Toast

I am toasty. I feel like I'm in exactly the opposite boat as I was in with my last job. The last job was a case of love the company and the people (well, till they laid me off, at least), hate the work. This time it's love the work, hate the company and am ambivalent about the people.

I hate the fact that the employees that bring in the money that keep the company afloat are treated like crap, because there is always more where they came from. My supervisors are blowing sunshine up Bald Partner and my rear-ends, about what wonderful employees we are, and how much they value our hard work and initiative, yet, when we show initiative, the company does not recognize it.

Take this example...The other week, we stopped to get a bite to eat since we had some time. We parked in a parking lot for a college, that had a sign posted for the local bank for no parking. There was NO sign saying that this was for the college only, etc. In the time it took us to run in and order our food, our ambulance was towed. Luckily, a bus driver saw it, told us, and took us to the tow yard, where we met the tow truck as it was off-loading our poor ambo. My partner and I had a call waiting, so I ponied up the $200 to get the truck out of hock, and we went on our way. The fact that we were early for our assigned call is just icing on the cake.

Yesterday we were told that the company would not reimburse us (me) for the expense of paying for the tow. Let me just iterate....that $200, at the measly hourly rate I am paid, is almost 2 days pay. And I am in the highest pay bracket for basics! Yet I was told by my supervisor how much he values us for just doing it and getting the job done. Well, let me assure you, supervisor-man...should something like that happen again (and I will try my damndest to see that it doesn't) I assure you I will do just like all the other crews do, and wait for you to come down to pay for the ambo. Especially since you are so much better paid that I am, and because at the measly rate I am paid, and thanks to the company's refusal to reimburse me, I can no longer afford to do such a thing.

Hell, the company won't even reimburse the toll fees you may have to pay (for the privledge of travelling through Baltimore rather than taking the time to go around it) in the chance that the truck you're in doesn't have an EZPASS. That's pretty cheap if you ask me....Going through the city easily cuts off half an hour or more of time (much more if it's rush hour), and yet we have to foot the bill for the tolls if we dare try to make the company look good.

Today I was paired with a guy, who while very nice, is in a bit of a spot and is in one of those years where nothing goes well. I won't go in to details, but suffice to say, neither one of us was paying attention, and we nearly broke the ambo. Things were caught in time, but the ambo was put out of service, and we took the last, oldest unit left in the bay (everything is out of service). Which didn't have AC in the cab.

Hoping that we still had AC in the patient compartment, and not too worried because most of our patients are elderly and don't like the AC anyway, we took a call for an hour long transport. Again, no details, but the patient was very sick, got way overheated (as did I), and it was all I could do to keep her from vomiting all over my ambo. I tried ice from a cup in a glove (couldn't find ice packs), and water on a sheet to keep her cool, but nothing much was working. It was just to damned hot. I also endured evil looks, sighs, and eye rolls from the patient's family member riding in the back with me. I continually apologized, the entire trip. I apologized as we attempted to find the correct building and endured the snarky remarks from the family member about why an ambulance couldn't find a hospital (because, you know, all ambulances and their crews know every single hospital in every single city, and every building on every single large hospital campus). I continued to apologize as we tried to find elevators, and after we got the patient on the bed. And I meant it. Had that been a family member of mine, I would have been burning up the phone lines about why such a horrible vehicle was on the road..no AC, and can't go faster than 60 mph without vibrating wildly in the back.

I am toast. I am burnt. I am tired of caring, and having no one give a shit about me. I am tired of doing my job, and getting nothing but shit for it in return. I am tired of being used and abused, and of having nickle and dime OT being the norm rather than the exception.

I have 2 more days on full time, and then I switch to part time after vacation. I'm hoping that moving to part time will allow me to take this more in stride, but I'm wondering if I am not permanently burnt on this. I like the job, but I know most of the other companies around here are the same way, so I don't know that I can escape.

Depressing thought...

I'll try for a happier post tomorrow....after all, I go on vacation in 3 days.