Carry On: All right, Amanda, welcome.

Amanda: Thank you for having me. Good, good. I just got off of work this morning at 630, so today's my rest day.

Carry On: How are you? Is your shift change at 630?

Amanda: Yes, 630 to 630 and we work ⁓ kind of like some of the schedule you've seen. We have five days off in a row. So 24 on, 24 off, 24 on and then five days off. And we also work one debit day a month. So in one of those weeks we'll work one extra day. He retired. Yeah, he spent his entire career with the fire department. He was very good. God bless him. So we just don't have that anymore. I think this new generation, the younger, the younger generation, they get a lot of their mental health information from online. And that's why I think it's so important for people to be aware of what they're sharing, what they're encouraging.

Carry On: ⁓ he retired. ⁓ Okay, so it's like a Kelly.

Amanda: Yes.

Carry On: god. Well that five days off must be nice. All right, Fire Fam, welcome back to Carry On Fire Family. I am Audrey, your host, and today we are having a conversation that is going to be real, honest, and maybe a little uncomfortable for some, but that's me. I like to make things uncomfy. You're not welcome here. My wife won't let me work with you. She can't pull me out of a burning building. She's weak. She's DEI. She didn't earn it.

Amanda: Yes, and when you get two days of vacation, it's more like two weeks of vacation. So I love that. And on the other side of that, encouraging the members to be engaging with content that is uplifting and not breaking you down. And it takes the individual person to kind of be in that space. But other than that, we have things in place. Like I said, a staff psychologist who I just don't really care for. we have a CISM team for incidents that are

Carry On: Yes. Do you guys have a lot of over times? you have a of Mando's or?

Amanda: So I've never heard it called Mando before, but I've seen that term floating around. But we have overtime and it's not forced. The way that our overtime works is when in the morning, if no one's there to relieve you, you're either a priority one or a priority two. They tried this other priority three thing that didn't work, very short lived. So priority one people, they have to be relieved according to our guidelines.

Carry On: These are just a few things that some female firefighters here in the firehouse and what I see often online in the comment section, posts, ⁓ anything that has to with a firefighter. If there's a female involved, there is usually somebody in the comments saying she didn't earn it. So we're going to talk it today. What it is actually like to be a female firefighter in a male dominated field.

Amanda: you know, it's critical incident stress management, but you know, they're not, they're not where they need to be. I will say that they used to be way better and there's some very good people on that team, but it's for a department our size, we're 3,700 members and we're supposed to be 4,100. It's not where it needs to be. by 8.30 a.m. and our priority two people are saying, hey, basically if you can't find anybody to relieve me, I'm willing to stay all day. ⁓ So it's worked out for a lot of us, overtime is our second job. But I would say that the department's hiring a lot more, so that's kind of starting to go away.

Carry On: And not just inside the station, but outside of it too. My guest today is Amanda, a wife, mom of two, a Christian, a Swiftwater team member and an engineer operator, a woman who has cut four holes in her career more than most firefighters ever will. But her story doesn't just start in the firehouse. It starts with homelessness off and on at age 15, childhood without support, Dang! That's that sounds nice actually. Sounds better than what how we how we do it out here in California land. Okay. All right. You entered the fire service in 2016 right? That is crazy. What are you doing to fix that?

Amanda: So, ⁓ Right. Yes. There's a big divide between women even within ourselves. I think I mentioned that there's only 5 % of us and even less of that in the field. So there's maybe 175 of us and even less of that is actually in the field. whenever I see other women or I see new females and I want to get to know them and I want to talk to them and feel them out and let them know, hey, if you ever need a mentor, if you ever need to talk about something,

Carry On: What did you think it would be like?

Amanda: I actually didn't have a lot of, ⁓ I don't know if you've ever done something with no idea like what you're getting into and that's kind of how I got into the department. I actually ⁓ thought I was gonna go be a police officer and I was going through that process. I quit my job in the oil and gas field so I could start physically preparing, ⁓ working out and stuff like that for the police department.

