Stupid ideas our companies came up with

[Emeritus]

I think there are a lot of gvmt workers who do not get overtime... and they work 8 to 5 or 9 to 5 (in NY)...

But there are enough that do get overtime... police and fire... there were a lot of NYC police that retired a year after 9-11 because of all the overtime they got that year... if they waited to retire, they lost a lot in their pension... (not specific knowledge... just reading about it in the news)...

And then you can do 'other things'... if you are a teacher... work summer school... go to training that pays you... etc. etc.. not really overtime, but extra work that last year or two to boost the pension...

If you want me to join you in complaining about abuses, no problem.
But please include discussion of severance pay and golden parachutes. and relocation payments etc.

 

[schmidtjas]

Proper system design includes response time. You don't put the nurses or the crash cart 10 minutes from the patients. The mission drives the system design, not the other way around.

Why doesn't the concept of triage apply to IT support? It's cool though if I have to wait 3 hours to see a doctor when it's not life or death, but a doctor should NEVER have to wait 10 minutes to use a printer or whatever...

 

[Bimmerbill]

I can't work OT. Well, I guess I could, if there were $ and I asked for prior permission from a huge pile of managers up the chain.

Our fire department crew has mandatory OT. They do 24 hour shifts or something.

Oh stupid ideas:
TQI
TQM
then Baldridge
now
"Whole Goal" WTH is that?

 

[Texas Proud]

If you want me to join you in complaining about abuses, no problem.
But please include discussion of severance pay and golden parachutes. and relocation payments etc.

I don't think these are exclusive of the private sector...


And I just read the article of Westernskies...

 

[DeborahB]

I can't work OT. Well, I guess I could, if there were $ and I asked for prior permission from a huge pile of managers up the chain.

Our fire department crew has mandatory OT. They do 24 hour shifts or something.

Oh stupid ideas:
TQI
TQM
then Baldridge
now
"Whole Goal" WTH is that?

OMG - we do Baldrige at work.... I had forgotten. We actually won one year. I think they're going for it again this fall - yet another reason to not be there! Taking a company and making it have a whole theoretical mission (and then only following through in theory and not in reality...?) Too much blather. I'm too concrete - get the job done. Shut up about the mission statement and the lofty ways we are empowered...

Love the emoticons so here goes how I feel (in case it wasn't obvious):

'cause I'm gone soon!

 

[REWahoo]

OMG - we do Baldrige at work.... I had forgotten.

Yep, been there, done that, won the award, went as a co. representative to DC to get it, shook hands with the President, got my photo in the 2003 Baldrige Criteria booklet (page 42) - retired in 2005.

 

[IndependentlyPoor]

Dang. I had to go and read this thread and be reminded of Malcomb effing Baldridge, which brought SIX SIGMA to mind and ruined my whole day.

 

[REWahoo]

Dang. I had to go and read this thread and be reminded of Malcomb effing Baldridge...

How can you speak so disrespectfully of a man who died in the saddle...and he wasn't on top.

COMMERCE CHIEF DIES AFTER RODEO ACCIDENT

 

[kcowan]

Great idea, we had loads of turkeys that deserved being thrown out of a helicopter

We had a corporate HQ that overlooked ponds that attracted geese. "You know, the place with the geese outside and the turkeys inside!"

I've mentioned this before, but at MegaMotors they got the great idea that a mandatory 10% must get unsatisfactory ratings and no more than 10% could get top ratings. I don't have to tell you that the sacrificial lambs in the unsatisfactory pile were overwhelmingly over 55 years old. Two unsatisfactory ratings in a row meant termination or demotion and one unsatisfactory rating meant no raises or profit sharing and w*rking to an "improvement" plan.

It was abandoned after one year, but not before it launched a bunch of lawsuits. For a manager that w*rked diligently to maintain a staff of top performers, it forced one to really screw over a couple of people that clearly were not unsatisfactory and also inadequately reward others that would have normally have gotten a top rating, totally killing any loyalty or sense of opportunity. On top of all this it demoralized the whole company and spread an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Other than that it was a great idea.

We had management that wanted every department to have its own bell curve. Since this was statistically insane, we would meet as a group of peer managers and trade data: You have a 4? OK then I can have a 1!

