070. People Love Us, Don’t Let Them Down: Bobby Eckert [Part 3]

The gloves are off in Part 3.

Captain Bobby Eckert returns to finish what he started, and he doesn’t hold back. From being called “the villain” of the fire service to commanding firegrounds and building one of the most respected training programs in the country, Bobby explores what it really takes to lead, teach, and stay true to yourself - no matter how loud the haters get.

What You’ll Learn:

• The fire service politics Bobby’s done pretending to tolerate
• What happens when you teach the truth - and they come for your name
• Why social media can’t handle real firefighters being real humans
• The actual purpose of fire training (and why your gloves better be in the rig)
• The power of authentic leadership, accountability, and letting go of ego

If you’re tired of the fire service popularity contest and just want to be a better firefighter and leader—this one’s for you.

Transcript

TJ: All right, here we go. Part three with Bobby Eckert. And let me just say this, the gloves are officially off. That's a joke that you have to listen to the episode to finally understand. In his final installment, Bobby Pulls no punches. He talks about being branded, quote unquote, the villain of the fire service, how he's taken hits for teaching uncomfortable truths and what it actually means to lead when the whole system seems hellbent on maintaining comfort over competence.

You'll hear what it's like to build a respected training brand from the ground up. How to lead through fireground chaos without losing your crew or yourself. And why the phrase people love us, don't let them down, might just be the single most important standard in this job. This one's not for the keyboard warriors or those who are just looking for more Instagram likes and followers. This is for the men and women out there who still believe this job is about honor action and doing it for the right reasons.

Let's finish strong.

Bobby: If my father heard how they talked to me, I don't know what my father would do to them. I really don't. But in in, in this world, in this world, they, people think that's okay. That's okay to talk to somebody like that.

And, you know, I, I won't, I, I won't go any deeper with names, names, but there's other people, big names that, that, that will talk to you like, like, you're, like, you're a piece of trash, bro. It's firefighting. It's firefighting. Guess what? When my time's done, I'm going to retire from firefighting. I'm going to collect my pension and I'm gonna travel and I'm gonna, I don't know, pick up surfing again.

Something. But while I'm here, I I, I would like to get back and I get a lot of mental health wise, I get a lot of it out, out, out, out of teaching. But you, you're gonna slander my name and come at me. No, no, no, no, no, no. So lately, the last two years, I've been pushing back hard. Hard 'cause I'm tired of it. I'm absolutely tired of it.

And then when I gave the name Ecker, I figure I'll give, oh, what better teacher, my father, his last name, man, there's dudes. Oh, then now if I would've named a flash funky fire training people like, wow, gimme a sticker. Gimme a fucking break.

TJ: Flash funky. That should be your mascot.

Bobby: I should be, I should get a i. I should be like gritty.

TJ: Oh, fuck. I just lost my train of thought. It was something

Bobby: Sorry.

TJ: No, no, no. It had to do with, with the training. I, I just keep going back to, again, you're probably done this training, so you, I don't know how, how much you remember, but in Harrisburg, I don't know if it was you, which one of you goons either hotwired or found the keys to a van that they were using for extrication training up at Hack? And that demon vehicle made its way all over the training ground while we were out there doing the, um, the

Bobby: The hands on. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah, we kind of, we commandeered that thing. Uh,

TJ: it in like in the two like posts in front of the hydrant for our evolution and said, Hey, your hydrant block, go figure it out. I'm like, this guy is unhinged. I fucking love everything about this.

Bobby: yeah, we had to,

TJ: kind of going,

Bobby: I gotta give it to the guys a hack. 'cause they, I asked for permission first before I did it. I didn't just do it, uh, you know, liability. I didn't want to, you know, God forbid somebody cuts their finger on a glass or something like that. But, uh, they were all about it. They were like, just get the thing started.

So we, you know. It's MacGyver time.

TJ: I mean,

Bobby: We did. Yeah. It's, that's, that's not hard to do.

TJ: a couple of guys that you work with who are in Baltimore City that I'm sure know things.

Bobby: Yeah.

