I'm surprised by the number of positive responses about working with this company. Perhaps my expectations are just high based on lengthy prior experience. And I will admit that I did not stick around long enough to see if it would get better, because I was so appalled. Have you noticed the number of ads that this company runs? Sometimes over 20 at a time? That they have been running these ads for literally years? That was explained to me as due to growth of the company, but in my opinion that's not sufficient to explain it.
The amount of unpaid time required is untenable, maybe even unethical. The amount of unpaid time that is due to confusion and inefficiency is even more untenable. As only one example, I spent six hours of unpaid training time (this was only one day, there were many others) where the trainer went page by page through the large manual, continually stopping to say that the information was no longer correct and a new manual would be published later in the year. In that case, why insist on the lengthy orientation, especially since it was neither the first or only one to be provided (all unpaid)? The documentation procedures are horribly inefficient, duplicative, and prone to mistakes. I ended up sitting for hours over a period of multiple days waiting for nursing home administrative staff to provide me with basic materialsI necessary to do the work.
I understand fee-for-service work, but over the course of my career I have never seen a situation that required as much unpaid time as this. For example, time that needs to be spent consulting with nursing home staff, and essential part of patient care, is not direct patient contact, and is unpaid. I know that once people get up to speed with procedures and get to know their work locations better that things smooth out. Personally, I found the whole thing disrespectful to professionals and a bit too much like a sweatshop.
I have no doubt that this was a bad fit for me and that there are people out there who will manage just fine, and will find the flexibility and independence outweighs the problems. But give some consideration to professional self-respect. You are a highly trained professional who should be paid for the time needed to do your job.
