Letter From The President From The Editors Desk: Fill & Download for Free

Other respondants have pointed out that some British fear America’s dysfunctional healthcare system. They are right to fear it.When I lived in New Orleans, I had friends visit from Ireland. They bought British travel health insurance before they came over.Siobhan had had hemorrhoids for years, but they weren’t serious enough to require surgery. After 8 hours in a pressurized cabin, they were. She was in agony when they arrived.I called my HMO for a recommendation of a doctor for her to see. I was given the name of an eminent doctor across the street from Truro Infirmary, a good private hospital. The doctor saw her the same morning and sent us across the street to Truro Infirmary, telling us to get her booked in and that he would operate at 2 pm.We went across the street to Truro Infirmary to book her in. We waited in the lobby. An hour later, we were still waiting.. I went to the desk and asked what the holdup was. The receptionist said the manager had said they would not accept her travel health insurance., though no one had bothered to tell us.I asked to see the manager. He said they would not accept her travel health insurance because “we’ve had this insuarance before. There’s too much paperwork, and they take too long to pay.”I asked if they would take my American Express, which they did. I knew my friends would pay me back, though I worried that they would not be able to do so before the end of the billing cycle; there was no way I could pay that large a bill.The next day, I decided to call the Better Business Bureau to see if there was anything that could be done. I was told there was nothing to be done; the hospital was a private hospital, and they could do as they pleased.However, when I looked up the Better Business Bureau, I had discovered that the Better Business Bureau was the same office as the New Orleans Tourist Board. I told the woman there that I could understand that there was nothing she could do but that I intended to write letters to the editors of the Irish Times and the Times of London advising people not to visit New Orleans unless they could be sure they would not fall ill or have an accident.The woman’s voice went up about 3 octaves; “you wouldn’t blackball the whole city, would you?” she asked? I said, “Of course; if it isn’t safe to come to New Orleans, people should know that.”The next day I got a telephone call from the vice-president of Truro Infirmary. “Of course, we’ll take her travel health insurance,” he said, “and we’ve already credited the charge for her room back to your American Express card”.It ended well, but it wouldn’t have if the Better Business Bureau were not the same office as the Tourist Board.MORAL: Don’t visit the US, even with travel health insurance, unless you can be sure you won’t fall ill or get hurt—or unless you have scads of money to throw away.

This took place in the 1980s. There are the usual scandalous things, like affairs at the office but the most scandalous thing I experienced over the course of about 18 months was when I was working in telecom/datacom in the 80s. The company was making about 100 million dollars revenue and had hired an HR director whom everyone believed was gay. No one cared that he was gay — he was a relatively pleasant fellow who just happened to be effeminate. At that time I was running a technical support organization and we had to hire a new technician and so I needed to work with the HR director. The role was rather technical and required someone with experience with telecommunications, data communications or networking. I went to HR and we put out a req, called the recruiters, put ads in the paper and so forth. I got a number of resumes and selected three worthy candidates. One was an ex-Army data communications specialist; one was a technician defecting from a competitor and one was a recent college graduate with training in networking. Not long after, the HR director gave me a schedule with four people to interview, which perplexed me since I had selected only three.When the time came to interview, all three I had selected proved to be good candidates. Then the fourth candidate came in. He was a pretty boy with over-styled hair and expensive clothing. I had only gotten his resume that day. His experience was as a haberdasher, most recently working selling men’s clothing at Macy’s. I couldn’t understand why he was there. He didn’t even have a college degree. I went through the motions of interviewing him. He knew absolutely nothing about high tech, telecom, datacom, networking or anything else even remotely connected with the job. I rejected him before he even left the building. I selected the ex-Army technician who not only had the skill, but the military bearing and good can-do attitude that goes with being a soldier. My boss signed off on the request and we told the HR director to make the offer. He agreed. The letter went out.On the day he was to begin, the haberdasher arrived, all spiffed out with a new briefcase. He was the one who had been offered the job, not the technician. I was stunned. While he went through orientation with the HR director I ran to my boss and told him the story. He, too, was stunned. He went to the VP of Engineering who ran our department from the top and he said he would investigate it. When he came back later that day he looked us in the eye and said, “Just train him. He’s the new technician.” Apparently the HR director was very good friends with the President. There was nothing we could do.I set up a training for him and dumbed it down as much as possible. He looked completely shell-shocked. He was completely incapable of answering a single question when customers called and ran to my office every single time. When customers came in for training, I inserted him into the classes. He slept through every single one. His way of dealing with customers was to classify every product he came across as “broken” and just gave them an RMA to send it in. Soon I was getting complaints from shipping and repair as a result of the increased volume of work. Every product he sent in was “NFF”, or No Fault Found. But it wasn’t he who got the blame - it was I. Everyone in the group despised him. We had considered a new hire because our call volume was skyrocketing but with him on board everyone’s work load went up higher because they had to deal with his constant stammering and questions. Customer complaints rose. I appealed to my boss but he shrugged and spread his hands. “There’s nothing we can do,” he said, “Make the best of it, we can’t afford a new technician this year.”The new guy came in late and left early. Any complaints to HR about his performance were ignored. He became belligerent because he knew now that he was untouchable. His boyfriend in HR apparently would go to any lengths to protect him. I would love to say that he got his comeuppance somehow but when things were at their worst I got a promotion to Product Manager and left the department. I felt badly about that but it was a huge career move for me. The new manager would just have to deal with the problem.Once in Marketing I was making a good name and career for myself and never thought much about my old role in Tech Support or the loser we were forced to hire. One day we needed to hire a new marketing manager, someone who could write technical copy, deal with magazine editors, manage a circulating library of technical documentation and so on. We cast about in the industry and hired a woman from one of our competitors. She was awesome from the first — friendly, willing to learn, excited and dedicated. Within six months she was part of the team and we were happy to have her.Then there was a major sales meeting in New Seabury and most of management and the sales staff were absent at the meeting for a week. One day I came in and the new marketing manager was crying and cleaning out her desk. I asked her what was wrong but she ignored me and soon left. I went to her boss, who was a senior marketing manager and a very good friend of mine. “What the hell happened?,” I asked her. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, “In fact, I’m not allowed to talk about it.” She was absolutely beside herself with anger. Rumors buzzed, people went from office to office asking why she was gone. Then, the very next day, the haberdasher showed up at her old office with a smile on his face and started unloading his briefcase. The truth came out little by little. While management was away, the HR director had gone through the new marketing manager’s resume piece by piece until he found a direct lie — and then he fired her. In her place he promoted his boyfriend who had reached the pinnacle of failure in Tech Support and wanted out.Everyone was livid. No one would talk to the haberdasher and he felt wounded and hurt. He couldn’t understand why he was being blackballed — he didn’t fire the girl. When management returned the next week our managers went en masse to the President. He was appalled that his friendship with the HR director had been so abused. The HR director was called to a closed-door meeting. We learned later that he had been forced to call the girl he had fired and apologize and offer her her job back. They wouldn’t fire the boyfriend, but they would “create” a role and fund a job just for her. She refused. The President called her and apologized and asked her to come back. She refused. That was the end of that. The haberdasher remained despised and roundly insulted and criticized — but not to his face. His boyfriend in HR could make life miserable for anyone, through payroll “mistakes” and other nuisance retribution.We were all relieved when he finally went to Inside Sales. We never had to deal with him again. He was Sales’ problem now. He was just as useless there as everywhere else, expensive dead weight, someone who never bothered to learn the products or the solutions and didn’t care — he was untouchable. For me, it was the most scandalous thing I’ve ever encountered. There was never any punishment or accountability assigned to the HR director and regardless of how bad the haberdasher was, he also was never held accountable. I learned a valuable lesson that day, one I have never forgotten. Although I was a world-wide expert in telecommunications by that time, my skill couldn’t compete with the most important factor determining success - it’s not what you know, but who you know, that counts.

