I am really starting to feel used at one of my services.
When I signed on, it was to be on call every fourth day, 12 hours on weekdays and 24 on Saturdays and Sundays. I was at the time also working at a grocery store in town, so I could be at work and on call at the same time.
After a while, this one rather incompetent person had to leave after his training permit ran out; my supervisor asked me to take 8 hours each Monday and Tuesday morning. Sometime in there I quit grocery and started caregiving one day per week out of town, of which I would skip every fourth week so that I could be at this volly service. I also joined another service where I set my own schedule.
About a month ago, another trainee who was filling out a crew had her training permit out. At this point, my supervisor informs me that she, myself, and my younger sister are the only people who are in town during the day, so either myself or my sister will need to be on call 6a-6p Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday IN ADDITION to the hours that I'm already covering. This was only supposed to be for a few weeks. At the time, I thought that that was an unreasonable schedule, but I agreed to do it for a few weeks.
Here's the kicker. The person that they were planning have take an accelerated course and fill out a crew after those few weeks ended up signing up for the regular length course, starting in August. A few weeks turned into months. I told my supervisor that I was fine taking a lot of days, but I didn't want to do nights and weekends any more. After some time with her just plain not getting back to me, I followed up and was told that she didn't "have another EMT to put in that spot." Total BS. The other volunteers have day jobs, they could fill those night and weekend hours easily.
I'm just flabbergasted that she didn't even think to ask me if I was willing to extend my original commitment. Then when I straight up told her that it was too much and politely requested to be taken off the nights/weekend schedule, she didn't even respond until I asked again after over a week and then it was a refusal. I'm mad now. I'm scheduled for 86 hours on call this week. I cannot be home during that time, because I stay in town while I'm on call. My supervisor know this. I haven't been able to schedule hours at the other service and I've significantly rearranged my life in other ways. I would have cheerfully done that for a few weeks to help the service and because I'll need to use this supervisor as a reference.
However, the casual assumption that I would be fine putting an EMS service above everything else in my life has really ticked me off. This isn't even a great service. I run with the supervisor mostly and she honestly doesn't know medicine that well. I have been chewed out for bringing things up on calls that I saw were being overlooked. And by "bringing up," I mean the "hey, maybe you want to consider such and such" line which I've always been told is completely appropriate between professionals. The straw that broke my respect for this service was when the sup snapped at me for flipping through the lead views on the cardiac monitor. She directly told me not to touch the monitor because I was going to screw things up. I'm not an idiot, I understand how to work the most basic monitor functions without breaking anything.
Also, I just got my quarterly check.. for 500 dollars.
Yeah, I just want to walk away at this point. Instead, I'm going to email her and give a two week notice after which I will not do nights or weekends and if that's a problem, she'll have to find someone else. Then I'll stick it out until I find better employment, get the heck out of Dodge, and strongly advise my younger sister to do this same. This is not how EMS is supposed to be.
