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More About Portamedic

One reader sent these comments:

"Their office made me fill out so many forms, and jerked me around so much, they kept telling me over and over "we'll start you this week" then they would ask for more info--- they even made me give them a copy of my passport!
They have a manager, a lady who is so rude, I was talking to the receptionist and she just interrupted and said "I am who you need to see"
When in all honesty, another manager Lisa, told me to avoid her at all costs and just give the receptionist my package and get out and wait for her to call. She said she could get me 40%. Promised me!!!
After treating me like crap, she handed me a huge stack of her cards and said send me directs, well I was just looking to supplement my income, because my loyalty is with EMSI, I asked her what kind of commision she offered, and she laughed in my face. Nothing she said! Unless I can send her 150 cases a month....
Then she said, after that, we can talk.....
Later in the week she heard about the 40 % and took the steps needed to prevent me from starting.
Huge waste of my time...yes her cards went in the trash ~"

Wow. In all honesty, I feel a little bit sorry for people in an office like this. They are dinosaurs, waiting for the climate to change. It's not going to change.

Offices that treat examiners like this are probably treating agents and folks being examined the same way. And they can't figure out why they're losing business every month. Portamedic has just gone through closing a number of offices. More will come later, I suspect.

A couple of observations. First, you did the right thing to throw out the cards. Someone like this is toxic, and all it will do is drag you down. It's not worth the hassle, even if the pay were better.

Second: 40% is insane. Maybe it's within the realm of reasonable if the examiner is new, if the examiner is not bringing in any cases, etc. But otherwise, no. There's no reason to work for that little. Offices that bring people in for that amount (or less!) are just guaranteeing that there will be a revolving door of examiners, people who are desparate or curious or testing the waters, and when the first irritation comes along, the examiner quits. I don't blame them.

Bottom line? If someone doesn't respect you when you first contact them, it's likely that nothng will change. Everyone has bad days, and I don't hold that against them, but someone as described above is someone who's a perpetual pain.

As I mentioned earlier, I've dealt with Portamedic for years. The office I dealt with had a superb manager who was fair, honest, and treated people well. Not surprisingly, he had a loyal and competent staff, both office and examiners. But they closed his office last week.

This is part of the logic in some upper-management at some of these companies: get rid of a local presence, and expect business to increase. It won't. They did a similar move in late 2001, after the 9/11 events, when business overall (my personal work, to my surprise, didn't suffer much) decreased: they decreased examiner percentage pay by 1%. The logic here escapes me. If I want more of something, I pay more for it, not less.

But dinosaurs didn't move quickly, and they paid the penalty. I suspect that some of these companies will suffer a similar fate. The smaller, more nimble companies (there are dozens of them) move quickly and respond quickly to the market and examiners. It's partly because they don't have multiple layers of management. But the primary reason they can respond quickly is because they don't think they are somehow owed business, and they know they have to fight for it. That's good for customers and good for us as examiners.

posted by Jim Huffman @ 2:31 PM