Pacific Pulmonary Services-Class Action Lawsuit

AMEN!!

 

For the record, I am the poster who was quoted and accused of working for PPSC and trying to create confusion. For the record, I do not now nor have I ever worked for PPSC. I have never met any of the people whose names I have mentioned - except one. I was asking a sincere question. Let me repeat, is it even possible that PPSC is attempting to rid itself of the kinds of assholes that Robert Sutton encourages companies not to hire in his great new book, The No Assholes Rule? One can hope.

If not, if PPSC is not ridding itself of the assholes, then they become "exhibit A", the poster child for what happens to a company once you hire the first asshole. Robert Sutton is right, companies MUST refuse to hire assholes no matter how talented, no matter how smart.

By the way, when executives are described as "tough", that's code for asshole.

And for those who don't know what is meant by "asshole", try jerk.

No, I am not Robert Sutton but I have read his book and a business book group to which I belong has chosen his book as an upcoming selection. Incidentally, since I'm recommending books here, let me strongly recommend the Chip and Dan Heath title, Made To Stick, our current book group pick.

 

Oh, well then let me say, Get the F--- off this site and peddle your Oprah book club bullshit to someone else. People who need to do serious venting are trying to use this site!!!!!

 

No, thank you. I think I'll stay and I'll do so without exchanging insults and expletives with you.

 

Did you know that if a pointy-haired boss or a Catbert from , say Pacific Pulmonary or one of its investors, goes to Google and types in "Pacific Pulmonary Services" he/she will get returns from this board? Don't take my word for it, go to Google and type in a rare keyword or a lengthy phrase/direct quote from one of your posts into the "advanced search" field and see for yourself. All companies have people who rutinely search the internet for mentions of their company name , names of their products or names of their executives. I've been told that PPSC hired a "media consultant". If that's true, you can be sure that Dogbert is Googling Pacific Pulmonary and probably even has this site bookmarked in his browser. Do we really want the Catberts, Dogberts and pointy-haired bosses of the oxygen industry to think that the same people who are trying to be taken seriously when they criticize PPSC are also using this site to "vent" or to attack other posters? Show a little maturity, a little emotional intelligence. Think before you hit the "submit" button. If you want your remarks about Peter Kelly or any other oxygen industry exec to be taken seriously, don't use this site to "vent", use it to elevate the discussion, to make your case, to ehance the credibility of the site and people who post on it.

 

So beautifully said! I read these "vents" and actually feel really sorry for these people. I know one of them on here was "fired" over a year ago and still is very venomous to this company. Get over it would ya!! Go on and live life, find another job, and chill! As a person said earlier, if a quarter of this stuff is actually true (fired for being pregnant is a big one) then YOU HAVE A CASE! If you can prove it. Good night and Good Luck!

 

Did you Google "Pacific Pulmonary Services"? Many prospective employees, prospective investors, current investors and current employees are doing so and when thet do they see returns from something called http://www.cafepharma.com/boards. If they come here and read these posts, PPSC doesn't entirely get away with what they've done.

As I've said here before, the tables have turned. There was a time when the employer had all the advantages and always got the last word. Voluntarily-departing employees wouldn't even tell the truth about why they're leaving in their exit interviews with Catbert for fear of burning bridges with a boss they need to give them good references years into the future. Now it's the bosses who should fear burning bridges. Employees can have the last word. A job candidate doesn't have to blindly go to work for a known bully anymore thanks to sites like this one.

And I don't know about the rest of you, but if I'm the bullying manager's boss and I see his name popping up over and over on this site as a serial abuser, I'm going to start looking into why that asshole's turnover rate is higher than it should be. See what I mean?

 

Did anyone go thru 'training' w/ PPSC.....I did and it was downright communist!

Wish I had a camera, could have sold the 'secrets' and 'mindbending' training the management provided our 'class' that 'week'.

Anyone else 'sued' for 'trade secrets' and or 'non-compete' with this company?

Anyone from Chicago-Surrounding area's here?

I miss the old team back in 2003-2005!


Chicago?
Bridgeview?
Rockford?
Indiana?

Chime in!

 

You asked people to chime in, well I am going to take you up on that!

I personally would post my territory, my name, my position, my bra size........my anything and everything on here without giving two S H I T S about what PPSC thinks! Only problem I see is to me it appears you are fishing! To me it appears you are a PPSC employee who is trying to get catch someone in one of those territories F"n up!

