‘Emotional Banking’ Helps Keep the Peace at Home

By Brian Thompson, president and founder of Calling 912

When was the last time a significant other said, “You treat the general public better than you treat me?” Ouch.  

And the follow-up to that question is this response: “They pay my salary!”  

Well, it is a fair question, and depending on who the significant other is, it might carry much more significance. I do not endorse that response, as it carries a lot of quiet time, both awarded and self-inflicted. Now, for some, a little quiet time is nice and needed; however, I can talk the ears off just about anyone. 

When we respond to an EMS call or an AFA, we often help the customer with no issues and treat them respectfully. The customer gets the best version of us. But the littlest thing might set us off when we get home from a shift, where we got throttled with calls all night. Let us fix that together and reduce the storm brewing on the horizon.

How often do we hear, “leave work at work and home at home?” That ideology cannot be farther from the truth or reality. How does someone accomplish that? You must leave luggage at the door or empty your cup to retain stock in the emotional intelligence bank. Understand, we must take our situation at home or work seriously, but never at the cost of our life or partner(s).  

All our positive emotion is consumed at work while giving great customer service, and we are now trying to find ways to draw from reserves in the emotional bank to keep from snapping at home.  

How to Give Your Best at Home, Too

Here are a few ways to help you get through a safe shift and take that positive approach home:  

Ask for Help

One, do not attempt to separate home from work. Let the members on shift know if you need help at home, big or small. Our brothers and sisters may have a lot of life experience that can be helpful. 

And if you are on the side of someone approaching you for help, ask them if they want you to be an active listener or want some advice back. Divorce, illness, finances, and family drama are on the shortlist. And while they are not the only situations, they often have the most depleting effect on us.  

Do not ever go it alone; let your family know about work, and work about family.  However, you might omit some details to keep things PG or PG-13, obviously for the family.  

Remember, most of us hang out with each other’s families anyway, so things that affect you will influence your first-responder family. 

There is a clear relationship with our crew and family. They parallel one another, and have the same toll on our emotions when things go wrong. But we can also find the positives as important if we let ourselves enjoy those wins.

Then Help Yourself

Two, do things to help build your emotional intelligence. Try going to sleep a little earlier, reducing your consumption of coffee and energy drinks, having a good workout or hands-on training, and lastly, communicating. 

Some of my trials and tribulations have been handled over the art of verandizing.  According to vocabulary.com, if you are lazing around on a long, airy porch that runs along the outside of your house, you are on a veranda. So, with my crew after dinner, we verandize to cover all the important topics over after-dinner coffee.  

Talk to your family and let them know it was a rough shift, and you might need to nap, miss a morning soccer game, or even skip an event altogether. I understand most of us are probably the coaches of said events, so it is not always possible. It’s an option to consider. The two missed hours will be better served in recovering than being at an event and not being present.

With this, when at home, be present there and with your family. Please give them your best version, and remember that quality time is far better than quantity.

Establish an After-Work Routine

Third, get into a routine of doing something minimal when getting home from a tour of duty. It might be taking out the trash, starting laundry, or making lunches for the kids. The task may feel insignificant, but it can take something off the to-do list.  

From experience, I can tell you those small tasks will have a big impact on your family or friends. When difficult days or unexpected events occur that disrupt your home schedule, things will be managed better.

Let Go of The Small Stuff

Finally, just like Frozen taught us, let it go. Small items will compound and grow and gain momentum.  

Think of our emotional junk drawer, and the amount of finite space in that drawer. We are all guilty of taking that small item and do not know where to put that emotion, so we throw it in the catch-all or junk drawer. So, we continue to do the same thing repeatedly.  Until we have a hard time opening the drawer because items get stuck and jam up the opening process.   

Now we grab the handle and forcefully open it with a salvo of firefighter talk, and shit gets strewn everywhere. The emotional blowup happens. Let things go. People will inevitably get under your skin; your coffee order is messed up beyond repair, the car ahead of you pulled out in front of you, and so on.  

I can emphatically tell you I am the groundhog driving angry in the movie Groundhog Day. Bill Murray is telling me, “Don’t drive angry.”  Look that one up on YouTube; it is worth the laugh. Let it go.  

Take charge of yourself and your emotional response. And not just on the “ahole” driver ahead of you, but all the things that do not endanger you or your family’s safety. Let it go.  

Be safe and take care of yourself because we need you. Emotional intelligence is like performing a 360 in all situations. Do a size up. Do not get lost in a walk-out basement or balloon-frame construction. Thus, we never overreact or have family or co-workers exclude us based on past practices or blowups.  

Brian Thompson has a doctorate in philosophy from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, and has been a firefighter/paramedic for 32 years.