Carry On: becoming a mother at 19 while she was in college full time, earning two degrees, building a life from nothing, and then stepping into one of the most male dominated careers out there. Mm-hmm. We're talking culture, motherhood, marriage, sisterhood, and the dynamics between female firefighters, the male firefighters they work with, and for some, the wives or spouses of those firefighters and how they are treated differently. So buckle up. ⁓

Amanda: reach out to me and I have had females reach out to me about situations and I try to give them okay here's what is what's the right way this is what should happen and here's what I've experienced in our department of how things actually happen so we want to set our expectations I got ⁓ through that entire ⁓ hiring process. And I was at work one day. I was ⁓ doing a side job at REI, one of my favorite stores. ⁓ ⁓ one of the guys that knew I was going through the process came in with his brother. ⁓ he's like, OK, I work for the police department. My brother works for the fire department. ⁓ we were just chit chatting and catching up. And his brother said, you know, I don't think you'd

Carry On: Let's get into it.

Amanda: I think what am I doing? I'm trying to be there for some of these women in that way ⁓ just like everybody else, sometimes my personality and their personality don't get along. A lot of women in my department and I, our personalities just don't mix. But I would say there's a handful of us, know, maybe 10 or 12 of us that we kind of band together and we plan on doing things together like the Women in Fire Conference that's coming up. you wouldn't make it through our recruiting, our PAT test and anything like that. And so I think it was like that day I said, you know what, I'm going to do this. So this is a lesson for some men, know, some women, including myself are very driven by telling us that we can't do something. And aside from that, my uncle was a paramedic and he joined in 1996, but he passed away in 1998. in September in Austin and I look forward to meeting other women, know, just through that avenue. I think I've reached out to women across the country, you know, I want to get to know them, see what their departments are doing, how are they doing things different and maybe I can learn something from that. So there's still a lot of members that remember him and they see me, they find out who I am and they know that I'm related to him.

Carry On: Mm-hmm. So you were going to be a police officer and then somebody said you would never pass the fire. So you said, screw it, I'm going to be a firefighter. Yep, yep, I love that. Man.

Amanda: So basically I went back in 2016, they used to have what's called Women in Career Fitness. You can go every Friday or every other Friday to the training academy and you can try out the physical ability test, we call it the PAT test. And so I said, you know what, me see where I'm at. If I fail it miserably, then I'm just gonna stick with HPD or the police department. And so I went and I passed.

Carry On: Okay, you said you like quilting. Mm-hmm.

Amanda: I do. And I was like really surprised. Of course, a lot of that was adrenaline, not a lot of training. And so I actually did that whole process four times total. I did it that time and then I did it three more times. The last time it actually counted for my hiring. And so I passed every single time, but I definitely had a lot of doubt in my head ⁓ going in that I was going to be able to pass. I just started sewing when I was in high school. Took a sewing class and pretty much never stopped. My first quilt, my daughter, I remember her being three years old and she's snipping it up with scissors and she said, I did it. So we laugh about that sometimes, but I've made probably about 10 or 12 quilts and I don't ever sell them. I just give them to people that I love.

Carry On: You So did you feel like you had to prove yourself more than the male counterparts or was it just more like you just wanted to see if you could do it?

Amanda: they know how much they mean so they're they're pretty much all hand designed and I tie them myself so it's kind of one of my little old lady habits or hobbies. I wouldn't say it was more than the male counterparts. think because there was really only males there, there wasn't a lot of women there, it felt like I had to just prove myself against whoever's there. ⁓ But as time has gone by, I would say more that ⁓ it's evident to me that it doesn't matter how much we prove ourselves. It's never gonna be enough.

Carry On: I love that. Quilting is tough. Well, it's good for you mentally too. And you like to do yoga and go hiking.

