Pros
PROS: Competitive Pay Rates for EMTs and Paramedics. Solano County has a decent number of high acuity ALS/911 Calls. After approximately 12-15 months (As an EMT) you can usually choose whether you want to work BLS/NURSING/ALS.
Cons
To any interested party: I have been an employee at this company well in excess of a year, working as an EMT on BLS Transfers/Nurse Transfers and BLS Scene Calls and ALS 911 Calls. I would like to state that I am one who gets along with managers and supervisors and rarely is reprimanded, but I am speaking from my personal experiences and from what I have witnessed endless times to other employees. I would sincerely not recommend working at Medic Ambulance. I have divided the main points regarding my opinion below. CONS: MANAGEMENT. This is the biggest gripe I have with the company. Management is consistently harassing you. The owners/siblings essentially run the company and they are VERY aware that they are your boss. They can be extremely temperamental, prideful, and harsh. Often the owners and upper management may attempt to play a "Nice Guy" role, meanwhile they will talk poorly about you behind your back, and then have supervisors spy on you and wait for an opportune moment to punish you , all while strategically distancing themselves from the issue. Continuing with management, another major issue is that the rules are not enforced evenly; if you are friendly and "liked" by managers and supervisors then you can sneak by for legitimate infractions, while those who are "disliked" may be suspended or terminated for minuscule offenses. While the employees are covered by a union, management will consistently disregard the Collective Bargaining Agreement and will still attempt to punish you or not fulfill on their end, even if in stark violation of the document. This issue then can only usually be solved after weeks of deliberation and will result in the company being "out to get you", just for standing up for your contracted rights. You may very well be suspended or terminated unfairly, and then you will have to go through arbitration with the union for months. Management will also constantly criticize your decisions and investigate anything they feel like, while placing you on a suspension. POLICIES: Company policies are very strict and enforced fairly religiously. Granted, some policies are sensible (in this job being late to work is treated as a severe offense, as it should be). However, many policies are downright unusual and unfair. At this company you can and WILL BE mandated shifts; every two weeks/one pay-period you can be forced to work an extra shift against your will, if you refuse to work you can and WILL BE suspended and/or fired. As an EMT I am not mandatorily assigned shifts often, but the Paramedics at our company are RAN INTO THE GROUND, they are often forced to work two mandatory shifts every month. Another policy is that the company can hold you up to FOUR HOURS past your scheduled end of shift time, this policy may have been instituted to help respond during busy days, however it is often used to fill gaps in shifts that they cannot fill, as our company has MAJOR RETENTION ISSUES (60%+ Loss of Employees last calendar year). When working on transfer units, I have consistently been held over against my will for 3-4 hours in order to keep making the company money and meet transfer times (this is for pre-scheduled and non-critical transfers). The company also requires that you document faulty equipment and will suspend you for not doing so, however, I have had serious safety issues properly documented and reported to upper management and to supervisors with them not providing any type of solution. Mandatory meetings also occur approximately every three months or so, where you are required to come in for approximately six hours on a day off to listen to ill-constructed presentations about new policies. Finally, sick-days are not included at all, any day you call out requires a hard-copy signed doctor's note, and even if you present this at a later shift, you will still be verbal reprimanded for missing work. PTO accrual is also horrible and equates to approximately 7 hours a month. The company also will intentionally or unintentionally cut money from paychecks and forget to instill pre-determined raises and properly calculate overtime. MISC ISSUES: The company consistently is out of critical supplies. This includes low supplies of and stocking of expired medications such as: epinephrine, calcium chloride, adenosine, atropine, and ondansetron. The company has also been low/out of various sizes of BVMs, backboard straps, and monitor batteries. SUMMARY: To round things out, I would state that this company (as in the owners and upper management) honestly and sincerely do not care about the well-being of their employees. They are a private company, and this is well seen in their upcharges of supplies, unnecessary upgrades in level of care (to charge higher billing), probable/not confirmed bribing of local EMS officials and hospital managers. At the end of the day the company looks at you as another pawn in their game, even if they know you and your family, you are expendable to them (Especially as an EMT). The pay rate is decent and the experience is good, however the stress you have to deal with day-day with: missing/broken equipment and medications, manager harassment, horrible communication, and policies that will rob you of any free time, are NOT WORTH IT.