laboratory assistant

hospital service technician

driver

mobile phlebotomist

senior technologist

Rhode Island Blood Center

The hours do vary. You may start as early as 4 AM and end as late as 11 PM. Your workday often exceeds 8 hours, and may be as long as 14 hrs. Part time drivers will work more than 20 hours per week. You will start the day by loading your truck by hand. You will drive to the blood drive sites, unload 1200 to 1500 pounds of equipment by hand, and then move it the equipment to the room where the drive will take place. You will navigate stairs, loading docks, doors and hallways by your self. You will then set the equipment up under the direction of the site supervisor. If the drive is short personal, you will be required to work as a CSR once you finish set up. If you are not needed as a CSR, you will drive back to the blood center to work in the warehouse, cleaning equipment, and preparing equipment bins for future drives. Every two hours you will need to return to the drive, pick up blood product, and drop off fresh supplies. There is a great deal of time pressure to get everything done as soon as possible. Some co workers are great, many are not.  The drives are planned by sales personal whose primary concern is commission. The site suitability and safe driving route are note given proper consideration. At the drive sites you receive direction from a nurse/supervisor. Some are great, many are not. some express open hostility for the drivers.  When the drives are over, you pack up all of the bins, transport them back to the truck, clean the site, and pick up the trash. Once you arrive back at the blood center, you unload the truck, put the bins away, dispose of hazardous materials, and trash, and restock your truck. The starting pay is $13 per hour.

While I will say the coworkers you have here are all very nice and for the most part helpful, upper management completely ruins everything about working for this company. Management receives zero training upping hire and usually have no management experience due to company hiring from within (a positive but also a negative). This results in poor managers and supervisors who treat people poorly, don’t know how to communicate and more often than not, do nothing while lower levels positions are expected to do everything. On top of terrible and unprofessional management problems, the pay is a lot lower than what you could be making somewhere else. For the amount of work they expect you to do, the pay is no where near acceptable. You will be overworked (usually staying beyond your scheduled shift), under appreciated, and treated poorly with this company. Lastly, company does nothing about harassment claims and more often than not, whether workers or managers, accuser will not be taken seriously and the accused will receive nothing but a warning. 

Typical day would be load my coach with proper medical supplies according to SOP. Leave Providence center with time enough to get to location like "Tasca" with time enough to move cars etc. to get the bus in a location that is safe for the blood drive. Set up coach for blood drive and assist supervisor in any capacity he/she needs to get drive up and running. Work with co-workers in a way that the drive runs smoothly and assist when needed. Communicate with donors to keep them alert and make them forget they are donating blood. Keep an eye on donor looking for adverse conditions that put them into a reaction to blood drive. I love conversing with donors about whatever they choose to talk about. Many of which I have seen over and over during my years of service to the blood center. Hardest part of the job would be what is called a double. That would be two drives back to back totalling 14 hours by the time I get to work and leave after fueling and resupplying coach.

No communication between departments. 

The goal of the drive will be 10 and then you see 30 donors. Which means you're only staffed for 10 so you're overworked and running around like crazy all stressed out

No single plus one health insurance
If your part time and need family coverage it's going to cost you $900/month. No joke. But the insurance is good. Plus it's dental and vision 

You need to work your way up to be full time
Part time at this job doesn't mean you work two days a week. It means you work every day. Some days may be 4 hour shift but sometimes (as in one or twice a week) you get a 12-13 hour double. Being at a high school from 7:30am-2:30 seeing over 100 donors and then you need to go to another drive until 8:30pm. It blows. And we complain about it all the time and it's never fixed. Oh and then you're scheduled to work the next morning at 7am. 

The staff at the blood drives is awesome and it what helps you get through the day

Don't work here

Responsible for set-up of mobile blood drive and fixed site operations.  General maintenance of company vehicles.  Cleaning and repairing of all donor services department medical equipment.  Conduct new hire and new procedures training for donor services driver.  Assist Manager of Collection Logistics in developing and distributing work schedule for drivers and in overseeing blood collection operations. I did learn that having a compassionate personality pays off.Management was structured and made sure everybody was doing their part.Hardest part of the job was when the blood drive sites were only accessible by stairs. I did use to love being on the road and driving a lot.Also knowing I was part of a team directly related to saving lives.

Pay is $15/hour. Management is good that they will help every step of the way for you to become successful in your role as a donor specialist. However, you will be overworked due to short staff and high turnover. People will stay if the job responsibilities of a donor specialist are commiserate with payscale---this job should pay at least $20.00/hour. There are phlebotomy positions that pay $17+ and do not involve taking vitals and monitoring for reactions that could potentially lead to an EMS response, as well as routine error reports. The travel is excessive and exhausting and also contributes to high turnover. It's not uncommon for you to work two shifts in one day in two areas.  

What is the best part of working at the company?
Was a great company till bought out by big corporation New York blood center.
Terrible management too many bosses not enough workers. Expectations that it’s your life and you never give enough.
Constantly saying  people are dying but truth is money money money. That’s all they care about.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Traveling all over sometime till 8pm at night or later and you have to somewhere next morning at 7 am and depending on where you live and traffic not enough time in between.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Stressful 100% bad attitudes, harassment poor leadership 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Go go go . 
Extremely stressful

The job itself is fulfilling, but the work load is highly demanding. Little to no breaks with 10+ hour days, and being scheduled 11 days in a row at times. Poor scheduling and horrible morale amongst staff make for stressful days here. You are required to travel, which can be fun, but be prepared to travel upwards of 2 hours one way. Management and HR are not open to criticism and many senior staff are leaving. Great cause to work for, poor management teams. You can become very efficient at new skills here with training if you can survive the environment.

A typical work day ranged from a whirlwind to a sleeper; one had to be ready for anything.
Management changed frequently, job descriptions changed.
Coworkers were not consistently held to professionalism.
The hardest aspect of my job was to be in multiple places at the same time.
The most enjoyable aspect of my job was the donors who were mostly happy to be there and were endlessly entertaining.
What I learned from this job is dependability, quick thinking/action,
and that my expertise in collections is a source of pride to me.

The Donor Care Specialist is responsible for all technical aspects of Whole Blood Collections,
including donor screening, donor phlebotomy, maintenance and quality control of donor care
equipment, and donor/community relations. Incumbent will be assigned to fixed sites and/or our
mobile coaches and mobile set-up sites. Responsible for providing a safe and pleasant experience
for the donor; as well as collecting a safe, high quality blood product for the recipient.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Laboratory assistant 32 salaries reported	$17.91 per hour
Hospital service technician 9 salaries reported	$19.78 per hour
Driver 14 salaries reported	$19.72 per hour
Mobile phlebotomist 18 salaries reported	$19.86 per hour
Senior technologist 14 salaries reported	$29.66 per hour

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