A few months ago I started one of the most toxic jobs I’ve ever had in my whole life. I work as an Intake Coordinator for a Weight Loss clinic chain based in Chicago, and our boss/CEO is the poster boy for everything wrong with Capitalist America. Here are just a few of the red flags I noticed in just a few short months of working here:
I should’ve known in the first interview when they said pay was only $15 and non-negotiable but putting $15-$22 dollars on their job listing gives them a better range of candidates. If I wasn’t struggling to make rent I probably wouldn’t have continued from there.
On my 2nd day, my manger told me that the boss/ceo (Will) wants all new hires to make 5 star reviews on google to inflate their business, not just for the location you work at, but for all their locations. This is definitely not a 5 star clinic. Here are just some of the ways they suck:
They advertise themselves as A weight loss clinic for everyone of all body types, but really it’s just a funnel for them to collect patients and get them started on a weight loss drug called phentermine. That’s Will’s solution to every patient. It’s a controlled substance so patents come in to our clinic and get prescribed phentermine from our nurses. Some of them don’t even want to take it but Will trains the managers to convince patients it’s their best option. Truly awful.
They charge patients anywhere from 7x to 10x the markup of what they buy their pills and protein shakes at, so they can make maximum profits selling their bs “nutrition”bars. Like they buy each box for $3-4 and sell for $18-$22 and unsuspecting people who just want to lose weight and get healthy buy them Even though bars you can get at your local grocery stores have more nutrients then they do.
On top of that, the nurses protest that the way they are currently doing business is not acceptable. The nurses are often double or triple booked because Will wants to cram as many patents into a day as possible to get them their drugs. Multiple times now I’ve walked into the break room to see nurses crying because of the stress and moral ambiguity of their job. They hate it and management is not listening to their feedback even though they are the health professionals.
They also take advantage of their workers of color and Hispanic workers. Chicago has a huge Hispanic population and new Intake Coordinator hires are often tasked to be translators for the nurses and doctors, in addition to all their other intake role responsibilities. They get paid the lowest amount of anyone, and they’re doing most of the heavy lifting.
They recently changed the pay structure to get rid of bonuses. Now mangers are incentivized to get as many people on Phentermine that qualify as possible. More patents means more money for them. Meanwhile, the bonus structure for everyone else has dissolved, and in the case of the Intake Coordinators, we actually received a pay cut across the board so more money could potentially go to manager bonuses.
The hours are ridiculous too. Folks are expected to work 8-7 with a mandatory 2 hour break from 1-3 so that we can get folks in during business hours as well as after work
Honesty I could write a whole novel about how this place sucks, but I’m just so over it. I just got a new job offer and my last day was on Friday so I’m out of that place. Fuck them and Fuck you especially, Will. When I left I tried to delete my forced 5 star review but I couldn’t figure it out so I just changed it to 2 stars, and then Will called me personally to chastise me and tell me to get rid of it or change it.
The business is called Options Medical Weight Loss in Chicago, IL. I worked in the South Loop location (their HQ) but I’ve worked in a lot of their offices as a temp and it’s all the same. The whole company is garbage. Workers are consistently treated as disposable and replaceable.
FYI: if you’re planning to review bomb them (and you have my blessing to do so if you want) I recommend giving them 2 stars. Google gets rid of 1 star reviews but not 2 or 3 stars. And Will is definitely gonna want those reviews taken down so he’ll do everything in his power to do it.
Fuck you OMWL. And Fuck you Will.