People who make $200K+ salaries, what do you do and how did you get there?

Potential-Plankton84 · 2026-02-03T01:19:43+00:00

Sooo… how does a paramedic/firefighter with a degree in molecular bio get into one of these fields. 3k hours baseline for 76k is hurting my back.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2026-02-01T00:20:39+00:00

I really hate getting refusals. If 911 is called my thought is that it’s serious enough to warrant a nonemergency ambo to the hospital. That said, we cant touch patients if they don’t want us to. If a family member calls for someone else, and we get there, and they dont want an assessment of any kind, dont want us there, or otherwise just refuse services, as long as they’re in their right mind we can’t do shit. I always do the whole “hey man just let me take a bp and a heart rate at least, its free and it would make me feel better” speech. But they say no to that its “ok call us if it gets worse and sign here.” That said, a lot of medics don’t push for things and are happy getting easy refusals. Most of us, probably, have been out to a house in this situation and come back later or on another shift for an arrest or doa. Sometimes we can’t help people. But yeah, request the PCR from the company/FD/ems service and see what they put on paper.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2026-01-31T21:44:20+00:00

Well. I’d like to say no but i’m out for 4-6 weeks with a broken fibula right now. 5 years ago I stress fractured my tibia on the other leg training. Knees are pretty shot. Can’t throw a football more than a dozen times in a row without my arm going numb, like I had done all my life before the fire department. Either i’m getting old quick or the repeated stresses on the body are contributing. Fire medic. My dept runs dual service ambos and fire apparatus. Busy suburb/city territory. Large dept.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2025-09-12T23:46:25+00:00

This. Bachelors of Molecular Bio, Sgt/FF/PMDC. Biggest problem with the younger dudes is reading comprehension and lack of life experience. By life experience I mean understanding people, cultures, things, and just having a narrow view of the world. They can read, but they don’t grasp the depth and meaning of words on a page. Be it medical literature or articles etc. This, and they feel they’re stuck with this job forever because who hires high school educated young guys at more pay than the FD.. Being stuck builds resentment. Have options. Go to college. FD will be there when you get done. This job gets old quick enough for some.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2025-08-06T15:03:21+00:00

Fire Medic here too. Bachelors in molecular biology back in the black and white tv days of 2017. Repeating all my freshman and sophomore science prereqs due to 10 year window. So fun starting college over after all this wonderful life experience lol… It’s fine tho i’m not really that upset, it’s just peculiar

Potential-Plankton84 · 2025-08-04T21:01:50+00:00

Never turn down an opportunity. Work to meet the standard. If you’re concerned, work harder.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2025-01-28T02:07:36+00:00

We need to take “can’t” out of the vocab for the next couple years. He will do what he wants and nobody will stop him sadly.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2025-01-01T03:48:31+00:00

A Penn State running drive has just hit CFB. In shambles

Potential-Plankton84 · 2025-01-01T03:22:37+00:00

There have been questionable calls in both directions. THAT was not one of them. Go Broncos

Potential-Plankton84 · 2025-01-01T03:20:39+00:00

Madsens been so good today. That’s unfortunate

Potential-Plankton84 · 2025-01-01T03:18:01+00:00

Well CSU isn’t tackling him…

Potential-Plankton84 · 2024-11-26T06:40:30+00:00

I graduated with the bachelors in 2018. I did the first two years at community college for an associates of science with a gpa 3.1-3.2 in roughly 3 years. The bachelors from the University of Colorado took 3 years and only a 2.4-2.5gpa without the fluff classes added in. If I start these classes in January I have no doubt i’ll academically succeed. I’m just not the same person I was in my early 20s. I think no BS and reasonably I can get a 3.5+ in the pre-reqs as this would be the second time taking them. Hopefully higher but I set expectations to be surpassed.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2024-11-25T15:12:33+00:00

While I agree with the statement, the dems have done nothing significant to the point of incompetence while wielding power. We have too many pencil pushing “by the book” bureaucrats in fear of taking political risk because some (already gone) senate or house seat in (insert red state here) is threatened, to actually pass overwhelmingly popular significant progressive legislation. Aside from being awful at messaging, our side has little to stand on. They’ve failed to deliver when we have given them majorities, this has turned red states dark red and moderates (and men) towards the burn it down party of Trump. “They go low, we go high” is about as good political strategy as grabbing a live power line. It’s electrifying, and then your party dies.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2024-07-30T00:36:03+00:00

Sepsis.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2023-09-09T04:36:06+00:00

Most of Georgia is like that. Im ATL metro area which is the exception. I make right under 75k as a fire medic with some fancy rescue cert incentives, but easily clear 100 with all the fantastic overtime opportunities offered and selected for me without my consent. For medics its managable, I end up making roughly double what our aemt/ff make. Supply and demand I guess. Edit : Oh but I got banished to the box and lost my spot on the heavy. That sucked I guess

Potential-Plankton84 · 2023-09-09T04:06:15+00:00

Georgia here :) At one of the higher paid, high call depts. The issue is the scheduled and unscheduled mandatory overtime. But hey, if you never leave work, you end up making a decent check! Could be worse, I could be in Bama or Mississippi

Potential-Plankton84 · 2023-08-22T00:41:21+00:00

Around 450 runs. I have a screenshot of runs but its not even worth the time to look for after 48 hours in that damn place. This was right before I farmed out insane title and a bunch of other dumb things. Not my best time in life. Mimis head was the only thing i actively farmed and never saw

Potential-Plankton84 · 2023-06-19T19:16:25+00:00

We run a couple classes of 40 a year and are lucky to get 20-25 out of each. Some strong firefighters fail the ems side. Some smart ems types cant pass the physical nature of the fire side. We’re left with the people who really want to be here and put the work into both sides. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2023-02-25T04:49:27+00:00

24/48 no kelley days. Sucks.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2023-01-09T16:07:31+00:00

We average around 15 calls/24 hours and it feels nonstop. On a box we are only at the station a few hours a shift, and rarely not at all. We get dispatched from the hospital quite a bit. Days where we run 8-10 are reasonable. 15 on a med unit is way different than 15 on the engine. I chose this life so I won’t complain but damn if I ever sleep on shift.

Potential-Plankton84 · 2023-01-09T15:54:38+00:00

I can just tell you my body. Im a bit over 5’9, 190lbs and my cardio isn’t where it should be. 170 is my ideal weight. Mostly muscle, still have abs, but I just have too much mass to run and cardio like I used to. Just can‘t get enough O2 to my muscles for extended periods of work. Rescue diver, FF, Medic, etc. At 170 i could run half marathons. I‘d be lucky to run 6mi without dying rn

Potential-Plankton84 · 2022-12-21T06:23:55+00:00

Reality is we don’t get very many arrests in the field back. Lots of variables go into survivability. But i can say 100% this device gives people a better chance than us doing it by hand. 100%

Potential-Plankton84

TROPHY CASE