Pros
Working with animals, some very nice and helpful vets and interns. Not having to deal much with clients and never having to do money transactions which can be very, very expensive. Lots of good equipment for specialty departments. A lot of different benefits offered after 90 days, including heath care/dental/vision, sprint cell phone discounts, and discounts from a lot of companies owned by MARS (yes, the M&M candy company who also owns Blue Pearl). Discounts for online schooling through Penn Foster, but has to be completed in two years, and you have to pay up front, then get compensated later, which can still make it unaffordable for most employees.
Cons
Understaffed, high turnover, too many patients assigned per tech to be able to really take care of each patient the best way possible. Always staying much later then your shift is suppose to end. High volume of call outs, and not enough staff to cover shortages. Having to be on call for 24 hours once or twice a month and only getting paid $13 to sit around and wait to get called to work any shift including overnight. They can call you at 9am or 4am.... any time during the hours of 7am-7am the following day. Hard to balance your sleep schedule and not getting enough compensation. Some veterinarians and specialty techs treat ICU techs horribly. Actually most of them treat you like the scum of the earth. Especially if something is going wrong with one of your patients. The specialty department techs/doctors assigned to that patient are always too busy, hard to find or don’t care that there is a change in the patient that is not normal. A lot of patients end up crashing and get CPR and may or may not live through it.... When all of that could have been avoided if the Doctors would listen to the ICU techs and actually assess their patients and add or change meds/treatments. A lot of complaining, gossiping and favoritism throughout the whole business. Which can make your days working very depressing and hard to enjoy. You will be very over worked. Approximately 11-12 hour work days when your shift schedule is set for 10 hours. You only get a 30 minute un-paid lunch break that is normally assigned by the shift lead, and sometimes is offered 7-8 hours into your shift, or it is too busy or you are completely forgotten about and work your whole shift with no break. Techs always get behind in patient treatments due to too few employees and too many patients. You are expected to draw blood and do treatments by yourself when most patients need to be restrained to do these things. Its hard to get any help because every other ICU tech is in the same position and is needing help as well and behind with their patients. Very stressful and easy to get burnt out. A lot of very sick animals who don’t get the right care from the vets and dealing with a lot of death and euthanasia. Hard to get annual vaccines for your own pets. Only offered 4 different Saturdays a year and only a handful of slots are offered for a business with 70+ employees. Discounts for your pets if they are sick or need surgery/specialty’ treatments are not great due to the already high costs of everything. Better off taking your animals to a private practice vet for vaccines and illness treatments. No heartworm or flea products offered to clients or staff. Private practices have reps that come in and give 6 months of free products normally for 1 or 2 of your pets with no regard to size, which saves so much money especially if you have larger animals. Also private practice had much better prices and discounts for their employees pets.