Five Monkeys, One Banana

So I just read an article…

To sum it up, five monkeys are put in a cage containing a banana that could only be reached by a ladder. Every time the monkeys tried to climb the ladder, they got sprayed with water. The monkeys got to the point that they beat the shit out of any monkey that tried to climb the ladder to get the banana. They then started switching monkeys that were not sprayed. The monkeys beat the shit out of the new guy trying to climb the ladder. They eventually replaced all of the monkeys. Now none of these monkeys had been sprayed, yet, they continued to kick that monkey’s ass that tried to climb the ladder and get the banana.

Sound familiar?

“200 years of tradition unimpeded by progress”.

That’s a thing we’ve all heard around the station. But think of it, we do this. As an academy instructor, I remember preaching about pushing fire a few years back because that’s how we were always taught. We now know that water puts out fire; it doesn’t push it. Amazing how something so simple can become a tradition. This is why we need to support our new people to go out, learn more, challenge us to think, and create their own future in the fire service. Yes, we need to mentor the same way we were, but we also need to listen to their questions. We need to stay current on our training. Most important, we need to reach out to our fellow brothers and sisters to learn how they perform the same tasks.

Take pride in where you came from! Support your tradition; don’t rely on it. Anyone can see our fires have changed when legacy construction is compared to modern. We as firefighters also need to change and adapt. We need to stop attacking that monkey climbing the ladder just because, “That’s how we do it.”

Now go out there climb your own ladder and grab that damn banana! (Now waiting on the banana-grabbing jokes)

– HoseMonkey

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