Cypress Creek EMS

[RocketMedic]

Luckily, a lot of places are simply too hard up for qualified people that they don't have time to mandate part-time to full-time

 

[NomadicMedic]

Or the hiring process is too long and drawn out. I'd love to apply for Ada County but the hiring/testing is over several weeks.

 

[Tigger]

Bro, it's totally a Kool-Aid Party. You've got to like the Kool-Aid or fake it really well to be selected.

Sigh. No.

For what it's worth, I think that a lot of agencies, especially "elite" ones, have Kool-Aid Parties to get hired on. KCM1 requires you to foresake the notion that every patient deserves a paramedic, accept that 24s are the greatest, and that your previous experience only counts a little because Special Snowflakes. ATCEMS seems to hold any difficulties you've ever had, ever, against you and requires medics to accept that their skillsets and knowledge are unappreciated with long orientation processes. Even Creek requires you to concede that stand-up 24s are acceptable practice. It's all just different flavors of Kool-Aid.

We don't require you to forsake anything. Your previous experience is certainly valued, but it is not valued over your ability to get along with other people in day to day station life. Everyone has something they can bring to the table to help the agency grow, not everyone has the requisite interpersonal skills to coexist with others. Of course there is an opportunity cost, but to us it is not worth hiring the perfect paper candidate that gets along with no one.

 

[TheBuffOP]

If anyone has any questions I can help with this topic.

 

[DrParasite]

Bro, it's totally a Kool-Aid Party. You've got to like the Kool-Aid or fake it really well to be selected.

It is a Koolaid party, but it's not a bad one...... When I first moved to NC, the agency I worked for was a total kool-aid system (just like this). You either drank the koolaid, or you didn't get released to practice at your level (and more than likely were terminated). The rub was everyone was hired at full time status, many people relocated for the job, and those who didn't drink it (like yours truly) were forced to make a decision when their employment ended.

Personally, I like the concept of starting out part time and promoting from within. You learn their rules and regulations, learn how they do things, and when you go FT, it's not a culture shock, and not like you didn't know what you were getting yourself into. For example, if I moved to Colorado for a job, was offered a FT position, and learned that every day I am expecting to come in with a starched and ironed shirt, well, I would be absolutely miserable, but I would be stuck because I relocated for the job and didn't know that this was what the culture expected. And now I am resentful because I can't leave because I left my former job and moved, and can't afford to move back. Starting part time is a great foot in the door, provided they don't constantly dangle that carrot in front of you.

BTW, if any employer requires a part time employee to work full time hours to be hired full time, than there is no incentive for the employer to hire said person (it's cheaper to have them working 40 hour weeks without benefits than with).

 

[RocketMedic]

For clarification, Cypress Creek is not a Kool-Aid Party kind of place. There is a certain amount of acceptance required (about the same as anywhere), but I really don't feel like I'm being forced to chug from the barrel. If anything, we're mostly people coming to do our jobs. There is a certain amount of low-level drama and such, but that's anywhere. I like it.

What Tigger is talking about is not so much accepting the job, in my opinion, it is limiting the hiring pool to those who really, really, really like his particular agency and accept it with all of its characteristics. Not wrong....but very, very difficult to expand those hiring practices to a larger agencies. The problem with part-to-full time is that it essentially restricts the hiring pool to only those candidates that are willing to work part-time for somewhere and commute to it. It's way easier to do that for Small County Near Big City EMS than it is for something like Big City EMS or even Small County and Nowhereton EMS.