What is Pittsburgh's reputation? (Penn: apartment, student loan, schools)

[krogerDisco]

Article about how hard it is to Tech companies to lure talent to Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh's reputation stymies tech industry's efforts to lure talent to region | TribLIVE

For one, people can't look past the low cost of living and zero in on the low pay. Pittsburgh likes to think of itself as a tech hub but in the grand scheme of things, Pittsburgh is one of the minor hubs. Not sure what it can do to turn its image around.

[UKyank]

I actually get angry when I read about employers who are cheaping out on salaries ("because it's Pittsburgh"), pointing to the lower cost of living then complaining about not attracting talent.

[metalforever]

I am a young person in the tech field that loved Pittsburgh. I had to leave because there's too much competition for too few jobs in Pittsburgh, so the pay was really deflated. I had no choice but to leave because I couldnt afford my student loan payments while living in a 1 bedroom apartment in lawrenceville (the place was a ****hole). I make over 100% more money to live in an area of NJ, but I don't like the area. I'd move back in a heartbeat if they raised the wages.

[ForYourLungsOnly]

Originally Posted by metalforever

I am a young person in the tech field that loved Pittsburgh. I had to leave because there's too much competition for too few jobs in Pittsburgh, so the pay was really deflated. I had no choice but to leave because I couldnt afford my student loan payments while living in a 1 bedroom apartment in lawrenceville (the place was a ****hole). I make over 100% more money to live in an area of NJ, but I don't like the area. I'd move back in a heartbeat if they raised the wages.

The issue is very similar in healthcare. Tons of schools, tons of new hires, low wages.

[tyovan4]

Originally Posted by ForYourLungsOnly

The issue is very similar in healthcare. Tons of schools, tons of new hires, low wages.

I agree with this fully after having worked at UPMC.

Im convinced the large numbers of universities here depress wages.

[gladhands]

Originally Posted by ForYourLungsOnly

The issue is very similar in healthcare. Tons of schools, tons of new hires, low wages.

Depends on your field. UPMC pays its physicians very well for an academic hospital system. Better than a lot of systems in more expensive cities.

Pittsburgh area teacher salaries are also higher than most of the rest of the country.

[tyovan4]

Originally Posted by gladhands

Depends on your field. UPMC pays its physicians very well for an academic hospital system. Better than a lot of systems in more expensive cities.

And doesn't give them any sort of raise in over five years. And makes it harder and harder to attain productivity bonuses.

[gladhands]

Originally Posted by tyovan4

And doesn't give them any sort of raise in over five years. And makes it harder and harder to attain productivity bonuses.

Increasing RVU budgets is fairly standard practice, but I know you think everything is worse in PGH.

[tyovan4]

Originally Posted by gladhands

Increasing RVU budgets is fairly standard practice, but I know you think everything is worse in PGH.

No, I'm actually fairly well informed about this issue and I've seen it from multiple (and unique) angles. I worked in an admin office at UPMC, worked in two clinics, and was married to someone who completed a fellowship at UPMC and then was stupid enough to sign on as an attending physician there.

My old boss who is a surgeon who left UPMC, and Pittsburgh entirely, because he was offered more money to work further north. He gave UPMC an opportunity to re-evaluate his salary, which had been unchanged for more then five years. His contract was flat compensation, no RVU bonuses. UPMC was not interested in salary adjustment, so he left.

In the clinic where I worked with him, there was 100% turnover of management within a two year period. That included the clinic manager, and two division administrators up the level of the Division Chief. Within a three year period, there was 100% turnover of everyone that worked in the clinic (admin support staff, clinical support staff, and the providers - RN and MD). Someone who was there for three years had the most seniority out of all the staff members on two separate floors of the clinic.

When I worked at another UPMC business unit, we were being audited by the Feds. My department was such a cluster**** due to constant turover and mismanagement that we had to hide PALLETS full of documentation in a disused part of the hospital. The documentation should have been in the patients charts.