TJ: Yeah, that was dude, that was one of the most phenomenal. I mean, it was a beatdown of a day 'cause I remember it was hot as shit, but it was, um, it was a great time. Let's go back to, and I mean, I don't want to keep. Going into Bobby, the villain, because again, we'll dig into that when we get to the social media part, and it's um, it's funny that I mentioned to, to Nick Lindsay, I was like, Hey, I'm gonna be talking to Bobby. And he goes, oh yeah, the, the villain. The villain. You're gonna get a lot of, of mileage out of that. Does that take a toll on, on

Bobby: Now

TJ: a person? Not at

Bobby: Nope.

TJ: Do

Bobby: Nope.

TJ: on that, that like pit bull mentality of like, Hey, you're telling me I can't do this? Or is it, if we're going with the animal thing, like is is it the pit bull or is it the duck where you're like, Hey, I'm gonna let this shit

Bobby: You are getting, you're getting who I am authentically. However, in the last. Ever up until about last year. This time I bit my tongue. I'm not biting my tongue anymore. I don't give a flying shit who you are. You're not, you're you. I, I'm gonna say it and I've said it on every podcast. I've written it. I care about my kids.

I care about my family, I care about my friends. And if you're not one of them and don't know me, your opinion means nothing to me. And if you're gonna come at me, I'm coming back at you and you're not gonna like it.

TJ: And that is who you are authentically.

Bobby: I, I would think, I would like to believe so every day. I mean, I'm not, I don't go out there and buy what's up with some lady with a vending machine situation earlier today.

So I always try to, she was an older lady having an issue with a dollar bill. I was, I just swiped my card for her. But yeah, like I got, I.

TJ: Fuck dude. I don't even know where we go from that one.

Bobby: No, I, I just, I, I'm, I'm over it, man. I'm over it because it, it, it's, I'll tell you what, it doesn't affect me in a way, like, like mentally. It, it's a distraction. It's a distraction. What? For, for the platform I'm trying to give and what I'm trying to really do all, all the time. Um, I, I, it's not like, I mean, you mentioned Nick Lindsay, he works with me.

Like I, I have people, like my staff's phenomenal. Their experience level's unbelievable. So you not wanting to bring them to your firehouse because of whatever you heard that isn't true. Um, that's on you. 'cause you're, you're, you're losing the amount of people that do use us. The amount of repeat customers we do have the amount of career fire departments that send recruits to our classes.

The amount of, like, all that stuff. So, you know, if you wanna miss on that, go get 'em, brother. I, I, I, I, I don't know what to tell you, but you, it is just, I, I'm not biting my tongue anymore. I, I'm done doing it.

TJ: And it is important to highlight the fact that you mentioned that you work with a variety of people from all over who come together to bring those insights that. just help that one person. Like I said, I know at least two of the dudes I know Nick and I know Tristan Tristan. I've known since Jesus like 2012, and Nick and I have been buddies for a couple years now. There was a dude from FDNY that was there then

Bobby: Yeah, we, uh, and some guys have come and gone and that's fine. Like the, the door's always open. Um, I feel like it's, it's a, it's a lot of reach. I try to cater to the people's operational reality. So you, you, I, I have a great, I have like the melting pot of the fire service working for me. Um, and they might not be the most well-spoken people or good looking, however, they're really good at what they do.

And. We, we make a lot of things happen and it, it's, our feedback is tremendous. And you know, we're, a lot of the people that are, that work for me are from the area I live in and I get, we have like a little rougher side to us and that's, uh, kind of fine. But it, it, there, there our programs are are tried and true.

We've been doing it long enough where we have it down to a system and we, we, we bring it, man. We, we absolutely do it. I, and I, you know, obviously I'm partial 'cause I own the business, but, um, I enjoy doing it. I've kind of, I've kind of transitioned on my role in it a little bit. And, um, when it first started and we were doing our hands-on events, I was just in the background, like kind of like running the event.

I don't do that anymore. I'm teaching, I, I pick a station and I'm there. I don't even know what's going on at the other stations I have, I put one on my other guys as the lead and I just, I'm in. Because I was, I was kind of losing focus on, I'm not talking about disappearance like me personally. I was like losing focus on what, why I started this and why I want to do it.

And I just took a step back and I, I, I was kind of looking at it through a different angle and I was like, I gotta get back into this. So I've been doing it and, uh, it's a lot of fun, man. We have a, we have a great time doing it. It's, uh, it's great. And our, the amount of equipment we have, we have more equipment in most fire departments, so, uh, it's, come on out.

