10.Team-buiding exercise

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The initial fear had passed. I had been going to Pontypandy for a good few weeks now and I couldn't complain. In the few missions I had the opportunity to take part in, Sam explained everything to me carefully and slowly, showing me and letting me decide how involved I was willing to be in a given mission. At first I limited myself to staying by the trucks and supervising the equipment, but recently Sam convinced me to go in instead of him and Elvis and put out the stove fire myself. It went smoothly and Sam even praised me. Previously he had mainly limited himself to explaining and it was his friend Elvis who made up for it by enjoying my successes.

I couldn't help but feel that Sam reminded me of Shane. While Elvis was exceptionally clumsy, but friendly and eager to help, Sam was a bit more serious and rational. Although both of them showed exceptional skills considering their age was almost the same as mine. We were only one year apart, so it wasn't a huge gap during which you could learn everything. In addition, Station Officer Steele still regularly traveled with us on missions. He stayed behind, observing everything carefully. After my solo fight with the stove, I managed to notice him writing something down while sitting in Jupiter, but despite that I could feel his eyes on me. However, I didn't have time to pay attention to it because even that same day I had two more lessons waiting for me, which Sam managed to prepare in the training tower. His way of leading and explaining everything to me precisely, already during the first training brought back memories. It was immediately obvious from Sam that he had leadership skills, but something in his manner was completely different. Despite the fact that Shane didn't want to be called captain or lieutenant by his rank, there was still some invisible distance between him and us as a team. And in Sam's case, there was no border. He was open to our ideas and wanted to give us a chance so that both Elvis and I could also try to find a solution. Sometimes I even had the impression that for a person watching from the sidelines we didn't have a leader. And even though Sam didn't joke as openly as Shane did outside of the action, the distance between Sam and me and Elvis didn't grow at all because of it.

Quite the opposite. I felt very good in their company, although I didn't really have the courage to admit it myself. They seemed completely different from my male colleagues from the fire station or even from the Academy. Sam kept his distance, but I never felt like he looked at me haughtily or looked down on me just because I was a woman. However, he didn't make as friendly an impression as Elvis, who had already made an impression on me at the picnic, although briefly, as an extremely open, if clumsy person. Even Station Officer Steele didn't show any clear disapproval of the fact that women were joining the fire department these days, and I always enjoyed listening to his stories from his own firefighter youth. Even if one of them didn't want to accept me, they were very good at hiding it.

Every day in Pontypandy was a new lesson for me and I was excited to drive to the seaside town every day. But today I woke up unusually early for me, on my own. It turned out that I had arrived in Pontypandy a good half hour before my shift started without any unnecessary rush. Sam explained to me on my first day that they didn't work nights, they were just on call. So we always met outside the fire station waiting for Station Officer Steele to come with the original pair of keys. The spares were hidden under a loose window sill, but it had never rained in the mornings during my time at the exchange so I hadn't had a chance to see Sam or Elvis using them.

I didn't have to wait long, because just a moment after I got out of the Venus I saw Elvis climbing up the driveway. As usual he was as happy to see me as I was, I couldn't do anything about it and I waved back happily. Yesterday Sam announced that he was going to prepare a special set of exercises for us today and Elvis couldn't help but remind me about it as soon as he got closer.

"Are you ready for your first training session on the tower?" Elvis asked me excitedly.

"I've been waiting all week, I can wait a little longer" I replied indifferently, shrugging my shoulders with a smile.

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