Let’s say Trump defies the 2nd Amendment and confiscates all guns. Are you saying James Hodgkinson, a main stream Democrat who is two cans short of a six pack, is going to give up his rifle? Interesting. I don’t see it. This wacko was still going to keep his gun.If Hodgkinson, a Sanders supporter, had any broadcasting skills he could have subbed for Rachel Maddow. His Democratic friends saw him as opinionated—given to political rants, but just a regular guy. He had a temper and numerous run ins with the law, but nothing that ever resulted in an arrest. He finally snapped, drove from Illinois to Virginia, camped out in his van, and stalked the Republican Congressmen.This incident isn’t about gun violence. It is about incitement from the left.In New York City the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park is playing “Julius Caesar.” The Trumpish-Caesar is brutally murdered nightly by Brutus to the howling approval of the audience.It is, so-called comedian, Kathy Griffin displaying the bloody, severed head of the president expecting a big laugh.It is a Democratic pundit screaming “F” bombs at the top of his voice.It is Progressives organizing a “Summer of Resistance” to thwart the efforts of a duly elected president to move his agenda forward in Congress.It is marchers in the street, who visited the Obama White House, chanting, “Pigs in a blanket. Fry ’em like bacon.”It is Democratic hate and fear mongering. For example Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) gave an impassioned speech on MSNBC public denouncing a “cruel” and “craven” Republican health care bill. “This will cost American lives if it ever becomes law. This will mean death, pain, and suffering to people’s families.”The Huffington Post published an article Saturday calling for the execution of Trump. Given Wednesday’s events they have spiked the piece.Following the shooting a member of the House received an email that read, “One down, 216 to go,” This is 1860 Civil War stuff.If you discount my “incitement” argument, you have a short memory. Six years ago Representative Gabrielle Giffords, was shot and wounded in a Tucson shopping plaza. The shooter was another nutcase. However politics had nothing to do with his motivation for committing the crime. He had a personal vendetta against Giffords.What reaction did we get from the left? Predictably, “Gun violence! Gun violence!” This was quickly followed by accusations that a Republican had targeted Giffords with a political ad and incited the attack.Republicans place a political ad? The Democrats display a severed head? Hmm.PSI have a newspaper article on my desk that describes the decline in critical thinking skills in college graduates. In my letter to the editor I’m going to use your post as an example.