I either know or have have heard of every person in those territories! Perhaps if you would be forthcoming with your personal information, others would be more willing to "chime in"!

 

Tom resigned, took a position with Blue Cross.

 

This company will screw you over. Don't believe anything they say because it's all lies. All they care about is making money!! They don't really care about the patient and there so called sleep program sucks!! It will just be a matter of time when it all catches up to them and the doctors are starting to wise up to their so called great service.
Oh, and they way they treat the patients is no better than how they treat their employees.

 

I'm researching material for the lawsuit. Can anyone comment on

1) the specifics behind attrition, reasons, frequency
2) the performance systems used to track sales
3) the satisfaction level of patients
4) the overall management
5) Is this company getting ready for a selloff to the highest bidder
6) Are their plans to build the new contact center real
7) what are they doing well - what is their secret sauce, sales numbers appear strong and margins are competitive

??

 

Papers filed with the Kentucky Secretary of State list Pacific Pulmonary's Lexington address as 2031 Georgetown Rd. but their current call center is located at 2456 Fortune Drive suite 110. Any of you out there work at Apria? Apria has an office at suite 130 in the same building. Maybe somebody from Apria can walk down there and check it out.

 

News Flash for ya Moral Cop.....how I speak on an anonomous board is not how I speak in my every day dealings and if I did happen to speak like that it wouldn't be any of your damn business! Secondly brainiac if I spoke that way when I interviewed (obviously hired) with the company then I highly doubt they would fire me, duh!

Now correct me if I am wrong, are we standing in front of a judge at this very moment or are we on a public anonomous posting board? Correct, we are on a public anonomous posting board so what's your point? Besides that "idiot" I don't spout off at the mouth unless I can back my facts up. Anything I have to say about PPS in a lawsuit is NOT based on hearsay or false alligations, it is based on facts and my facts are backed with documented FACTS!

Unless there are 2 lawsuits lurking against PPS, I am one of 6 who initiated the suit and I can't recall anyone from the lawfirm ever mentioning posting a questionaire on cafepharma.....hmmmm!

So basically what I am saying to you is I will call whoever I want to whatever I want and if you don't like it......then I suggest you work for PPS and SUE ME for slandar!

 

Does anyone have an opinion on their systems? I've heard they're super fantastic and beat the pants off their competitors. But I can't see what so good about their systems - they do have a lot of IT staff. And what's about those guys. Chin and Doty running the systems group? Were they doing a good job or just building a great policing systems?

 

Information is power, whether it's used for tracking, planning or policing. A word to smaller regional companies, your IT systems can indeed make or break you. There sometimes is a perception that because a company is large it means they must be successful because they grew through paramount sales strategies. PPS has grown because of a few key ingredients. First they focused on only two, now three incredibly high profit products, O2, meds, and Sleep. They weren't chasing their tails with low profit walkers and commodes. Second most of their drivers, csr's, and even some reps and Center managers are genuinely concerned about providing excellent service (I wouldn't suggest for a minute that any executive does) but many of the folks that have direct patient contact are good, decent and caring people. Third, PPS attracts reps by dangling the carrot of commission, albeit phantom commission. How many reps were hired under the delusion that they would make 80 to 100K only to discover because of the threshold and charge backs that they were lucky to earn even $400 a month in commission. PPS only pays $35k in yearly salary so your yearly income is rarely more than $42 to 45. I should also mention that hourly employees are paid $12.00 and hour and rarely receive more than $500 a year in bonus if they are lucky. So there are all types of illusive incentives that never get paid because the criteria is never met. Fourth, reps and managers rarely see it to their first year. If you're not a superstar right out of the gate with little if any training, coaching or mentoring you'll be shown the door. This is the business epitome of Darwin's survival of the fittest. It's great for the company, that revolving door will spin like the wind until that one dominate species emerges and is given the accolade of President's Club survivor. One might say, that is great for business. I say you are correct if business has no connection to humanity. The Nazis wanted to develop an Aryan race, should they be faulted for that? Too often people say "it's just business" as though that absolves them from the need for integrity, compassion, consideration or any remote connection to humanity. Unfortunately many of the decision makers at PPS make others lives a living hell without one moment of consideration or one second of lost sleep. I guess that's what happens if you disconnect from morality or you're a sociopath. You can have a wildly successful strategy if you lie, cheat, steal, deceive, mistreat and abuse people and fundamentally commit to a strategy that cares only about yourself and your slice of the pie. After all, didn't Enron win for years with this approach....until one day it all came crumbling down.