Amanda: Yeah, yeah, I think, ⁓ it's important to do something that you're like, okay, I want to, I'm looking forward to doing this. And some people that's that really hard working out at the gym and lifting the weights. And I get that. I look forward to going to yoga. I like, we have a studio called Black Swan and I like going there. And other than that, my family and I are just huge in the outdoors. grew up camping. I mean, and I say that with some kindness to some of my teammates, my crew, I really get along with my crew. My crew and I have a lot of really good coworkers that I would call like very close acquaintances, but I would not say at all that I would consider them like I do my family. and hunting and fishing outdoors. my son and I, my son's in Cub Scouts and my husband and my son and I, we go and we camp every time we can. So we just recently came back from camping in Garner, which is one of our favorite places to go. It's the hill country is beautiful here in Texas. If you ever get a chance to visit. my all for my for my team, my crew, and I would expect the same back from them. But I have learned the hard way not to give too much of myself to my job. So I love them, but I love them from a distance. And ⁓ they're kind of like the people you see in you ⁓ every other holiday or something like that. But ⁓ we we're in general very close on my crew. just had one of the members just had a death in his family and we all kind of.

Carry On: Hmm

Amanda: came together for that. so ⁓ we also all went to Colorado Springs last year as a group, all of us and our families went together to celebrate the life of one of the members in our district who lost his life in a fire. So if you know anything about Colorado Springs, they add the names to the wall. So we're generally pretty close, closer than any other crew I've ever been on. So.

Carry On: What's one thing your kids think is cool about your job? Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Amanda: ⁓ My daughter has not told me. So I don't know if she likes my schedule. I think she likes my schedule because when I'm off we do things together. yeah, I hear her tell her friends sometimes, ⁓ my mom this. I think if I had to say the one thing was that I get to participate in a lot of the parades because I'm in our special events team. And so ⁓ she got to go, for example,

Carry On: But you still have, it sounds like you have really good boundaries too about like knowing kind of when to leave the work out of your home life. Really?

Amanda: I think that comes with, that has come with trials and tribulations itself ⁓ because I mentioned in my bio that I'm married. So I've been married since 2018, but we've been together for a long time. And so part of my relationship with my husband is knowing that, hey, I had all this heavy stuff that I had to adjust to carrying at work and then I come home. And so, and

Carry On: ⁓ huh.

Amanda: to the pride parade and be kind of like right in center. And the same with my husband when the Astros won the, ⁓ my gosh, I'm so embarrassed to say I don't even know what it was they won. They were the World Series, yeah. I mean, I can get along with the guys, but I don't know everything. So I'm not a sports person. So when they won the World Series, my husband got to ride in the floats downtown.

Carry On: The World Series.

Amanda: And just like every other relationship, I watch a lot of your content and I see that we're very similar in some ways, ⁓ some of the wives and myself, that we expect things from our husbands. And then I've just happened to be on the other side of knowing mentally and physically sometimes where we're at. ⁓ So with that being said, yeah, I leave stuff at work and I come home and I mentally jump in to where we are at home. And my husband and I have a lot of the same

Carry On: Ha ha ha!

Amanda: And my son, my son would say he loves visiting and sitting in the truck.

Carry On: That's cool. Yep. Yep. that's so funny. OK. ⁓ ask everybody on the podcast this question. What do you want your legacy to be for you, your kids, your family, your career? What do you hope to kind of leave? Yeah.

Amanda: communication struggles that other people in my peer group have. So it's nice to be able to feel like, you know, we're not a one-off and that way I can be very supportive to a lot of the guys I work with. You know, ⁓ I drive an ambulance. I don't know if you were aware of that. Yeah, so for my career, I don't want to say I don't care, but I think that's the last priority on my list. My career, I want to enjoy my career. And I think in enjoying my career, I will have touched at least one person to say, hey, you know, I saw her do this, she prevailed, I can do this too. And then they can forge their own path.

Carry On: No, I don't think you told me that. you, you, but you're an engineer now, right? How does that work?