TJ: Dude, come a long way from the days of posting on social media asking for, Hey, do you guys have like leftover saws? Do you have like,

Bobby: Oh, I'll, I'll still barter for sas, bro. Oh yeah. I got, I have, if I, tomorrow I'm, I'm gonna post on, uh, Instagram my stories. I got 11 av 2000 sitting on my couch right now. I just cleaned, I'm, they're, they're gone for sale tomorrow. Like I alway. Oh yeah. I'm, I'm, don't, don't threaten me with a good time. I lo I love a good barter.

TJ: It's a perfect segue into, into the social media world, into the, the Bobby, the villain of social media, because your reputation of being unapologetically who you are, authentic, and you've, you've, you've said it like there's only a handful of people whose opinions matter to you. Anybody else, whatever.

They're living their own life. They're living whatever,

Bobby: Have Adam. Man,

TJ: What is it that, that, I mean, we've talked, we said that it's a fire service. Is there anything else? Is there, is there like a higher calling that. Drives you to speak that truth, even in the face of that harshest criticism.

Bobby: I don't, I don't know. Like the funny thing is, is I don't see it as a truth. I just see it as what it is. Like where, where I'm from, where I am from geographically in the United States of America, this is how we do things. This is how I was taught. Like I'm not making it up. I'm not like out there as a psychopath running, you know, doing some backdraft shit.

Like this is, this is what, what I, how I was taught the job. I don't know any other way to do it. So it's, it's more, but I think, I think the fire service on a bigger level needs to understand that like there are some really good smaller places in this country that are phenomenal at what they do, and they, you know, you don't need to be from the biggest job in the world to, to be good at it.

I, I think that's, that's, that's something important for people to understand. It, it's, it's, it's great to look up to people and I, I, there's a lot of people I look up to, however, I take bits and pieces. What they do is see how I can make it apply to me where I work. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. You know, the, the villain thing started as a joke.

I, I, I was just, I. I, I, it's, it's a joke, but I, whatever. I mean, I got, I made stickers. They're right here. I, I got, got more common. It's like, have at it, man. Like, I, I, it, it, that's like you're literally at your, wherever you're at. I don't know where you're at. If you're at work, grab a mop. Okay. Grab a fucking mop, probie.

Okay. And if you're like, out with your kids, put your phone down and like, hang out with your kids. But like, you're sitting there like, they're like going at it. And I like, get to my, I'll like, get to my phone. And I'm like, holy shit. I got like 700 notifications and I'm like reading through it. I'm like, I'm like, these guys are crazy.

Like crazy. You don't need, like, there's, it's so funny because like, I'll take, I take my kids everywhere with me. I, I do. And people are like, oh, you know how your dad is. And they're like, yeah, we know. Like I, I'm, again, I, I try to be the same person always. But there's like, we were at dinner tonight and my daughter Kennedy's like, I.

She's like, you're the best at getting stains out. Like, I, I have a whole nother side of me. People don't know, like, I'm the laundry master dude. Don't, don't, don't bring me a stain. That fucker's coming out. Okay. Like there's a whole nother side of people that people don't know. Like, I'm not at work right now.

I, I, I'm, I, I I'm not, I'm not a fireman right now. Right. So there, there's a whole other side of people's lives that people don't understand that like, hobbies, interests, what they like to do, and the social media world takes the whole thing out of it and sucks you into this one thing. It's why, like when in, in, on Instagram, first off, I only use why use, I don't understand.

My mom uses Facebook. I really don't understand it. 'cause I can't figure out at all. But it's like my Instagram stories, I try to like post like, well, I love the flyers. I love the Phillies. There's, I'm very un unapologetic about that as well. But like cooking, I like rock music, I like oldies r and b and hip hop.

Like, I put all that stuff out there like. You know, it's, it's not, I just to give people like, kind of like a, a view of what we do. And I do have people that follow me that I, I'm like friends with that aren't in the fire service. Right? I don't know.

TJ: Given all of that, you have built something pretty sizable on social media, and you have also drawn the ire and the criticism of a lot of keyboard warriors. What's your view on social media when it comes to the fire service? Is it a tool or is it something that divides us?

