Healthcare. I work desktop support in healthcare.

I've talked to other people who work desktop in this industry, and it seems to be the same all over the place. Most of the managers of IT are clinical people rather than IT people. They regard IT as an unnecessary evil, and would rather it be gone completely. The organization is setup so that no one can tell anyone no, least of all us. They don't care about job descriptions; here Desktop Support is a catchall, but they tell us that we're being paid the industry standard for Desktop, so we should be happy.

So, when someone puts in a helpdesk ticket asking me to write them an access database, or fix one that they broke I have to do it. When someone puts in a helpdesk ticket ordering 100 computers, I have to do that. When someone wants an app written, I have to do that. When someone picks out some damned vendor package against our objections, I have to install it on the desktops, install it on the servers, and maintain both.

Yes, it is in a flyover state, but my pay is still low for the area if they would pay me based on what I do rather than my job description.

Funny, but my company did just mandate blaze orange shirts for all front line IT staff. I can't for the life of me figure out who thought that was a good idea. Mine comes in Monday. We can also wear Navy. I think I'm going to get an equal number of pairs of blaze orange and navy pants and alternate them daily. Personally, I find it extremely condescending. I'm required to design and maintain hundreds of databases, several servers, write apps, troubleshoot network problems, manage million dollar projects, AND do desktop support for 2000 devices with 3 other IT people for $40K/year. And now this. No wonder I've thrown my hands up today and am now posting on slashdot. Yes, I'm looking for a way out.

ha ha, very punny.

It actually points both ways at Gold Base, where the plaintiff was allegedly held.

You can see the fence in this picture

Yes, in the context it was written and referred to by LRH, it's very easily written off as a joke. The problem is that in courtroom testimony, former COS members have, on a few occasions, admitted that COS management had at least *suggested* that they R2-45 someone, in contexts that could be construed as being serious.

Hubbard himself gave the order on 6 March 1968, referring to *specific people* in an HCO Ethics order that was seized during an FBI raid. Referring to these once valued Scientologists, LRH said, and I quote, "They are declared Enemies of mankind, the planet and all life." ... " They are fair game." ... and "Any Sea Org member contacting any of them is to use Auditing Process R2-45."

Would you consider that a joke? If so, it's a pretty bad one.

Because it's a common tactic used by Scientologists in all negatively-slanted Scientology stories.

Look around for COS stories on the internet, and read the comments. You'll find some derivation of that exact comment over and over in every single one of them.

modded funny, but R2-45 is actually documented Scientology scripture, explained in exactly the same way as the parent post. It's funny because it's 100% true.

fuck you, you product of a failed abortion! What, were you born with a coathanger sticking out of your head? Did your mom have any kids that lived other than the ones I stuck her with?

fucking waste of skin asshole. Die in a fire, you douchebag ignoramus right-wing pinko liberal nazi bag of puke-ridden shit.

Now THAT's a proper flame! COME GET ME, VERIZON!

furthermore, to clarify: there was nothing special about the medical camera that made it necessary. It was just a camera, made by a MAJOR electronics vendor, and rebadged by a major medical company, but requiring proprietary connectors and proprietary software to work. He had to have THAT ONE because it was part of the package he saw, even though it was 10x more expensive, and not as good as what we could have bought him from, say... Wal Mart.

Yes, but the article doesn't take into account that your average doctor knows SHIT about IT, and is often asking for the IT equivalent of us grafting a third leg onto a patient's forehead.

Perfect (true-life) example from my job: A doctor saw a package product at a trade show for $100K. He came back to us and wanted us to recreate it for $10K. We told him it wasn't possible. He went to our Account Executive, who told us that we would be doing it, and for $10K.

The crux of this project was a specialized medical camera that cost $10K, and would not work with our PC hardware. We suggested that he buy an off-the-shelf DSLR, which he refused. Again, went to the Account Executive, who okayed it. Great, now we're over budget, and we have a $10K device that doesn't work.

So, we go to the camera hardware manufacturer, who now has us by the short hairs, and they tell us that they can write us a driver for $30K. Which is again okayed. The project is now 30K over budget, we still haven't bought the hardware for it, and they have us doing the project off the clock because they haven't budgeted for any labor costs.

Two years later, it still doesn't work right. The doctor loudly proclaims to anyone who will listen about how the IT department doesn't care about his needs, and articles like this get written.

Ho. Lee. Crap.

I do IT for a major regional hospital chain, and all this time, I thought it was just my company that was this fucked up.

What you're talking about is EXACTLY what happens. Doctors, managers, vendors, whoever CONSTANTLY show up with junk hardware and software, throw it at us, and expect us to support it. The organization is so bloated around the middle that no one has the authority to tell anyone else no. We have hundreds of Access databases, SQL servers running on people's desktops, and apps that we've never heard of turning up constantly.

And it all happens so fast, and we're SO understaffed (4 IT staff for 2000+ devices in my hospital) that we don't have a prayer of keeping track of it all.

And the understaffing is a problem in and of itself. The organization as a whole has around 30K total employees, of which 700 are IT staff. Probably 10% of the IT staff does next to nothing. Another 30% does nothing beneficial to patient care, or actively makes patient care harder. 20% are redundant management. For example: my particular part of the company, staffed by 4 IT grunts such as myself, has 4 managers directly over me: 1 team lead, 2 Project Managers, and an Account Executive. All of whom often want conflicting things done at the same time. Finally, the last 50% of IT here is made up of everybody else working their asses off to make up for the rest of the crap.

No wonder heatlh care costs are sky-high. IT is indicative of the whole mess... the company is a gigantic mish-mash of hacks thrown together at the last minute to satisfy the newest bureaucratic requirement, public opinion, expensive doctor, negative news story, malpractice suit, or demands from the board or rich donors. There's no way anything like this could run efficiently.

For real? I've heard people complain that new albums only have a few good songs, and thought it was bunk... if that's the case, you're not listening to the right bands to begin with. Now old albums only have a few good songs?

What about Zoso? Dark Side of the Moon? Tommy? Van Halen I? Bookends? Electric Ladyland? Brothers in Arms? 2112? I could go into modern examples too, starting with everything Dredg has ever made, and finishing with everything Muse has ever made

There are thousands of albums that are great, start to finish. What's killing the music industry is not piracy, it's the fact that people no longer have the attention span to sit through a great album, and aren't willing to pay album prices for the singles that the radio has drilled into their heads.

That's nothin.' I recently replaced some 5-drawer IBM Infoprint 1352 printers (same as Lexmark's T6xx series) that had 1.2 million+ pages. Also pulled multiple HP 4050 and 4100s and a LJ 8150 with over a million in the past few years... and they still work. We use them as loaners now when the junk Xeroxes break. Most I've ever seen though, was a Xerox Docuprint N4525 with 1.75 million on it when retired. I have no idea how it lasted so long, as the rest of those we had died at around 500K.

But really, no one should throw stones, right? As a kid, I was always taught that it's not nice to throw stones at people. Unless of course, you were trapped in a glass house and needed to get out. If you have a pile of stones next to you, go ahead and throw them. Then you won't be trapped anymore! So really, people in glass houses are the only ones who should throw stones. Right?

Didn't the UK define terrorist to mean 'American radio presenter that we don't like?'