Amanda: Yes. So you start off as a probation or firefighter, then you are a firefighter, then you can test for the engineer operator position. But once you get up to that spot, you kind of go back to the bottom of seniority. And so the back to the bottom is you drive an ambulance. So some of my coworkers have driven an ambulance for four or five years before they were able to have enough time to drive a fire truck and then even more time to drive the light. You know, ⁓ a lot of guys want to leave a legacy of they were the teacher, they had their name on this. And for me, it's just not as important. I think the most important thing for legacy is my kids, my kids and my husband. know, I want them to say my mom loved me. My mom was there at all my events. My mom taught me what it's like to get through hard times.

Carry On: Mm-hmm. It's based on hours.

Amanda: It's based on years of service.

Carry On: Okay, yours. okay. Back to your husband. So he is not a firefighter, correct? Just a regular old civilian. ⁓ me too. Okay, we gotcha. We gotcha. Okay. ⁓ How does he feel about you being a firefighter?

Amanda: and to know where to lean in to my faith during those hard times. ⁓ I think my biggest takeaway in life is that when I pass away or when I die, I want my kids to see, you know, that's what I want to be like, you know, in my own way. And then I want them to go out and find their own way. I don't want them to be just like me. They're going to be smarter and better in all the things than we are. Our kids are just already smarter than we are, so. No. Yep. He does IT. He does IT work. He's a nerd. I think my husband's a little bit of a unicorn. He's very supportive. And I think I shelter him a lot from some of the stuff that I experienced. But even that at some point became so heavy for us. ⁓ I had experienced some harassment at one of the stations I was at. And I never told him anything that was going on. And then fast forward until ⁓ Hopefully that's what they get.

Carry On: That is the truth. Yeah, they're ridiculously smarter than we ever were. And I'm very glad that ⁓ they are, because hopefully it won't be so difficult for them. That's all we can strive for is just to make it a little bit easier for them. Not like super easy, but just a tiny bit easier. ⁓ Any last thoughts?

Amanda: a year later after some of that stuff had stopped, I finally went through the process of filing a grievance on this person. I filed within 30 days, but it just took a long time for that process to start. so as I was going through that process, it was very emotional, and I had to end up telling my husband everything. And so there's times that I call him and I'll tell him, hey, guess what this person said? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I have learned some hardships. I have learned that some hardships, they really create ⁓ that resilience in others. And so I think I'm okay with my kids having a hard time in some ways. I think I'm okay with them having some difficult moments or some of the ladies in my department, if they experience difficult times, I think that's the path to a better future. Sometimes that

Carry On: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: or guess what this person said? And he's like, ⁓ my gosh, they don't think what they're about to say before they say it. And I was like, you know, some of it I give them grace because we're humans and sometimes we make mistakes. even I sometimes, ⁓ I feel like sometimes I say things ⁓ just without thinking, but also it's a profession. We are a professional ⁓ career fire department and we are paid, ⁓ I think we're paid very well. I'm very happy with my pay. building that resilience. So not all of life can be the flowers and sunshine. Sometimes like in California, you need the rain and the hail. And of course, I guess you guys have the earthquakes.

Carry On: Yeah. So many earthquakes. ⁓ my god. It's been two months of just non-stop earthquakes. It's so bizarre.

Amanda: And I don't want to lose that. so, you know, the professionalism is like the number one thing in my mind. It's just not always the number one thing in other people's minds. So he knows a lot of what goes on. But I would also say that my husband, he's such a sweetheart. just doesn't, he does things, he thinks the best of everybody. So.

Carry On: Mm-hmm. All right, Amanda, I cannot thank you enough for coming on here and just giving us kind of an insight into the female perspective in a very, very male dominated industry. ⁓ I love the female firefighters. I think you guys are badasses. I wish that especially the women would be a lot more understanding of you and support you Correct. What did he say about the grievance specifically? Was he surprised? Was he like, you need to quit or was like, what was his reaction to it?

