I went to junior college and obtained my EMT-B license. In an effort to secure employment while completing my associates degree, I went to work for a private ambulance company. I was young, 20 years young, and consider this one of my first real-life employment experiences. The company was small, located in a rural town and run by a passel of country bumpkins.
I applied and was hired for a "dispatch" position; however, I was often put on the ambulance because my boss did not have enough people to cover shifts. These are some of my highlights from my time with the company:
Often the ambulances had "mechanical problems." My boss bought them used and abused and literally duct-taped them to stay together. One cold, Christmas day, I agreed to work for another employee so she could spend time with her kids for the holiday. All three ambulances were experiencing problems (1 had no lights or sirens, 1 had no functioning brakes, and one had no heat), and we were left to pick the lesser of three evils to take out on calls. My partner and I chose the ambulance without a functioning heater and had to fib to our patients regarding the frigidness of the ambulance. (Looking back, I suppose I could have stuck my head out the windows and made "Woo-Woo" sounds.)
As punishment for ticking off the boss, he would pair the employee up with a certain member of the staff that no one liked (this employee was well aware of her reputation, and thought it funny). You were then exposed to 12-14 hours (we hardly ever worked an 8-hour shift due to the nature of our business) of her marital problems, health problems and other assorted goodies. Her husband was also an employee of the same ambulance company. Her stories made it impossible to look him in the eye without your mind racing back to details revealed in her stories.
The boss's chemically dependent uncle drove the med car. I will say that he was an extremely nice man; but nonetheless, his chemical dependency strongly outweighs his niceness when you consider responsible patient care (not to mention safe driving).
During my last months of employment, I was paired up with an EMT-B who had spent time in prison. Our boss often hired people over the phone without checking references, licensing, etc., and did not always check their licensing until after they had been working on the ambulance with patients for a month or two.
Prior to that, my boss paired me up with another EMT that had supposedly spent 6 months with a fire department. A month after she started, we were on our way back with a patient from her dialysis treatment. I was in the back tending to the patient when I felt the ambulance screech to a halt. The doors in the back swung open and my partner was holding a baby in her hands. The baby was limp and turning blue. My partner said she didn't know what to do, so I jumped out and started CPR on the baby. I told my partner to grab the infant bag (including an artificial airway & breathing mask) - she said she didn't know where it was. I then told her to grab the oxygen tank and a mask - she again replied that she didn't know how to turn it on. I am now running around the ambulance with a lifeless baby in my arms trying to do CPR and Heimlich while trying to locate necessary rescue equipment, the mother is screaming at the top of her lungs to save her baby, we are pulled over in the middle of a busy intersection and cars were slowing down to watch, people from the corner business were congregating and "praising the lord," my partner is absolutely NO help, and the patient we are supposed to be caring for is watching everything. I yelled for someone to call 911 and finally the fire department arrived and took over. The baby was choking on the cap from a plastic bottle. I managed to keep some air going into his lungs but was powerless to do much more. To this day, I still feel like I failed in my job. I was also pretty angry that my boss had no "on the job" training or monitoring. After this incident, he still did not ensure she was up to date on her training. He left things to "work themselves out."
I would like to take a moment to tell you that working on a private ambulance is not the most uplifting job. You rarely, if ever, see a patient "get well." Most of the patients were in skanky nursing homes, had terminal illnesses, most were on dialysis or on some form of treatment to help prolong their life (and suffering in some cases) a little longer. While most of the patients were wonderful human beings and I enjoyed caring for them, the job still remained very depressing. That being said, to have a depressing job, with a boss and company that often mirrored a Jerry Springer episode, you would imagine that the only reason to stay had to be the pay and benefits. This is NOT the case.
Leaving the company was the most unpleasant experience of all. The boss had me train my replacement for two weeks (unbeknownst to me). Then, he had his sister fire me because he was too cowardly to face me. She told me it was because of an incident that took place months prior when I was dispatching.
Over the years I have had bad bosses, but none to this date have ever successfully earned the title "Worst Boss Ever."