Bobby: I think it's both. I I think it's like right down the middle, 50 50, but I think it's how you want to view it, right? There's that dude on TikTok. I don't know if, so I tried to look for him yesterday. I don't know if, if the shutdown like lost him. I don't know if, if people know, and if you, if you're listening to this, please reach out to me because I, I gotta buy you a, a beverage.

Like the dude had a mullet. I don't know if it was a wig or not, and he had like pit vipers on and his shirt off. He was like forced in the forced entry, entry door at the firehouse. And it's like obviously comedy, right? Like it's, I mean, I hope so, but it's hilarious. Like, it's so funny to me and to read the comments, like people really think he's serious.

Like he's obviously not right, like he's ob he's so, it's everybody. I, I've never met so many egos in one place that everybody wants to be the best, right? Everybody wants to be the best. And this is the biggest team sport there is anywhere ever. There's not one person arriving to a fire scene that is going to go put a fire out and, uh, encompass all the function on the fire ground by themselves.

I had a kid chirp me saying, um, from your neck of the woods. Saying, I, I can't believe people pay to teach, bro, you're like 22 years old. I got like 20 years in the fucking job, dude. Like, and I'm not, I'm never that guy like, Hey man. But I'm thinking to myself like, that's fine if, if you think that, but like when I was 20, when I was like in my twenties, I would've never said that to anybody like that.

Like I wouldn't have come at people like that. But it, but they can hide behind their keyboard. They can do that. And that's okay. There's there, there's, there's zero, zero, um, consequence to action. And, and I'm not looking to like go after anybody's job or whatever, but like, it is just, there's a lack of respect.

There's a lack of knowhow. There's a lack of everything. And it, it trickles up too, dude. It, it goes in both directions, right? So I post something and like I go after somebody who comes after me, and then I got a big name who's whoever coming up. You can't do this. Who the fuck are you? Who are you? Oh, you're talking to me like this.

Again, if my dad was here and heard how you were talking to me, you'd be on the ground. So it, it's, again, like I, I, I, I am an employee of two places. I'm the owner operator, cro, fire attacks, LLC, and I'm a fire captain of the city of Camden. I'll tell you what, when I'm at the fire, when I'm at the city of Camden Fire Department, I don't talk about er fire tactics.

I don't say a word about it. I don't do much with it. I might grab photos of buildings and stuff like that. If somebody wants to ask me a question, I, I'll talk about it. That's it. When I'm here, this is my side job, this is what I do. I run the business. Is it lucrative? Fuck no, but I still do it 'cause I got a passion for it, right?

So at the end of the day, come on, man. It's, it's firefighting. Firefighting and everybody here, good, bad or indifferent, whether you got on your own terms, somebody else's terms, injury, whatever. We're all done with this one day.

TJ: We all have the expiration date.

Bobby: Everybody does. Everybody does man. So like, what are you doing? I've, I've, I lost, I lost friends and I'm doing, I dunno if it's gonna be in video, but I'm doing quotations like friends because of, of, of decisions I've made or how I've gone about everything.

But like, it's like, dude, like some, everybody has a breaking point and sometimes you push people there and then God forbid, like you push somebody in direction where they, they do say something like career implicating on the internet, right? I always try to like be like a little jokingly if I go back at somebody like, kind of like funny, um, to maybe like diffuse it.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but, or I just don't say anything and I just, uh, try to find out who they are and where they're from and try to call him.

TJ: Imagine that. Have that conversation. Have that conversation. That's something that I've noticed that you do when, when things get shitty on the

Bobby: I always put my phone number up there.

TJ: yep. And it's funny because my dumb ass still had to go to Nick and be like, Hey, um, can you put me in touch with this guy? He's like, he's all over the internet, bro.

Bobby: Yeah, my phone number, I'm probably the easy, except you can Google my phone number. It's up there. I call me. I don't like, you're not, if you disagree with me, that's awesome, dude. Like, I literally sit in, I I If you're a fire, if you're a fireman and you work on a Sunday when it's football season, you probably disagree with everybody in the room when it comes to teams and whatever.

So we can disagree on football, right? But when it comes to firefighting, well, this guy because blah, blah, blah. Like, who fucking cares? Dude? Who cares? If you care that much, you have bigger problems and you should activate the employee assistance program.