Exactly. We had wave after wave of cutbacks and lay-offs so that we were running with minimal staff but by corporate law we still had to apply the bell curve on appraisals and p-off some really hard working folks.

Yes after several years of downsizing, we started causing good people to leave (not that there was anything wrong with that!).

Arggghhhh...appraisals and A&Ds (acheivement and development).

I had one boss that would make me write my own appraisal and he'd sign off on it. Of course I couldn't get away with all positive remarks about myself, so I had to come up with areas where I needed improvement.

I had to whack my own fanny.

I learned well by putting myself down.

Actually I found doing the appraisal very helpful. It was more accurate than any other one and it had a positive effect on me.

Dang. I had to go and read this thread and be reminded of Malcomb effing Baldridge, which brought SIX SIGMA to mind and ruined my whole day.

I turned over a company to another hired gun CEO and he set about achieving industry certification on quality processes. Fortunately, the company was acquired before he could inflict any real damage.

 

[Meadbh]

Why doesn't the concept of triage apply to IT support? It's cool though if I have to wait 3 hours to see a doctor when it's not life or death, but a doctor should NEVER have to wait 10 minutes to use a printer or whatever...

Our printer has been malfunctioning all afternoon. After attempting to find the paper jam, my assistant threw her hands up, called IT, and went home. I, however, needed to print something important before the weekend. It took me 5 minutes to find the jammed paper, remove it and get the printer working again. I called IT to cancel the repair.

For this I went to medical school.....

 

[REWahoo]

Our printer has been malfunctioning all afternoon. After attempting to find the paper jam, my assistant threw her hands up, called IT, and went home. I, however, needed to print something important before the weekend. It took me 5 minutes to find the jammed paper, remove it and get the printer working again. I called IT to cancel the repair.

For this I went to medical school.....

I'm really surprised they included 'how to clear a paper jam' in the medical school curriculum...

 

[Meadbh]

I'm really surprised they included 'how to clear a paper jam' in the medical school curriculum...

Not specifically, but problem solving was in there somewhere.....

 

[Brat]

I'm really surprised they included 'how to clear a paper jam' in the medical school curriculum...

A paper jam is akin to constipation, right?

 

[DblDoc]

You have my sympathy!

I agree that 10 minutes is a lot of time in the clinical world - but they put the IT staff a 10 minute walk from where the doctor was. Even if they located IT staff closer (using up expensive hospital space) it still would take quite a while to reach some parts of the large hospital. There's really no good solution. This was a hardware problem so someone had to go to the PC.

We have a lot of software that isn't great - but is very expensive. I feel like we do the quality testing of the software, not the vendor.

We have 24/7 support although certainly it's less available at night. They don't pay shift differentials to IT staff - we get called at home if it's urgent and the help desk can't fix it. Shift differentials might make some people willing to actually work a night shift in IT .

We try to have workarounds in place. Actually where I work is very high-tech for a hospital/health system. But they moved the main IT support out to the suburbs to save money leaving only a few on-site people at each location and most of us are not. We can remote in and see the PC issue, though.

I mostly work on the financial programs so don't have too much contact with the clinical side. Which is okay with me, fewer night calls...

Another favorite call (not from a doctor) which has happened many times is the one we get at around 4 PM on a Friday - the caller says "this has been happening all week but I thought I should report it before I leave for the weekend."

I hear you on the beta testing, we have been doing that for Cerner for years. Every time I hear someone talking about how computer order entry will cure part of what ails health care I cringe.

Our IT are also off site and remote in...eerie watching your cursor moving around doing stuff and you're not touching the mouse.

DD

 

[DblDoc]

Our printer has been malfunctioning all afternoon. After attempting to find the paper jam, my assistant threw her hands up, called IT, and went home. I, however, needed to print something important before the weekend. It took me 5 minutes to find the jammed paper, remove it and get the printer working again. I called IT to cancel the repair.

For this I went to medical school.....

...and residency.

No unit coordinator last night. I got to answer the phone all night. I found it doesn't bother me too much if I remind myself that they are paying me close to $200/hr to do it .

