I make a decent salary and never really struggled financially. This isn't anti-working…this is anti-'certain bosses'…
Being a home care Physical Therapist working with kids can be rewarding. For those who hire PTs, that is.
About 15 years ago, I was working for a woman who hired us as contractors. So much per visit, that's it. No taxes, no continuing education, no mileage, no paperwork time. The rate was OK, but the implied promise of increases was always there and I never got one, despite being the ONLY PT on her staff willing to go into inner city Allentown.
Well, at a staff meeting AT A COUNTRY CLUB, she announces that the county was going to to increase the compensation per hour TO THE PROVIDERS (our bosses) from $90 per session to $127 per session. This was about 12 bucks MORE than she was expecting and she wanted us to celebrate that with her, I guess. Mind you, her costs did not go up at all. She didn't have a gym…we worked in the homes. She didn't provide equipment other than a few books to borrow if we wanted, things like that. It was pure profit…An extra 37 dollars for every time I completed an hour of work when to her, who drove a Hummer and hung out at a country club and she wasn't even going to throw her 10 -12 employees 2-3 dollars of that.
When I later texted her and wrote, 'nice raise, boss'…she blew up.
Raises are based on merit.
Do you know how much it costs to keep you employed?
How dare you imply that I have to share this with you.
Well, I gave notice…and since I am working with 30 kids on my caseload, it was SLOW notice. I took a job with a provider offering 10 bucks more per hour…and as I discharged provider #1's kids, I replaced them with provider #2…and since I was the ONLY PT in the area actively taking on cases, provider #1 kept having to tell the counties that she didn't have a PT to take cases and explain that I was taking the kid under a different provider. THAT was painful for her, I'll bet.
Over the past 15 years, we occasionally cross paths at continuing ed or in the community and she has stopped asking me to come back and work for her.
She knows what she did.
PS, I actually took a job about 5 years later making less, but with a provider that had a gym, offered to take taxes out, and provided a lot more stability and a better work environment. The money wasn't the only issue. It's really the way they treat the folks who go out and actually do the work as nothing more than revenue generators..while they sip wine at the country club.