Amanda: He asked me why I didn't tell him, you know, sooner. And the answer to that was some of it I was trying to deal with on my own. Like, you know, I was battling this internal, ⁓ if you will, battle of whether I should say something. You know, a lot of the guys that I work with in my district, they know about this situation because, I mean, as you probably know, the fire department's just a...

Carry On: so that the men in this field maybe feel a little less threatened too. I don't know. That's just my thoughts. ⁓ But this is a very important conversation. It really matters for female firefighters, for the departments, for the spouses, for the families, and for anybody who maybe wants to be a firefighter if you are a female or non-binary or transgender or not a male. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Amanda: It's kind of like high school. And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of, a lot of tees man gossip, yes. And so I will get every now and then somebody's asked me, well, tell me about it. And I, or they want to know. And so I like to think I'm a pretty open book and I'll tell somebody, you know, if I know their, their motives aren't bad.

Carry On: Yes.

Amanda: I'm here to say hi. ⁓ All the things.

Carry On: all the things, right? concept. Yes. Yeah, and we, I really appreciate you just.

Amanda: Well, I really appreciate you. appreciate you. I appreciate you. I appreciate that you are, you know, you are kind of following this path to opening up the conversations. And I've seen a lot of the content that you produce and it's kind of like, listen, we don't have to see eye to eye, but let's have the conversation about it. And I really, I really appreciate that about some people who want to have those open conversations, even if in the end we don't agree.

Carry On: Hahaha!

Amanda: But ultimately people believe what they want to believe. And of course I always feel like I'm going to be biased against, you know, for myself. So ⁓ I try to do my best to tell exactly what happened. But at the time I just was trying to battle like, do I say something or do I wait longer and collect more evidence? Because unfortunately for a lot of the women in the fire department,

Carry On: Yep. Yep. It's it's one of those things where it's like it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable for everybody, but it has to be said and it has to be talked about. We can't just keep shoving shit under the rug. It's just dumb. And, know, it's people like you that help propel the conversation in the correct direction. And hopefully somebody will hear this or watch this and say, ⁓ wow, let me let me think about the way I handle.

Amanda: if you were to speak up about one singular incident, it's just not enough. And in fact, our department's way of handling that would be to separate the two people. Now, if that person, one person was a captain, for example, in my situation was my captain and myself as a firefighter, it's easier to send me away than it is to send him away because there's more of firefighters than there is captains. So it almost feels like a punishment for speaking up.

Carry On: this situation at work and why a special SOP needs to be in place for these kinds of situations. Man, thank you. ⁓ I really appreciate you. You're awesome. Yep. Yep.

Amanda: And a lot of women that are in my department, my department's only 5 % women, and even less percentage of that is actually in the field. And so ⁓ a lot of the women I talk to say the same thing. They've experienced some pretty crazy things, and they just don't speak up about it. So my husband was very understanding, but also in his mind is like, why don't you say something? Well, that's because he's come from his corporate. All right, thank you so much. It's been fun.

Carry On: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: world where you you can just say one thing about something you know did something very uncomfortable and it's a big deal. In the fire department they're kind of like I've even had a female chief tell me you're gonna have to get thicker skin and you're gonna have to let things roll off your back. You're in a man's world and men are gonna say things and you're just gonna have to let it go if you want to have a career.

Carry On: But who decided it was a man's world? And the departments? Who decided that?

Amanda: think historically that people see that firefighters are the men, they show up and they're the rescuers. I think stereotypically we see that in our relationships, right? Men are the savers. But they don't give us enough credit. As women, we're the backbones. We make things work. We know the schedules.

Carry On: Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Amanda: we are the supporters of them they need us so otherwise they could just go live in their happy little world without us ⁓

Carry On: Amen. Okay. Amen. Okay. Let's talk about your strengths because you said you've cut four holes more than most in their career. What does that mean to you personally?

