Comment by FireBeyond | Hacker News Reader

Comment by FireBeyond | Hacker News Reader

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> he also takes points off of Wynn-Williams' workplace evaluation for being "unresponsive" over a period when she was in a near-death coma

To be fair, this happens all over the scale. Back when I was an EMT making not much more than minimum wage, I had to call out of a shift (and eventually get taken to the ER by my partner for what turned out to be large - 13mm - kidney stone). And when that hospital didn't have available urology, they had me transferred by one of our ambulances to another, for surgery that night, which was aborted because of long-standing infection found. So I was catheterized, admitted on IV antibiotics, sometime after 1am.

Around 7am my room phone rings. It's my supervisor, because I'm meant to be on shift today. "Oh, hey, I saw we transferred you last night." Chit chat. "So, am I to assume then that you're not going to be able to make it to shift today?" Me, waiting for a hint of humor, none. "You should make sure to call out. Were you able to find coverage? Oh, well, I guess we'll make it work".

Brother, you called me at 7am on a hospital room phone asking if I was planning to make it to my shift at 7.30am and after hearing about me being loaded to the gills on painkillers, taken to another hospital where they called a urologist in near midnight on the 4th of July to operate that night, have me on an IV antibiotic drip and you're chastising me for not being able to find coverage?

> Were you able to find coverage?

Never fucking do this. It's the manager's job. Like it's their actual job. If you just want to last-minute swap a shift for fun? Sure. If you're in the hospital or otherwise have an actual crisis to deal with? Nope. [Incidentally: also not your goddamn job if it's actual policy-granted leave planned in advance, "oh you can have those days next month, just find coverage" NOPE that's why you make the "big" bucks, jackass]

An enormous proportion of low-level managers of poorly-paid employees are (I'm choosing these words deliberately, not just to throw insults) really stupid assholes, so they are very bad at managing schedules (that's the "stupid" part, this is not rocket science) and also think that's somehow your problem (that's the "asshole" part) but it is not.

Unfortunately if your manager thinks something is your problem, it becomes your problem.

100%. Unfortunately, and especially around here, the quickest way to a decent union fire position is through the volunteer system, or private EMS meatgrinder. Doubly so in the PNW - in other parts of the country you can barely throw a rock at a strip mall without hitting a paramedic school, but Central/Western Washington effectively has only two programs - Tacoma CC and Central Wash U. There was a Vancouver program that got effectively subsumed by AMR or something like that, and there's a Seattle program at Harborview - but you have to already be a Seattle or King County FD employee and sponsored to get into it - as a result TCC's program had an informal requirement to have 1,000+ patient contacts as an EMT, and the only time efficient way to get that is private EMS.

So private EMS supervisors know they have a steady supply of younger kids who'll eat shit for a few years to get their patient contacts. I did it later in life, and had a full time IT job, and it was always a source of consternation from this supervisor that he couldn't pull his usual shit, threatening to (try to) "blacklist" employees, or pull borderline illegal scheduling shenanigans.

> so they are very bad at managing schedules (that's the "stupid" part, this is not rocket science)

Oh, you'd think that. But most private EMS shift bidding is glorified "write your name on a whiteboard"/GCal type stuff that a dispatcher or supervisor then tries to lay out. I'll admit that it's a thankless job at best - do an optimal layout and no-one appreciates it, but anything suboptimal and there's accusations of favoritism, etc. And then, at certain places, like this one, there -is- -actual- favoritism, where dispatchers will "joke" about giving you a crappy shift or partner if you upset or argue with them, or will double-book you and then complain you didn't notice, or, if not enough people would sign up for a certain day, would "phantom" sign you up. Get a call at 7.30am - "Where you at?" "Home, sleeping" "You're on duty today" "I didn't sign up." "Says here you did". Leading to people taking photos of the shift sign up sheets right before the end of bidding...

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