emergency medical technician

registered nurse - acute care

fleet mechanic

registered nurse - critical care

paramedic

Olympic Ambulance

Work-life balance
Work-life balance at Olympic Ambulance is garbage at best. Prepare to be overworked and harassed to stay because of multiple call outs each shift. Shift options have been reduced and you must work overtime every week just to make ends meet because you will only ever be compensated minimum wage.

Pay & benefits
My pay and benefits at Olympic Ambulance are a joke. Minimum wage, minimum employee benefits and semi-decent insurance if you can find the time to use those benefits. If you are part time, you will get no benefits and be treated as a sub-employee.

Job security and advancement
In terms of job security at Olympic Ambulance, I think if they like you, you’re good. It’s high school drama and about fitting in and if you choose to be an adult or decide not to be friends with someone then you’re most likely to get pushed out.

Management
In general, managers at Olympic Ambulance have no clue what’s going on and manage daily operations with inexperience. Leadership lacks real experience, qualification or direction. The environment is toxic.

Culture
Collaboration with my colleagues at Olympic Ambulance is pathetic. Most people are not competent in their jobs and have no ambition or desire to improve or grow in knowledge. Medics often make mistakes when pushing medications and actual patient care is non-existent. Morale is always low and the job is about trying to avoid doing as much work as possible. It’s a medical taxi service at best run by sleep deprived, inexperienced and ill-equipped people.

Overall
My experience working at Olympic Ambulance taught me that private ambulance is not worth the time. And if you want to go into the fire service, this isn’t the direction to take. The local fire departments will not pick you up, they look down on Olympic Ambulance. I thought when I took this job that I would be making a difference and actually helping people, instead this taught me the ugly side of medical care, egotism and miss management of a company.

It was everything you would expect of a budget ambulance company in private EMS. I made better friends here than I did at the other company I worked for previously but there is something to say for trauma bonding. I felt like I asked the right questions at my interview and I was still surprised. The current shift supervisors are all 30 or under and their only experience is Thurston County Olympic Ambulance and maybe some local FD volunteer work. The branch manager was an EMT like 2 years ago who got injured. It’s great that there’s advancement opportunity but not when maybe the qualifications aren’t being properly met and you have some conflict of interest that comes up when suddenly your leader was your partner on the rig not too long ago. 
The training process needs so much immediate work. No two trainees have the same experience or receive the same info. There’s no uniformity between FTOs. The supervisors are even completely different day to day. If they have more trainees than FTOs, they’ll put a trainee with anyone for the day. 
There’s way more new people than senior people because it’s a revolving door. 
If it’s that specific experience you need, you’ll get it. Just remember to advocate for yourself. It’s a stepping stone. 
In trade for a year of service, they’ll even pay you regular 12hr shift EMT wages to be an intern and get your EMT cert. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
The EMTs are always fun to talk with. The Director/Boss is also super laid back and fun to work with.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The downfall is the lack of dispatchers/work load. You can be on the phone with 5 hospitals at the same time, while answering radio traffic and getting 911 calls out. There is also so much insurance/policy information you must learn, as well as geographic knowledge, such as knowing what areas you cover and don't. It seems like you cover most of WA and there is only 1-2 dispatchers at a time, making you feel overwhelmed. No official breaks and the pay seems low for the amount of work. This is different than actual CENCOM/911 because they have 10+ people covering just Kitsap county, dividing workload.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Fun during downtime, extremely stressful for most of it due to workload. Never had headaches til working there.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Walk in, get briefed on shift change, take 43 ibuprofen. Receive calls from stressed out hospital staff. Laugh with EMT's during downtime. Another 43 ibuprofen. Pull your hair out. Leave.

This place is horrible. You are overworked due to them taking on new projects and healthcare facilites. Crews don't want to come in. EMT's are burnt out. You get non stop back to back calls and most times have calls pending before your current call is over. The nursing staff is also overworked. The management is from Falck and other EMS companies who have failed and are now using the same management skills to run Olympic. Training is not the best as well. Management covers so much that their roles arent even defined. There are managers working as HR as well. It's hard to be heard and try to make things better for yourself and others who are working there. I wouldn't be surprised if this place wont be here in another 5 years. And if they are, it will probably switch to a nursing only medical care. (If they can make the nurses happy. since most are burnt out as well) 

I took this job to improve my EMT Skills and knowledge and within a year I've done just that. At first I mostly worked part time in the evenings and weekends. 

You can work part time or full time and an average work week is 48-72 hours. The facility in Lacey manages over 20k in calls a year with 4-8 day cars depending on staffing. Management is very open and qualified. 

Education and Communication are always on the table and the company works well towards making sure the employees are respected and compensated. Currently the pay is just above minimum wage but I expect that to go up as they will want to keep their skilled staff and not lose them to competing companies.

I have worked for Olympic ambulance for over 3 years and there are many training opportunities as well as opportunities for growth. We have scholarships in place to gain your paramedic license as well as fully paid options for schooling as long as one is committed to the company for two or more years. This is a great place to start as an EMT basic and continue one's career in medicine.

You work either a 24 or 12 hour shift. People are friendly and a lot of them hang out after work together. The culture can be toxic at times if you run into people working long hours (ie. 72 hours straight). 
The company started a in house paramedic program that is completely covered and an EMT program. 
You don't have to stage in the ambulance like other companies like AMR. There's a break room with TV and games. A gym which isn't anything fancy but works. And a pingpong table that gets used during the summer. 

The EMT's were great guys, some a little high strung and young, but over all a great bunch.  The management on site were great to work with.  Management from afar not so much.  The work schedule was great.  I worked 12 hr days with 4 on and 4 off.  So every other month you had week ends off and the vacation time we had was amazing and made it so you could have a good time with out of state family.

Manager was a great hard worker. Being under staff she managed to do her best on her own. With my experienced arrival her wiliness to allow me to do my job was difficult for her to let go of the duties I was hired to preform. Once I was able to work accounts Revenue increased dramatically. She refused to let me work any Medicare which was not typical for a manager to restrictive just one payor. Trying to work around her willingness to let go was difficult. I was also very under paid for the job I was doing.

Olympic is continuing to grow in Pierce County and the region. This is the best Ambulance company I’ve worked for in WA, definitely a progressive and growing company. Full support from management with great equipment and decent ambulances. Great coworkers who actually enjoy their job and aren’t just here to collect a check and be a lazybones. Olympic also doesn’t believe in forcing employees to work long shifts in a cramped ambulance. Having a station/quarters really makes a huge difference for morale and makes long shifts much easier and more enjoyable.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Emergency medical technician 6 salaries reported	$28.95 per hour
Registered nurse - acute care 9 salaries reported	$118,185 per year
Fleet mechanic 4 salaries reported	$30.32 per hour
Registered nurse - critical care 7 salaries reported	$51.91 per hour
Paramedic 2 salaries reported	$84,371 per year

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