Amanda: think that means to me, that's something that I get to cherish and I know that I proven to myself that I am capable of doing this job and ⁓ I am very, very capable and able of performing the same tasks that I get a lot of heat for. So the first thing that a lot of men online, women online, nurses, they like to attack your ability to do your job and then they attack your attitude. And I don't find that ⁓ only in the fire department, but just for women in general, their attitudes and their abilities to do their jobs are kind of like the low hanging fruit. so ⁓ unfortunately I've experienced that myself and knowing my ⁓ reputation as a good firefighter. I mean, I could run circles around some of the guys I work with and that just, it's not for them, it's just for me. It's for me to take home and me to know, look, you don't need anyone else to validate that you know how to do your job. You know how to do your job.

Carry On: I love that. Okay. All right. You became a mom at 19 in college. How did that kind of shape the way you're approaching this career?

Amanda: So I think that's one of the reasons why I fit in with some of the, and I can actually relate to a lot of the patients that we ⁓ encounter on a day-to-day basis. ⁓ I like to think that I have grit. A lot of people that I meet, ⁓ their hardships shape them, and I'm no different. My hardships, they shaped me. ⁓ I had my daughter, like you said, my daughter when I was 19. I was going to college full time and I was working full time. I had my own apartment, my own car, my own insurance, my own bills. And so sometimes I meet people and I have to remind myself to have empathy for their situations because not everybody is driven the same way that I was driven. And so that's hard. And then the other side of that is I see people who, you know, they prevail through hardships. and I have a lot of respect for that.

Carry On: How's the mom guilt?

Amanda: you know, with my daughter, ⁓ was nine when I entered the, ⁓ fire service. Actually, yeah, she was eight and then she turned nine, but she, with her, it wasn't so much because I didn't work hardly any overtime in the beginning ⁓ I spent a lot of time with her. And so we did, you know, field trips and it was just one of the benefits of having the schedule that we had. And then at some point. Yeah, we decided I need to start working more to save for our wedding, which we paid for, ⁓ did not go into debt for. And yeah, I missed out on a lot of stuff. I think the mom guilt is... When I come home tired and I know now I have a five year old, he was born in ⁓ the peak of COVID. And sometimes when I come home, he says, mama, I miss you. Or he like turns over and he'll say, can we cuddle? And so, ⁓ you know, I would let him miss school every day, but he can't miss school. So, but I, I, I miss the days when he wasn't taking attendance because we would spend every day. was off together. So.

Carry On: Mm-hmm. buddy. it is like in kindergarten.

Amanda: Yes, yes.

Carry On: Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's such a good age. Such a fun age. Oh my gosh. All right. There's an unspoken kind of dynamic sometimes between female firefighters and the wives specifically of male firefighters. Tell me about your experience with firefighters saying they cannot work with a female because their wife told them they can't.

Amanda: Yeah, that's it. So the thing that still amazes me is I meet people from other departments who they don't have guidelines covering this. And so I think that's why it's so surprising to hear other people dealing with these issues. ⁓ And I wish I could just wave a magic wand and fix it all for them. And I would say that we have a SOP for this particular issue. ⁓ is like a broad one, but it covers this issue and it still doesn't get followed. We have a guideline that states that when I want to transfer to another station, ⁓ used to be respect, out of respect, I would call the station and say, hey, I'm thinking about putting in for your station. You know, I talked to the captain. They would kind of have to like, like give me their blessing and say, yeah, you can, you can put in for the station. ⁓ But that turned into a lot of things that happened before I even came to the department. There was some, you know, racial tension, of course, sexism, stuff like that. So they put this guideline into place to try to nix all that. Now, that's not to say that people still don't call, even though they're not supposed to, or people still get, I would say, hazed or harassed for not calling, even though we're not supposed to. So I've had the experience of a guy saying, oh, trust me, you could never put in for my station. I, you know, straight up, Well, why is that? Well, my wife would never let me work with a female. And ⁓ in the beginning, yeah, mean, it hurt me. It hurt me a lot to hear, well, what I heard was nobody wants me. They don't want me there. I can't do my job. But over time and experience and some maturity on my part, I've learned that this is their issue. This is the guy's issue. with their own relationships and it should not affect me. Now, I have put myself where I went to the station anyways and I did not have a good experience. you know, there's that. So I would just say, it's like a red flag for me if someone says that to me. And it's not just to go and prove that I can do my job. I don't need to do that anymore. I know I can do my job. Now it's more so, What do I want in my everyday? Am I going to be at peace being here at this station?

