters who are always going the extra mile to try to improve their skills.

Those guys are the firefighters who are always training, always preplanning their response area, always doing the little things to ensure that everything falls into place at the big one.

The firefighters labeled as those guys are the firefighters that all firefighters should be striving to be like.

Those guys are the ones that you can count on when nothing is going as planned and nothing seems to be working. Firefighters that have been labeled those guys can be found in every fire department and it is these firefighters that all firefighters should seek to surround themselves with.

The term those guys, when used in the fire service, is commonly intended as an insult, ironically though, the firefighters that those terms are being directed at rarely receive the message in the manner in which it was sent. Instead these firefighters typically receive the term those guys as a compliment and wear it as a badge of honor.

These firefighters know that it has been through hard work that this title has been placed on them. The firefighters that are called those guys typically use the label as motivation for continuous improvement.

Training, preplanning, station maintenance, apparatus maintenance, tool and equipment maintenance are all essential tasks, just as firefighting is in the minds of these firefighters. They dedicate their time to ensuring that all of these tasks are completed to their best of their ability every time they walk through the doors of the fire house.

Firefighters labeled as ‘those guys’ are the type of firefighters who do not walk past a full garbage can without emptying it. The type of firefighters who buff and wax
the floors of the fire house because they believe in the importance of station pride. The type of firefighters who will not allow for a poorly loaded hosebed to remain and rather than waiting for somebody else to fix it, they pull the hose from the hosebed and reload it correctly and return the rig to a response ready state. The type of firefighters who train daily, always trying to improve their skills. The firefighters who bring their own equipment to work like hoods, gloves, halligans, and even nozzles.

These are the firefighters that are usually labeled ‘those guys’. Being one of ‘those guys’ should not carry a negative connotation, instead it should be a badge of honor. No rookie firefighter should hear the phrase, ‘don’t become one of those guys’ in reference to the highly motivated firefighters, but sadly this occurs in the fire service. This is a trend that must stop. All firefighters should be working to become one of ‘those guys.’

There is a common misunderstanding in the fire service between ‘those guys’ and the firefighters that have labeled them as such. Many times the firefighters that have labeled other firefighters as ‘those guys’ feel that ‘those guys’ are always trying to be better than everybody else and make everybody else look bad.

The thing about it is this is the farthest thing from the truth.

In reality, the mission of ‘those guys’ does not include anybody else. ‘Those guys’ do not compare themselves to any other firefighters or try to make any other firefighters look bad. Instead ‘those guys’ compare themselves only to a standard.

‘Those guys’ also do not compare themselves to minimum standards, they instead compare themselves to the standards that they have set for themselves, as to ‘those guys’ minimum standard just aren’t good enough, they expect more from themselves than a minimum standard.

The mindset of ‘those guys’ is typically that even on their worst day, the minimum standard is not good enough. In the words of my friends at Magic City Truck Academy, ‘Good Enough Never Is.’

‘Those guys’ are the firefighters that are true students of their craft and they take advantage of every opportunity
to improve their skills. They are the firefighters that put their department and their company ahead of themselves. They focus only on the success of the department and the company. They are the firefighters that are present in great companies.

‘Those guys’ are the firefighters that company officers should seek. When a company officer has a company full of ‘those guys’, he/she has reached the epitome of the fire service. He/she gets the privilege of leading a company of the best firefighters that his/her department has to offer.

Being surrounded by ‘those guys’ should be the goal of every firefighter and becoming one of ‘those guys’ should be the mission of every firefighter.

I present the question. Are you one of those guys?