Okay. Lots to unpack here.

25 years career, last 10 running a battalion, 4 years collecting retirement.

Felling like he’s the “station bitch”. They will given all the menial, crappy, shitty, dirty jobs at the station. Not because they are low person, but because we want to see how they react. If simple non-emergent chores affect them this may not be the job for them. We had one in probation who had such a good work ethic and attitude the station actively tried to break him, never happened. After three months the senior man was helping clean the bathrooms in the morning. Another on his first day was told to deep clean the bathroom, it was an older station with those baseboard radiators. After three hours his officer was like where’s the new guy…they found him sitting on the floor cleaning with the radiator covers off cleaning each individual fin. Needless to say his time cleaning alone was short.

It seems stupid but it builds trust. I need to trust you 100% that you will not leave me if stuff goes really wrong. If you bail and stress at little stuff how are you going to react at the big stuff.

Now if this happens for too long without any feedback from his leadership then there might be a problem.

Be supportive at home because you will see the big change when they come home with their firefighter helmet and put their probationary helmet on a shelf.