 

To that last anonymous poster who attributed PPSC's success, in part, to a sort of capitalistic Darwinism, there is another way, you know. I mean, they could actually manage. They could realize that most of the people they hire don't walk in the door with the right skills, attitudes, values and motivation to succeeed and, well, that's what management is for. I'm thinking right now of that great scene in A Few Good Men where Jack Nicholson's character says that officers are supposed to train their men. "Yes, I believe I read that somewhere" he says sarcastically. The point I'm trying to make is that PPSC could just keep turning and burning the new hires until they find that occasional rare "survivor" who can figure out how to succeed without any management intervention at all or they could actually manage people and instill the right values and skills and attitudes and motivation in their new hires. What , exactly, is the value add of managers if they can't actually increase the odds that a new hire will succeed in his job? If managers won't manage, why have them? Why not just cut out the middleman and have all the reps and drivers and CSRs report directly to Peter Kelly? What, exactly, is it that so-called managers actually bring to the table if they don't accept responsibility for the new hires' success? Why do managers think they're being paid the big bucks if not to manage? Management without the accountability is measurement, not management. Yes. managers do have to measure things and one of the things they have to measure is employee performance but if all they do is measure and then they don't manage the employee to optimize performance, what are they good for?

 

I agree! But why stop with business? Why not apply your same theory to parenting. How many parents don't train and therefore manage their children. Shouldn't parents be expected to accept responsibility and do a great job training their children? If parents won't do it why do we have them? Perhaps we should allow couples to "make babies" but if they aren't doing a good job training them, then the state should take their children away into a collective commune that's led by Super Parents who can inculcate them with the teachings of the state. After all, do we really need parents? If they can't prove their worth they should be eliminated. The more I think about it, why do we need them at all, we can "make" babies in test tubes and eliminate the parents all together. The standard should be perfection. If you can raise a well behaved child that is a star athlete, is a 4.0 student and is beautiful, you get to continue parenting but the first pimple, dropped ball or B+ grade and you're out, the state takes over. Let's bring George Orwell back and let him govern our business and family. Reasonable expectations, well communicated and applied to everyone is a standard any manager is willing to accept. Absurd goals and time lines poorly disseminated, capriciously applied while showing favoritism to loyal dolts by demigods does not qualify as good management and therefore the "secret" to the PPS success. You might want to take the long contemplative view of analysis rather than rushing to judegment.

 

Put me firmly in the "make parents responsible" camp. I've often said that if I were a judge, I'd punish parents when they raise a kid who becomes a danger to society. You don't get to raise a kid for 18 years then plead impotence as to how the kid turns out. Similarly, I'll argue in my next column that managers don't get to control the recruiting and selection process then complain that the people they hire are worthless. Who recruited them? Who Hired them? MANAGEMENT. If you can't recruit and hire the right people, you can't manage. Step aside. Let someone else do it. In a future column I'll argue that managers don't get to control the "onboarding" of a new employee then take no responsibility for a high turnover rate. If you can't "onboard" new hires, you can't manage. Period.

 

Once again I agree! So let's take your logic all the way to the top since as Harry Truman said "the buck stops here." Center Managers should be fired for hiring bad PCC's, Area managers should be fired for hiring bad Center Managers, Regional managers fired for bad Area managers, VP's for bad Regionals and Peter should be fired for hiring bad executives. The problem with your poor approach to logic is that it's selective and elitist. If your theory is true then it MUST be applied all the way to the top. Apparently you didn't read that section in my last comment. A system works if it is sound, applies to ALL and is reasonable. Yours doesn't meet this standard. The vast majority of recently "laid off" managers could never have been fired for poor performance because they were managing territories that were growing and performing not only beyond industry standard but beyond company expectation. Unfortunately poor analysts like you arrive at erroneous conclusions because you don't take the time to inductively critique the situation comprehensively. It's easier to scape goat than it is to assign blame across the board and not focus on the "perceived easy way out" than to work toward real solutions. During my tenure I was always amazed at the stupidity of those at the top that allowed the group immediately below them to buy time and save face by simply firing there subordinates as though that were the solution to the problem. If the team doesn't win it's not only the fault of the the assistant coaches and players, the head coach must also accept blame and work toward a solution. You might want to enroll in a community college course in logic 101 before you continue exposing your ignorance, albeit anonymously.