Carry On: So you have and your department has an SOP specifically saying like you, cannot discriminate against the female or based on race. Is that, is that right? Like that's crazy to me that there has to be an SOP that even says that because that should just be, I mean, that's like common law. I don't, I mean, we can't discriminate based off of sex or race. I

Amanda: Right. Yeah, or gender identity or sexual preferences. we do have, ⁓ you know, I'm proud to say this, that we do have ⁓ several transgender members in our department and you know, their plight is rough, you know, so yeah, we need that SOP to say, you can't tell me no, unless there's, I remember transferring to a station

Carry On: Don't even.

Amanda: I accidentally knocked their rookie out. So they had a rookie, they wanted to keep him, ⁓ I had more time and experience than he did. ⁓ so ⁓ I put in for the station, he didn't get the spot. And I remember I was there for two weeks and I remember the senior captain saying very specifically, they had a retirement party at the station. And he said, I wish we could still block people. And so ⁓ was the newest member and obviously I felt very like he was targeting me. And that man and I never got along. And I had the worst experience at that station ever. I was the earliest one there, hardest working, I did everything, and I could never make them happy. And so I ended up just leaving because I decided that my mental health was ⁓ more important than proving that I belonged somewhere. It wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it to me. So. But other than the guy saying, ⁓ well, you could never put in for my station. Yeah, I've had other men say things like that would make me think don't put in for that station. That's going to be an issue.

Carry On: Yeah. God, this is blowing my mind right now. Like I am like, Jesus, it is 2026 for God's sake. I mean, I feel like we've almost like gone backwards in society from, you know, from the start of your career to now, feels like it's like we're in like some time loop we can't get out of. I don't know. I mean, I'll say like my...

Amanda: I

Carry On: My husband's department right now does not have any females, but when he started there were three and they've all since retired. Um, but they were some of the most hardworking people I had ever met and nice, kind, amazing human beings. Um, this shit blows me away. I am like dumbfounded right now. Um, what would you want the wives to understand about women in this job? Like if you could get them all in a room, what would you say to them?

Amanda: So just like any other job, mean, obviously there's issues when people work in offices as well and they have, you know, historically affairs happen in every job. So our job is no different and the fact that we're quartered together actually, I don't think that makes any difference either because, you know, I get to experience and see some of these things, the patients that we encounter that are, you know, they've had affairs or, you know, they were assaulted in the middle of the affair by the wife finding them. people will find a way. The fire service is just no different. I don't know, everybody's fire department is different. I know that there's some departments out there, they have really good funding and they have like women's bathrooms, women's quarters, stuff like that. don't have that. We do have some facilities that have women only bathrooms and that's more of like a please don't use my bathroom. It's not a hard line of don't go to that bathroom. If there's no women there in that day, they're going to use the bathroom, trust me. When I was breastfeeding my son, I breastfed my son. I mean, I lactated in the bathroom at some times. I had to put a sign up, do not enter.

Carry On: Totally. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Amanda: So, ⁓ but you know, it's gonna happen either way. And I see some of the other women that I work with. And I think it's all about maturity. I really do feel like what you're doing here with the mental health aspect, I did listen to some of the other podcasts about the mental health aspect is just so big. If we're not growing,

Carry On: you

Amanda: individually and in our relationships, there's gonna be a break somewhere. And unfortunately, for some of the men I work with, it's just easy pickings to be, you know, housed with a female. And in other cases, I've had men who are just downright so respectful. One particular guy in my district, every time I see him, he says, I have so much respect for you. Yes ma'am. He doesn't even have to say these things. He's just so, you know, he just gives me that respect. I think. Wives only have as much to worry about with their husbands with a female firefighter as they do with any other female. Female firefighters are just no different. They're just another person.

