When Ego’s Driving, Friction Rides Shotgun
When Ego’s Driving,
Friction Rides Shotgun
I thought I was standing up for myself. I was really
just fueling a fight I helped start.
By Johnny Peters
B Shifter Buckslip, March 31, 2026
“Hey, rookie!”
You know how you know someone is talking to you even when they don’t say your name? Well, then the scene is mostly set. A few more details…
We’re in an apparatus bay. First day the station is open since it flooded a year or so prior. I’m a newly inducted engineer, and I’ve only moments ago backed my ambulance into this station. First day with this crew.
“Hey, rookie!” This time, the call comes from nearby. I can hear whoever it is closing in on me as I ignore his hue and cry. I am now filled with the emotion Germans call ßlofübelorten*, which roughly translates as, “I know this mf’er ain’t talking to me.”
Suddenly, there’s a hand on my shoulder. I stop and turn around as he once more calls me rookie.
Back then, we wore our button-up shirts more often. I have my shiny new badge. I tap it and say, “I don’t think so.”
“Okay, ranked rookie,” he replies without missing a beat. What he wanted out of me other than my goat, I no longer remember. It fades to black after that rejoinder. It picks up later in the day with our next dust-up, for as staffing karma would have it, the guy calling me rookie is assigned patient care on my ambulance.
We make a breathing difficulty call, responding with some medics. In the house is a pale, sweaty patient lying in bed. Not quite guppy breathing, but slowly on the way to it. I have a backboard with me, and I offer it so we can move him. They decline. I say, “I ain’t wrestling flesh.” They move the limp guy to the stretcher. We take him to the hospital.
On the way back, my partner starts in on a speech. “I’ve been doing this a while, and when I say something, you need to listen to me.”
Okay.
I flip the rocker switch, turning on the emergency lights. I stop the ambulance and put it in park. I give my rebuttal: “That guy was on his way out. If he had crashed, y’all would have been putting him on a backboard en route so you could work him. I was right. This is my ambulance. I will be on here every day. Everything that happens on here is my fault. So when I say something, you will listen to me. If you disagree, you can say so, but I get final word.”
That bit about everything being my fault on the ambulance had come from one of my previous officers. I’d turned it from a warning about responsibility into a description of how the cow eats the cabbage.
It worked. He acquiesced. I put the ambulance back in drive, took off, and turned off my lights.
I’ve been telling that story for years. I used to think it meant I was a guy who wasn’t going to take disrespect—a story about a guy being a jerk and the young man who wasn’t going to tolerate it.
It hit me: the story wasn’t about some jerk disrespecting me—it was
about two jerks who got into a power struggle. The whole thing had
started on that apparatus floor—an entire day of contention was set there.
The day started going downhill right there, from that moment.
I started questioning my perspective a few years ago. I started wondering, after telling the story, if it might be coming across as bragging. A story not about standing up for myself, but about how tough I was. I think there’s a difference between the two.
So then I started thinking of it as a cautionary tale—about how you shouldn’t try to lord your seniority over others, especially strangers. It changed my perspective a little, changed the way I saw the story. I kept telling it, but from this slightly new point of view. I had already started seeing it differently—saw different angles, stepped outside of it a little. Damage was done.
I told the story again recently, meaning to show how people with more time in can feel they needn’t listen to younger members. I got to the end and thought about the way I’d offered the backboard. “I don’t wrestle flesh,” I said. Not, “If he crashes, we’ll wish we had this.”
I looked at my audience and said, “I probably should have said that differently.”
Then I flashed to the clear image in my mind of me tapping my badge. It hit me: the story wasn’t about some jerk disrespecting me—it was about two jerks who got into a power struggle. The whole thing had started on that apparatus floor—an entire day of contention was set there. The day started going downhill right there, from that moment.
You either stop telling your story while you’re the hero, or tell it long enough that you realize you’re the villain. One of them, at least. To me, there’s a phenomenon that our perspective on stories often changes as we grow older, and what seemed good or cool or funny later on makes us look pretty bad. The further I get from who I was, the easier it is to see the mistakes.
So what do I believe went wrong on my end? I let my ego take over. Someone was trying to get my goat. I gave it right over. I saw it for years as me standing up for myself, and it could have been that if I’d done it the right way. I could have just turned around at any point on that apparatus floor and found out what he wanted without trying to show off my rank; he could read my badge on his own. I didn’t do that. I engaged in the power struggle. Later, instead of pointing out calmly that our patient might crash, I made another snide comment. That was undoubtedly the wrong way.
I’m not saying that the other people in my story were right. But I have a view from inside on my motivations, and I know they were driven partly by ego. Don’t do that. Don’t thump your badge and show off your rank. Don’t frame your arguments in terms of things you will or won’t do. You should always be doing the right thing. Frame it in those terms. Think of it in those terms. Don’t let it be a struggle of wills. That will lead you astray every time.
This isn’t magic. Interactions will sometimes go downhill no matter what. You might not be able to stop them rolling, but you don’t have to help the other guy push.
*Not a real word, although it should be.
Johnny Peters has been with the Houston Fire Department since last century. In this time, he has successfully gamed the system and was promoted to senior captain, forever freeing himself of the burden of fire hose by hiding in a truck company.