During my ex's fellowship, one of the other fellows simply resigned after a few months. They were mislead and weren't interested in suffering through that lack of quality of life. A fellow in a previous year in her program simply had a mental-breakdown and didn't show up to work for a few weeks.

When she became an attending, her division announced that they were thinking of starting a new service at Shadyside in order to get more consults. This new service would require having the attendings go to a 1 in 2 call-schedule (working every other weekend). They were told that if they were unhappy, that absolutely none of them were irreplaceable. And even after UPMC management chose not to renew with Highmark subscribers, thus significantly lowering the pool of potential patients, they increased the RVU requirements making it harder and harder to achieve any sort of bonus.

As a result of shenanigans like these shenanigans, my ex is considering moving away from this God-forsaken city, that so many residents refuse to see any faults in, and taking our son with her.

UPMC will treat your life like they are squeezing water from a rock, they'll get a handful of years out of you, you will absolutely hit your mental breaking point, they will discard you like a piece of toilet paper, and there will be 10 recent grads from Pitt who will kill their own mother to take your place so that they don't have to move back to their podunk hometowns in the economic wastelands of the hinterlands of Western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.


This is not me being a Debbie Downer or an evil suburbanite who is trying to poison the city.... this has been my life, and things I've either personally experienced or personally witnessed happening to people I knew intimately.

[gladhands]

Originally Posted by tyovan4

No, I'm actually fairly well informed about this issue and I've seen it from multiple (and unique) angles. I worked in an admin office at UPMC, worked in two clinics, and was married to someone who completed a fellowship at UPMC and then was stupid enough to sign on as an attending physician there.

My old boss who is a surgeon who left UPMC, and Pittsburgh entirely, because he was offered more money to work further north. He gave UPMC an opportunity to re-evaluate his salary, which had been unchanged for more then five years. His contract was flat compensation, no RVU bonuses. UPMC was not interested in salary adjustment, so he left.

In the clinic where I worked with him, there was 100% turnover of management within a two year period. That included the clinic manager, and two division administrators up the level of the Division Chief. Within a three year period, there was 100% turnover of everyone that worked in the clinic (admin support staff, clinical support staff, and the providers - RN and MD). Someone who was there for three years had the most seniority out of all the staff members on two separate floors of the clinic.

When I worked at another UPMC business unit, we were being audited by the Feds. My department was such a cluster**** due to constant turover and mismanagement that we had to hide PALLETS full of documentation in a disused part of the hospital. The documentation should have been in the patients charts.

During my ex's fellowship, one of the other fellows simply resigned after a few months. They were mislead and weren't interested in suffering through that lack of quality of life. A fellow in a previous year in her program simply had a mental-breakdown and didn't show up to work for a few weeks.

When she became an attending, her division announced that they were thinking of starting a new service at Shadyside in order to get more consults. This new service would require having the attendings go to a 1 in 2 call-schedule (working every other weekend). They were told that if they were unhappy, that absolutely none of them were irreplaceable. And even after UPMC management chose not to renew with Highmark subscribers, thus significantly lowering the pool of potential patients, they increased the RVU requirements making it harder and harder to achieve any sort of bonus.

As a result of shenanigans like these shenanigans, my ex is considering moving away from this God-forsaken city, that so many residents refuse to see any faults in, and taking our son with her.

UPMC will treat your life like they are squeezing water from a rock, they'll get a handful of years out of you, you will absolutely hit your mental breaking point, they will discard you like a piece of toilet paper, and there will be 10 recent grads from Pitt who will kill their own mother to take your place so that they don't have to move back to their podunk hometowns in the economic wastelands of the hinterlands of Western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.


This is not me being a Debbie Downer or an evil suburbanite who is trying to poison the city.... this has been my life, and things I've either personally experienced or personally witnessed happening to people I knew intimately.

Do you have another university hospital with which you can compare UPMC? I'm not saying these things didn't happen,just that they're more universal than you may believe. I will say that UPMC is one of the more aggressively and transparently profit oriented university hospital systems in the country, but their physician compensation is quite competitive