You promoted to Captain 7 months ago and have been assigned to Station 7 the entire time. Recently, at a fire, the “House Captain” twisted his knee and is off on injury awaiting surgery. “Call-back” Captains are filling his spot.
3 months ago Ralph Bison, a Probationary Firefighter, was assigned to your station. He always stays busy with activities such as making coffee, baking cookies, helping the cook, polishing the brass and mopping the floors.
Ralph is 27 years old and is married with one 4-year old son. Prior to the fire service, for 6 years, he drove a delivery truck for the water company that supplies the fire station. He liked how relaxed all the firefighters looked and how friendly they were. He received his Firefighter I certification from a weekend Academy at a local Community College and has volunteered for Department activities over the past year. Ralph is a nice guy and is well liked by the crew.
Ralph played high school and some college baseball and currently is in a slow pitch softball league. He runs about 10 miles a week.
In the Academy, Ralph did reasonably well with his written examinations. He struggled with manipulative skills. At the end of the Academy he had 89 deficiency points.
In the recent past you asked him to prepare for an air bag drill and, although he had prepared notes, he was unable to answer questions from the crew. At times he fumbles with equipment and struggles with accomplishing multiple tasks simultaneously. At a recent fire, he seemed uncomfortable while working off a roof ladder and appeared to be fatigued. After the fire, your senior firefighter told you he was concerned that Ralph was going to fall off the roof. Also, he thought Ralph was dangerous by not being in control of the saw.
Today, since it is the last shift of his third month, his next evaluation must be completed.