TJ: My man Bobby, talking about EAP

Bobby: Hey, man,

TJ: times

Bobby: it's there. Don't be, don't be afraid to use it, but I'm just saying the there, like, you really care that much. What I'm doing about a hook. Gimme a break, dude.

TJ: the hook. The hook video that is you live rent free in a lot of people's heads just

Bobby: love it.

TJ: that. Just because of that.

Bobby: And I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, dude, I'm like, shit. Like, like I've, I've done this like so many times on a flat roof, like just pull up. It's amazing. The quick work tongue groove gone. And I'm like, wow, I've been doing it. I was shown wrong by people that did it 15 times more than I did. Wow.

And then the funnier part is how we, how it evolved. We were talking about the bent hook at work and like, if, if to know my city is like, we don't have any money, dude. So like, if the hook's bent and we can't bend it back and figure out a way to bend it back, like we're not getting a new hook. Like that hook is gonna live bent forever.

It, it's, you know, we're gonna rename it c or something like that. Like, I don't, we don't have more in like a store room, you know? So like, that's how the, like the conversation kind of evolved at work. Whatever. Dude, it's all good. I got a cool sticker out of it though. I'm really happy with that. So I'll send you one.

TJ: do. We'll trade some stickers. Everybody talks shit. Everybody the, it's one of the quotes. Everybody wants to be a fireman till it's time to do fireman shit. And we see that online, which is again, the perfect segue into the part that I'm looking forward to the most about this interview is the rapid fire, based on those quotes that you had. So let's start with that one. Everybody wants to be a fireman until it's time to do fireman.

Bobby: It is true. I mean, you know, it's, this job is, i's nasty. It's nasty on your body mentally and physically, right? So from somebody who's been hurt, seen people hurt. I mean, I've seen people get banged up, banged up, and it, it's, it's a tough job. So it's all fun and games in the firehouse, and trust me, there is, nobody likes playing pranks more than I do.

However. Like when, when, when, when that, when that, when those tones drop or the bell goes off, it's go time. Boys like, you ready to go? Let's go. Like, we gotta move, we gotta start going. And you know, we have to aggressively start taking round back from the front, from the fire and start moving. And fires burn.

Hotter conditions are a little tougher. Gears a little wonkier because of the PFAS stuff's out of it. I don't know if anybody's rocking a non PFAS coat. I am. Whoa. Feels a little different. So it, it's there, there's a lot, there's a lot of variables go into it and it's, it's, if you've been in this long enough, especially have done it on, on the career side of it, you have seen things in people's personal lives that have an implication.

I mean, from, I, you know, we can talk mental health, suicide, all that stuff, but like, alcoholism, drugs, uh, you know, marriages, all that stuff, right? So it, it just, it, it explodes and goes that way, you know?

TJ: I'll get you back on for Bobby's take on fire service, mental health. That that'll be. That'll be the next episode. All right, next one. The working fire is the great equalizer.

Bobby: It is the only place you learn who's who.

TJ: No notes.

Bobby: It's the only place, and it is the only place you learn who you are. Right? If you're a career firefighter in a fire department that has multiple companies, you're lying to me. If you tell me you don't print the roster out and see who's working where and who you can trust and who you can't trust.

You're a liar. Liar. You're literally lying to me or you're laughing right now. One of the two.

TJ: The hardest thing you'll do as an officer is the right thing.

Bobby: Yes. Yes. So the right thing I told like a Turkey sandwich or a Turkey and a Turkey sandwich. Um, yeah. I mean there, there are times that you have to disobey command. There are times that maybe they're not making the right decision, or, and I'm not talking about fire magically. I'm talking about maybe a discipline issue or a policy issue, or maybe they're, they don't know their policy that they wrote and you know it better and you followed it and they're trying to jam you up.

So there's that part of it. Or how about you roll up on a, on a fire where you got two frames going and your guys are balls of the wall, want to go inside and you gotta put your line on the outside.

You have to direct your stream on, on, on a defensive manner and your guys are fucking mad at you. But that's the right thing to do. Right? There's, I try, one of the biggest quotes that resonates from my childhood is if you're a gentleman, nobody can ever take it away from you. I try to live that way all the time.