Carry On: Yep, exactly. And like you said, there is a professionalism aspect of the job. The ones who are unprofessional are going to be like that.

Amanda: regardless.

Carry On: on and off the field, right? You cannot, you just can't, like that's just their personality, right? Like they're gonna act a certain way. They're not gonna, they're probably not gonna be any different outside of the job. That's, you could probably count on that, I think. Oh man.

Amanda: Oh, do you ever wonder to yourself why the fire service or public servants, know, police officers have higher instances of domestic violence and marital affairs? know, I think some of it just comes with the personality of what it takes to be a first responder. Some people who have that personality of what it takes to see that type of stuff every day. And then,

Carry On: Yeah.

Amanda: Also that person knowing when and how to cope appropriately with the things that we deal with. Like we said before, a lot of the stuff I had to learn to leave behind at the station when I came home because we do deal with and see a lot of pretty bad things. And there was a time that I came home angry all the time. I was angry, angry because I was not sleeping well. angry because I knew I had a full day of work ahead of me at home, angry because I just witnessed really terrible things at work, and I didn't know how to explain that to my husband. And so we've come up with our own little rule, and I've heard other people say they have the same thing, that first day I come home, or the middle day is a rest day. I have to sleep and have to rest. And this morning when I came home, he got me coffee and some breakfast. and he said bye. So I got to stay home and sleep and rest and we're gonna be really good later. So it's all about the support and I'm trying to find more ways that I can do that for him because it's hard being the other way around.

Carry On: Love that. I mean, it's different, you know, it's like, yeah, you'll get there. You'll get there. Plus, you've got young ones too. So it's really hard when they're that young. It's really hard. Like, I mean, for both of you, I think you're in such the you're in muddy water still for for that little one. And it's tough, man. It's tough. You'll get there. You'll get there for sure. All right. Let's talk about your faith for a minute. So you are Christian. You went through a lot of shit when you were younger. How do you think your faith really helped you get to where you are now and how is it helping you in your career?

Amanda: Yeah. Sure, so. I was actually raised Catholic and. In about 2010, 2011 timeframe. ⁓ I really just. Did not go to church anymore. I rejected my faith. ⁓ I was really upset with God. Why am I going through these things? Why am I experiencing this? ⁓ It was a really tough time when my daughter was little. I would say that it took me some years to come back full circle to saying, okay, I want this in my life and I need this. And ⁓ that's why when people tell me that they're on their own personal journey and they may not be fully two feet in, I understand. I understand where they're coming from in a way that there's still hope that that basis is there, the foundation is there for them to come back when they're ready. yeah, I think today I lean heavily on my faith to get me through some of the situations, really just gratitude. Every day waking up and feeling grateful for the things I have, for my job. ⁓ And some of the things we see, you know, I really, can't help but feel thank you. Thank you God for this, for this life. Thank you for waking me up for another day. Thank you for allowing me to go work overtime to support my family. So anyone who's questioning their faith, I was there. I was there with you for a while. And I think some, sometimes you need a little bit of a break to see what you were missing.

Carry On: Yep, I would agree with that. Let's talk about your mental health for a second. I know we touched on it already, but how do you think the department is doing with mental health, with the firefighters specifically? Like now versus when you first started? Is it better? Is it worse? Is it the same, you know, from a female perspective? What do you see kind of with the men specifically since you're only 5 % female?

Amanda: The doctor we had when I first entered the service, I loved him. His name was Dr. Buser. And he was boots on the ground. Even though he was a doctor, a psychologist, he understood the things that we... I mean, think he went and participated in going to calls and stuff like that. Today, we don't have that. Today we have a staff psychologist who has a degree in psychology.