I believe that since birth we are conditioned by sounds and smells. For instance, the introduction of a movie by 20th Century Fox is iconic and would perk one’s ears and would make that person move towards the TV, or if a teacher would roll the TV and VCR to classroom everyone would immediately get excited for a movie. The smell of a KFC restaurant is an extremely identifiable scent and immediately creates a desire to have a piece of crispy fried chicken. One conditioning that took me some time to get us to, is the different bells that go off at the fire house, as a new fire fighter it is overwhelming the amount of information absorbed during a 24-hour shift. There is one deep tone that alerts every fighter on duty that there is a potential fire in the city; once that tone is struck everyone stops and listens to the fire alarm operator announce which part of city has a potential structure fire. Once the fire alarm operator announces the location it determines the following events fire fighters must engage in, if its in your district you immediately run to towards the Fire truck and put on all our fire protection equipment on and drive safely and quickly as possible while listening to the radio traffic to mentally prepare to potentially safe life and preserve property in a safe and professional manner. Fire fighters are also conditioned to listen to radio traffic while in the fire house, listening to key words like smoke, fire, entrapment which could indicate that additional personnel could possibly be needed and puts everyone on alert. This condition has also transferred to my daily life, if I heard certain tones, I find myself stopping what I’m doing until I realize I am not a work and snap out of the conditioning I have been exposed to.