I really do with, with strangers. I meet, you know, my dad always said, when you meet somebody in a day, you never know what they went through before they met you at that moment. So that being said, if I get there and I'm not first due, and maybe there's a little toughness, or um, there's an objective in the way or whatever it is, and a line's not getting in place or something's not getting done, I'm not taking the job from them.

They're already in place. I'm gonna help them get to the where they need to be. Right? Like, I, I, you, you, you just can't be stealing fires from people. I know a lot of you guys in your area are gonna be like, oh my God, you know, we can't drive across lawns and deploy a 900 foot bumper line. That's a joke.

Relax, Jesus. God, I,

TJ: It's only

Bobby: I'm joke. I know. Whatever. I'm joking, I'm joking. I love you guys. However, you know, it's where, where I work. I'd rather, I'd rather help the next person. Get in a position, but I look at it like this too. I look at the guys that work for me. So I'm sitting number two on the battalion chief's list.

The guy, my driver is sitting number three on the captain's list, and the guys behind me are young on the job. I taught the one kid's recruit class. His dad's on my job, and his dad's a meat eater. The other kid, he's, he's huge in a good way. He's a big dude, awesome guy, right? He's hard of gold. My thought always is, is that if I can sh, if I can walk it and talk it and show it the right way, then these guys can learn the right way and how I learned.

Is how I want them to learn and how this wheel keeps turning. Right? So I want this wheel to turn, so like when I'm retired and I'm at one of the three or four drinking events that we do during the, the month, and I go to one and I'm like, yo, how's the job? And they're like, yo, this, these guys are doing great.

That's like what I want to hear, right? Like, like, like I was able to, to keep the wheel going from what these guys taught me. I, that I didn't like, I was taught this. I, I was like, when I was young, I was, I was, I was deer in the headlights mo the flame, right? The fire. And I had a captain be like, whoa, they're already in position, bro.

Start humping line that way. I'm gonna make sure that they're, there's nothing in their way. Get mo. I'm like, oh shit. That's what we do here. Oh, okay. Like, and, and it's, that's just the way I was taught.

TJ: You pretty much already answered the next one that I was gonna talk about. If I give you confidence, you'll take over the world.

Bobby: That's true. It's, it's, you have to be, it's, I. It leads back to the question you asked me about fire training. Right. So I think the biggest thing that bothers me, well there's a, there's an array of things that bother me about we don't have enough time to bother me about fire training. But one of the things is, is zero visibility.

Zero visibility is our work environment. That's where we're in, right? We are in zero visibility at all times. Like, that's where we're at. We're in that, well, not all times, but that's, you know, when we, when we, when we, we, we breach the flyer fire floor or the floor above, we're inside that some type of zero visibility.

So if the fire academy is like, whatever, let's just say it's 10 weeks long, 12 weeks long. I think every day a firefighter should expend a, a cylinder in hot smoke, zero visibility. Again, it's not theatrical smoke. I think last podcast said Motley Crow. This one make go Iron Maiden. It's not an Iron Maiden concert.

Okay. Like I don't need the theatrical smoke. 'cause I remember being an 18-year-old kid. Going through fire, one in the fucking theatrical smoke. And then I went into a fire and I was like, ah, this is nothing like, I'm like, what is going on? Like, what, what is going on? Right? Then they're like, turn your flash on.

Flashlight's the worst thing in the world for me right now. I had to learn that the hard way. Right? So it's, it's, we need to empower our people by giving them the confidence to know what they do. And I, you know, I, I love messing with these young kids on the job. It's, it's literally one of my most favorite things to do is mess with a young kid.

Right. Love it. And that's how I found out that I'm like older on the job. I, because like it goes, your career goes so fast and I'm sure you've heard it, everybody's heard it, but it really does happen. And like they come in, they don't, well they don't have a mechanical aptitude. Show 'em, show 'em. It's not hard.

Everything's there. If there's a, so if there's saws on your rake. These kids don't know how to work themselves. That's on you. That's not on them. It's not on them. Like give 'em the confidence, show 'em how to use it. Go, oh, we don't have, go to the fucking hardware store and get a piece of wood and let 'em cut it.

Get a piece of metal, cut it. Anything you need, and get a hardware store to cut metal, wood, whatever. Learn, show 'em how to use it. It's not that hard. And then when they have the confidence and they've done it a couple times, when they're there and it's on fire, the fire will just be something that they're maybe not used to, but everything else will be comfortable with them.

