Pros
Before choosing a company to work for, I did ride-outs with several other companies (doctors, schaefer, bowers, pacific, lynch, PRN, emergency) and decided I would only be willing to work for Care or Doctor's ambulance service. There is a huge gap between working conditions, employee standards and expectations, and quality of peers among Care Ambulance, Doctors, and everyone else. Except for Care and Doctor's, every EMT I spoke with was unhappy and dissatisfied with Sr. management, station-conditions and lack of respect. Stations at Care are significantly better, and much more maintained. Ambulances are kept up and issues are dealt with immediately. Free boots (up to $150) every 2 years. Liberal with giving out new uniforms when they start to look worn out. All in all, Care is extremely concerned with its image and customer service. Their hiring process is significantly longer than other companies (written test, skills, and panel interview) as compared to filling out an application and picking a start date @ other companies. Because of this, your peers are of higher caliber, more reliable with trades, and generally excited and upbeat about their job, and on the move working towards their next step in their career(always outside the company....no real opportunity for promotion @ Care). Other stuff: 401k dollar for dollar matching up to 6% PTO starts at 88hrs/yr I believe, goes up yearly. Trades/schedule is online, picking up OT is a breeze, as is trading shifts. On-site payroll, HR, and all operations management -- so all issues can easily be resolved without delay.
Cons
Not really a con -- but the trade off for good working conditions and nice things is that you maintain them -- Must wash rigs daily, detail tires and chrome of ambulance as well as keep the inside clean. Reporting with pressed shirts and clean-shaven is a must. (I count it a huge plus, but if your not into maintaining image constantly, you'll hate this company). Leadership is not streamlined. In Orange County alone, I have 7 supervisors with various titles and positions (one of which I don't even know her official position). Of the seven, some are incompetent, others are extraordinary (as with most management teams I imagine). The concept of "lex parsimonae" needs to be applied to the management at Care. They simply have too many redundant manager positions with no discernible hierarchy. Favoritism doesn't occur much, but some policies are not clearly defined. The driver training program and employee driver status issues is absurd. Discipline/restrictions for drivers seems to be determined almost at random. Identical situations will be met with different outcomes, and getting a hold of the driver manager is near impossible -- simply no follow up. This is probably the number 1 complaint among care EMTs -- vague policies Along with Dispatch comes even more supervisors, and an incongruity between peers (EMT/dispatch relations are neutral at best, downright hostile in other cases -- again, 1-2 bad apples, while most are great). Other than the broken management structure (not an issue with management itself) Care is an outstanding company to work for -- I have hardly any complaints.