DD

 

[DblDoc]

My recent fave was an initiative that was supposed to address employee concerns about how the place is run, culture, etc. They got a bunch of well-meaning dupes from the ranks to work up somewhat vague issues into concrete problems with proposed solutions. Said dupes then presented their findings at a division- wide meeting for comment and as a basis for further work. Right away, VPs stood up and started banging away at anything that was not complete pap. End result was that each of the teams of dupes were required to have a "sponsor" from senior mgmt who could more effectively gut what was supposed to be an employee-driven process. It continues today and every time they publicly present what they are doing it becomes more watered down. But they are "empowering" employees...

We have a similar system based on the Toyota Production System. It is supposed to be driven by the line workers with support by middle management. Instead middle management decides which problems to address and the solution. In the most recent cycle the "team" got chewed out for coming up with the "wrong" solution .

DD

 

[Emeritus]

We have a similar system based on the Toyota Production System. It is supposed to be driven by the line workers with support by middle management. Instead middle management decides which problems to address and the solution. In the most recent cycle the "team" got chewed out for coming up with the "wrong" solution .
DD

I always have fun explaining to people how a research university works.I explained it once to the Board of Regents. I said the University was like a professional sports team. The Regents were the owners, their job was to provide the stadium. The Deans etc were the GM and coaches. Their job was to help us do our job. And the faculty were the players. No one pays to see the coach.

A university is effectively a giant consulting firm. Every college, department, institute, laboratory and even individual faculty members are running a business. Income is money and students and output is degrees and research. Like all faculty members I was in charge of revenue, production , sales, hiring and meeting teaching and research goals for my tiny shop.
To give some examples I never spent a dollar of ordinary university travel money in my entire career. I never had a computer that I did not raise the money to buy. I never had a graduate student that I did not support. I always raised my own summer salary . And my operation was small.
Other faculty ran much bigger operations. we had faculty bringing in and spending 5 million a year. In such an environment the job of the management is to keep the lights on (i.e. look after the shared resources), keep the undergraduates from burning the place down. keep the politicians off our back and raise "start up" funds for new activities. They get a percentage of what we bring in for their services.

"Managing" such a herd of cats is almost impossible. Inspired academic leaders, like good coaches, bring out the best in each faculty member. But every body knows who does the work

 

[kumquat]

My favourite IT comment was when we were unable to print prescriptions one night because of a printer failure and were told that there is no one available to fix hardware at night. We were asked if we really needed to print prescriptions for patients "late at night" .

Every prescription I've had was hand written by my doctor. Could a manual backup system have been improvised?

 

[DblDoc]

I always have fun explaining to people how a research university works.I explained it once to the Board of Regents. I said the University was like a professional sports team. The Regents were the owners, their job was to provide the stadium. The Deans etc were the GM and coaches. Their job was to help us do our job. And the faculty were the players. No one pays to see the coach.

A university is effectively a giant consulting firm. Every college, department, institute, laboratory and even individual faculty members are running a business. Income is money and students and output is degrees and research. Like all faculty members I was in charge of revenue, production , sales, hiring and meeting teaching and research goals for my tiny shop.
To give some examples I never spent a dollar of ordinary university travel money in my entire career. I never had a computer that I did not raise the money to buy. I never had a graduate student that I did not support. I always raised my own summer salary . And my operation was small.
Other faculty ran much bigger operations. we had faculty bringing in and spending 5 million a year. In such an environment the job of the management is to keep the lights on (i.e. look after the shared resources), keep the undergraduates from burning the place down. keep the politicians off our back and raise "start up" funds for new activities. They get a percentage of what we bring in for their services.

"Managing" such a herd of cats is almost impossible. Inspired academic leaders, like good coaches, bring out the best in each faculty member. But every body knows who does the work

Excellent analogy!

I did a PhD and Post-doc before deciding the research career was way too much work and funding was getting very difficult. I was finishing up when they made the big changes to the whole R01 grant system in the 90's. Job security is much better in medicine.

DD

 

[DblDoc]

Every prescription I've had was hand written by my doctor. Could a manual backup system have been improvised?

We do have such a system for when the computer system fails but there wasn't a prescription pad with the rest of the back-up paper system . Fortunately one of my colleague's had a pad stashed in their white coat.

DD

 

[Nords]

At this point, I am so mad I am tempted to take my newfound skills and sell them to the highest bidder who wants an employee that will help them play rope-a-dope with the oxygen-wasting bureaucrats who attempt to enforce regulations in between bouts of drooling.

