Pros
The kids. They’re incredible and work so hard each and every day.
Cons
Where do I begin? First of all, you get zero sick days. You either use your 1 PTO day per month or it’s an unexcused absence. You are also reprimanded if you are more than 2 mins late for your session. After 7 tardees/absences you’re fired. That’s pretty steep considering ANY OTHER service oriented job they are required to “wait” in the lobby, being reprimanded for being 2 mins late is pretty intense. Our job as therapists is extremely demanding. Physically, emotionally, and mentally. Not to mention that we have children drooling, coughing, spitting, etc on us regularly. Only allowing 1 PTO day per month is not reasonable. Corporate does not seem to understand this. Secondly, the morale at this job is absolutely horrid. They try to compensate with game nights and spirit weeks, but the fact is that most employees feel under valued and unrepresented. This is my favorite part: they give “employee of the month” titles to therapists who have literally been employed at t&b for only a handful of weeks. Because their turnover is SO high, and they do such a terrible job at screening candidates on interviews and will hire anyone with a college diploma, we have experienced, strong therapists quitting left and right. They would rather reward brand new employees to incentivize them to stay, instead of recognizing their loyal employees which have been there for a year or longer. It’s mind boggling. Our BCBA’s are also always lacking in maintenance. We have kids running around the clinic with programs that have been mastered for weeks if not months. There is very low honest communication between employees and parents for this very reason. There is NEVER enough materials to do our job effectively. Therapists are constantly buying their own materials to make their jobs easier. There isn’t even enough materials for employees to get a drink of water or feed the kids because we are constantly out of water cups, plastic spoons, forks, etc. Management treats therapists like lower class citizens even though they are the foundation of the company and are the only ones who actually work with the clients every day. There is poor training for new hires. They put brand new therapists with absolutely no knowledge of ABA with aggressive, high intensity kids without the proper training. Questions posed to BCBAs frequently go unanswered and the result is that each therapist interprets the programs differently so there’s no consistency in how therapy is implemented. They also only acknowledge the therapists who work with high intensity kids as strong therapists, so if you do amazing work with kids who aren’t high intensity, that’s awesome but unfortunately you will never be recognized for it. Lastly, management HIGHLY favors men. Join t&b if you want, but you have been warned!
