It would seem that a lot of people do not understand the difference between a ‘full time’ firefighter and a ‘retained’ one based on the amount of negative feedback a post shared on the Buckfastleigh Fire Station has received.
The post shared by the retained fire station said:
“To be a retained firefighter takes a certain type of person, to respond to your alerter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week takes dedication, stopping what your doing no matter what!
“However leaving a haircut half way through when your alerter goes off is on another level”.
Retained Firefighters operate a bit like the brave men and women of the lifeboat service because they respond to shouts when their pagers go off.
So this means that retained firefighters will often be working in their ‘9-5’ job or doing other ‘things’ when the call comes in – such as getting their hair cut.
On this occasion, the firefighter was in the middle of a haircut when his pager went off, meaning that he ended up with half-a-job being done on his hair.
However, it would seem that some badly informed ‘Facebookers’ just assumed that he was a full-time firefighter and that he had just decided to go for a haircut whilst on duty!
You would have thought that that the word ‘retained’ might have given it away…
Followers were also quick to make some lighthearted comments about the, well, style of the haircut even though it was half a job:
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This could be the start of a new trend.