You've read Michael Lewis' "The Big Short", right? OK, you're ready.

 

[deserat]

Proper system design includes response time. You don't put the nurses or the crash cart 10 minutes from the patients. The mission drives the system design, not the other way around.

You are so correct - couple of good stories - warning: I am a biomedical engineer who also has worked for IT.

Medical devices are becoming more and more able to be networked - HOWEVER - just because they are able to do that, doesn't mean it should be done. Case in point - I would never have a ventilator rely upon the network to work - it needs to be stand-alone as it is a life-critical device when in use.

Another story - I'm sitting in a project meeting with a cath lab manager and a bunch of IT personnel - they are all talking about an upcoming cath lab project. After listening to IT talk for 45 minutes, of which the cath lab manager was able to participate meaningully, he made the comment, "I've learned your language, now you need to learn mine!" I laughed out loud. It is so true.....

It is because decisions are made without an understanding at times of how it might affect the clinical operations that caused the IT management to be replaced or re-organized every 6 months to 1 year or so. I think they had good intentions, but they are very insular.

We were replacing the EMR system in the ICU and the IT guy on the phone wanted to go by the ICU to see my portion of the project. I told him we'd need to get the approval of the head nurse and be very careful to not disrupt the place. I also told him that if an emergency happened, he better be ready to see anything. I then called up the BMET and told him if we could set it up so some blood went flying it would definitely educate this guy. He went and was agog at what went on in there. Mind you, this is someone on a team who is about to disrupt the whole clinical operation due to this EMR project....the ignorance that was allowed by those who managed the project was amazing. I felt like a tape recorder, "Yes, that might be a good idea in an IT company, but it isn't one in a healthcare company," "So you mean avoiding an email storm is more important that having the ultrasound technician be able to move around to different rooms to do ultrasounds and then send that imaging information to the PACS?" Sigh. I still work - actually in this area. Classic, classic issues.

 

[Emeritus]

Excellent analogy!

I did a PhD and Post-doc before deciding the research career was way too much work and funding was getting very difficult. I was finishing up when they made the big changes to the whole R01 grant system in the 90's. Job security is much better in medicine.

DD

My mother told me to learn how to cook and marry a doctor. So I did that and she supported me so I could afford to be a professor. I give all my engineering students the same advice. If they can learn thermodynamics they can learn to cook and there is a hungry doctor out there for everyone of them without regard to race creed color or sexual orientation

 

[ls99]

I always have fun explaining to people how a research university works.I explained it once to the Board of Regents. I said the University was like a professional sports team. The Regents were the owners, their job was to provide the stadium. The Deans etc were the GM and coaches. Their job was to help us do our job. And the faculty were the players. No one pays to see the coach.

A university is effectively a giant consulting firm. Every college, department, institute, laboratory and even individual faculty members are running a business. Income is money and students and output is degrees and research. Like all faculty members I was in charge of revenue, production , sales, hiring and meeting teaching and research goals for my tiny shop.
To give some examples I never spent a dollar of ordinary university travel money in my entire career. I never had a computer that I did not raise the money to buy. I never had a graduate student that I did not support. I always raised my own summer salary . And my operation was small.
Other faculty ran much bigger operations. we had faculty bringing in and spending 5 million a year. In such an environment the job of the management is to keep the lights on (i.e. look after the shared resources), keep the undergraduates from burning the place down. keep the politicians off our back and raise "start up" funds for new activities. They get a percentage of what we bring in for their services.

"Managing" such a herd of cats is almost impossible. Inspired academic leaders, like good coaches, bring out the best in each faculty member. But every body knows who does the work

Great description. When I was a tech at Lamont (of Columbia U.) that is how it worked. Those that brought in the big grants were kings and could hire the best techs. The ones that did not were sent packing.

By the way, Columbia took IIRC 51% of all money brought in for overhead and operating expenses. Salaries buildings infrastructure etc..

AGU (American Geophysical Union) meetings were religiously attended by PIs (principal investigators) - networking for jobs, gossip and funding sources, some time actually was spent listening to presentations of papers.

 

[Meadbh]

Every prescription I've had was hand written by my doctor. Could a manual backup system have been improvised?

Here you go.....