You might work for a private if.....

Our private company provides ALS transport units (in house) to many surrounding fire/primary response districts. This particular one was a large retirement community. We responded in the early morning for an abdominal pain. The patient wanted to go to an ER 1.5 hours away, by-passing two perfectly good ERs because "that's where all my records are." Halfway there, her nausea and generalised abd pain shifts towards CP but nothing is really showing on the EKG. I give her a NTG and her BP plummets. I put her on her head, IVWO, Dopamine, and "oh-my-goodness-I-am-so-sorry-it-was-an-inferior-MI." We divert to the closest facility.
You know you were for a private company when even though your call went to the Medical Director and he said you were perfect, but you still get moved to another truck because the PR person wants to placate the people in the district who are upset because in the midst of all of that, you didn't have time to call and say you were diverting to a closer hospital.

You also know you were for a private company when they screw you so badly, eight of you call off 'sick' (We were sick, sick of the BS) halfway through a shift (something we ate, I'm sure) so you can go to a drag show at a club that evening....and you see ten people from the local PICU there, too.
 
Small one, but last night at 2151, I got this call:

"Umm, I know you start at 0800, but we've got a patient that needs to go from X to Y (62km trip), then to an appointment across the street and then back... And we don't have a crew to do it. Can you guys start at 0500 instead?"

We don't get our start times until, at the earliest, 1930 the night before.

Aww yeah, private service...
 
onabemr said:
Small one, but last night at 2151, I got this call:

"Umm, I know you start at 0800, but we've got a patient that needs to go from X to Y (62km trip), then to an appointment across the street and then back... And we don't have a crew to do it. Can you guys start at 0500 instead?"

We don't get our start times until, at the earliest, 1930 the night before.

Aww yeah, private service...
Click to expand...

You're not in metro Boston by any chance, are you?
 
you know you work for a private service, when you need to teach your emt how to stuff that should have been learned in his emt class, orientation or ride alongs.
 
Trucks with broken odometers that are rumored to have hit 1 million miles
Trucks with exhaust leaks and black patient compartment ceilings.......
'Education Supervisors' that are EMT's and teach what they were taught in the 1960's

You know you're private when your benefits include:

16 HOURS of vacation a YEAR
NO paid sick leave or time off
An automatically deducted 30 minutes for meals
Non-stop threats of unpaid suspensions for unknown and trivial rules
PT employees, when not scheduled, are to remain available all day
 
errey said:
when you don't even have a partner
Click to expand...

haha that happened to me yesterday. I'm not complaining though. 24 hours of getting paid to do my homework. I did end up acting as a first responder on one call though.

firecoins said:
you know you work for a private service, when you need to teach your emt how to stuff that should have been learned in his emt class, orientation or ride alongs.
Click to expand...

This is very true! They've been hiring brand new EMTs lately. Zero experience, fresh out of school. I will say they are eager to learn and that's a huge plus. But it can be frustrating when they aren't provided with the proper orientation to do their job adequately. Especially when they're on the truck with you and you actually get a serious call. It's difficult coaching them through procedures and basic patient care and then having to lean through the window to tell them how to get to the hospital.

LifelongEMT said:
Insurance is EXACTLY the issue. There is a county 911 but its private owned running county 911 and there its who ya know or who ya blow to get your foot in the door iv put in multiple apps and nothing but a brand new EMT that was hired at my company got hired there within 2 weeks because his parents knew the guy in charge! Bogus... And another county service you have to be 23 and another they want to become an all paramedic service i was in line for my last interview (we had 3) when a medic applied and took the slot they had opend. and i was told by the supervisor that is was because he was a medic. If he wouldnt have applied i would have got it.:angry:
Click to expand...

Oh boy, we have one of these! This one girl is a new basic with us and her dad is a supervisor in another division within the company. She's a nice girl overall, but she LOVES to throw out the "daddy card." Meaning "I'm gonna tell my daddy" or "do you know who my daddy is???" or "I'm gonna call daddy and tell him his little princess isn't happy." It's like you're constantly walking on pins and needles just to avoid pissing her off.

As for the "he got the job because he was a medic" comment...well, you can go to paramedic school too. I would love to have a medic partner, but my company will only pay for a medic and an emt on each truck. That really sucks when you've worked hard to grow your own new medics and you've been looking forward to working with them.
 
gicts said:
Trucks with broken odometers that are rumored to have hit 1 million miles
Trucks with exhaust leaks and black patient compartment ceilings.......
'Education Supervisors' that are EMT's and teach what they were taught in the 1960's

You know you're private when your benefits include:

16 HOURS of vacation a YEAR
NO paid sick leave or time off
An automatically deducted 30 minutes for meals
Non-stop threats of unpaid suspensions for unknown and trivial rules
PT employees, when not scheduled, are to remain available all day
Click to expand...
Can you pm me where this is?
 
Rocketmedic40 said:
Can you pm me where this is?
Click to expand...

Hell..... lol. It's east of the Mississippi. Actually a mix between the two that I have had a pleasure of serving. Shoot me a PM if you really want specifics.

So very true about nepotism!!! Very dominant in both services I've been apart of. First one had 4 family members taking part in supervisory positions. The second only had 3. Horray!
 
You always carry trauma shears. Not for cutting clothes off people, but for cutting the tape that you use to keep the truck held together.
 
My new supervisor has less experience than me. It feels weird that I need to correct his SIMS. Go office politics.
 
You know you work for a private ambulance company when you can look at your watch and it is 1500 and know who your dialysis pick up is w/o looking at the pager.

Oh ya we have pagers lol
 
Aerin-Sol said:
Bwahahaha. So true!
Click to expand...

46Young said:
Yor partner is doing detective work every time to find out why you're going on that call instead of other units - for example, where the other units are, how many calls the other units ran today, if the crew is sleeping with one of the dispatchers and are getting a break, the 1800 hrs truck should be inservice, why aren't they getting it, etc. They're calling dispatch, asking other road units what they did so far today, so on and so forth.
Click to expand...

:rofl: All the time!
 
- You hear people say EMS stands for "Earn Money Sleeping", but you have no idea what they're talking about...

- You know which Dialysis centers have the more attractive techs...

- You don't know the name of your boss for sure, or who your boss actually is...

- You know which days of the week the heavier patients have HD treatments, and plan accordingly...

- At least two days a week, the only things you need to replace on your bus before heading out are the blanket, sheets and pillow cases... and if you have to replace anything, it's almost certainly going to be a nasal cannula...

- Co-Workers talk to you about "the rookies", yet you've only been there for 6 weeks... also, about half of the fellow techs you've befriended in those 6 weeks have already left...

- You know that if car services started accepting medicare, your schedule would clear up very quickly...

- You know the life story of every one of your co-workers, yet you haven't actually met a lot of them....

- You say hello to crews from other privates and you just get the stink-eye (seriously, I don't get this one... even the FD folk are nice to us...)

- You know which crews drag out each call as long as humanly possible, and you hate them, because you know you're busting your *** even more because of their "time stealing"...

- You look at your paycheck and are pretty sure that decimal point is in the wrong place considering how much you've actually done during that pay cycle...

But seriously, I really like it over at my private company. Most everyone is really nice, most of us actually care about what we're doing, and I think the co. does a good job at encouraging that. The only reasons I'm trying to move over to FDNY EMS as soon as possible is for the pay bump, and to see more action... but for now, I'm pretty happy.. so that's good.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Medic2409 said:
When the Medic has to ride all the calls, no matter how simple, while the EMT does nothing but drive.
Click to expand...

Sounds like my company. Sigh
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top