So if the fire is the uncomfort, 'cause we can't, I can't recreate the work. I can get very close, but I can't recreate it. Right? I can't recreate it. But if they know how to use all the tools, they're comfortable wearing their gear, knowing how to put their face piece on all that shit, man, they're gonna be awesome.

They're going to be awesome.

TJ: Because

Bobby: very simple.

TJ: gave them that confidence, you set them

Bobby: Uh, abs. Absolutely. And that was something I learned when I was having a tough time adjusting to Camden. I was having a very tough time and I had to learn that, like I needed to forget everything I knew and I needed to get built back up. And I met somebody who was willing to do it for me

TJ: It is,

Bobby: it was awesome.

TJ: it's those mentors, it's that importance of,

Bobby: Ah, yeah.

TJ: the mentorship in your career.

Bobby: Ah, absolutely. And, and it's, and you don't like, mentorship is like a, is like a word that can be taken how many different ways, right? Like, can you can go, it don't, you just have to have somebody wanna spend a little time with you. And I learned so much from just observing people. Like I'm a big people watcher.

I've always been, so I've been a kid and I don't know if it's like an only child thing or whatever, but Yeah. So, 'cause you're, maybe you're bored, like, wow, maybe that guy will talk to me. Uh, no, it's,

TJ: interaction.

Bobby: yes, please, I'm bored. Um. Now you learn a lot from just watching people and how they, how they handle themselves and how they handle situations.

TJ: We're coming up to the end, and this is one that I did

Bobby: Okay.

TJ: on the, um, on the sheet. And again, I want to have you back because you have peaked you, you have gotten my, my wheels turning on a, on a couple of different things. The one question I didn't put is, what is the one failure that you cherish the most?

Bobby: One failure that I ch uh, oh man.

So, uh, there's two is a tie. Uh, one was, um, early on when I was like 23 ish, I was driving, um, and we had, we had a big building on fire. I was first due and I had everything going, and I put the, um, I put my, I. Uh, intake into the discharge. And I, it had, it definitely had a ripple effect too. It was a thing, and I got my ass chewed out hard, hard.

And I learned right then and there that it was a failure. However, I learned that like, number one, if somebody's yelling at you and you're like in that role where it's like a subordinate type thing, like you need to decide like, what are you gonna do? You gonna like be pissed off about it or just like, yell, let 'em yell.

Because I learned like sometimes that they just yell. It's outta their system. I learned that. I learned that. And then when I thought I was Billy Badass, I thought I was like Billy badass, right? Um, like the third time at a high rise in the night for, um, an activated fire alarm, like on the 17th floor, I. I left my gloves in the rig on purpose.

I'm like, fuck this. I'm tired of being here. I'm tired. I want to go the shore tomorrow and party. 'cause it was Sunday, it was no shower, happy hour. I was really excited to go there and, uh, what do you think was on the 17th floor?

TJ: Oh, fire

Bobby: Yeah, well, how I, how worthwhile do you think I was? Yeah. So I learned like right away, like, you know, like that, that's a, that's an epic.

That was a, that was a decision I made. Like I was like, um, you know, like, oh, I got some salt on my helmet. I'm a, you know, I'm in my late twenties. I'm Billy. No, no. Like, I just took the cab to No, no. And that, that taught me to lead by example. And I'm not talking about like lead by example. Like I'm talking about like, wear your equipment, do the right thing.

Because like, if, if your guys are getting ready and you're, you're getting ready and you're doing the right thing, you're fine. Are there runs? I don't put my hood on. Absolutely. Like gas leak co runs. Like I'm not, I don't put my hood on for that if I don't have to. Right. Um. So like less is more for me, especially when you get older boys, I'm telling you right now, your body starts hurting in, in weird ways.

But, you know, alarm systems, shit like that. Like there, there's, there's, I, I'm always putting it on, carrying the tools, doing the right thing, stuff like that.

TJ: Well, buddy, do you have any parting thoughts?

Bobby: I don't, I appreciate the opportunity, man. It's, uh, I, I know we've been trying to do this for a while and, , I appreciate it. Um, thanks for support and uh, go flyers.