How Low Can You Go?
Hello World,
Happy March Madness! We find ourselves inexorably in that time of year when normally sane people all over the country go berserk over college basketball, and strong men weep at the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I hope that you are not suffering from busted brackets, or Cinderella-itis, or whatever other maladies can befall the unlucky or unwary in these perfidious circumstances. Of course, anyone can tell you that March Madness is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that.
Speaking of March Madness, we're having our own brand of that at work, because we're expecting a visit by the inspectors from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations any time now, and the place has gone totally insane. An alien landing from a far distant solar system would think that this calamity had never befallen us before in the entire realm of our earthly existence, not that this happens regularly every three years like clockwork. Somehow, the idea of the inspectors coming for their triennial survey always seems to take the administrative staff here completely by surprise, and generally ushers in a frenzied rash of deficiency-corrective measures, ranging from safety and patient care, through housekeeping and proper documentation, and all the way to the decorative and purely ornamental. Last time around, they painted the hallways a shocking glacial white and put up bright white lights where they wanted the inspectors to go, while the hallways they were trying to keep them out of were murky caverns of dim lights and lost wandering employees trying to find their way out of the gloom. This time, they decided instead to install rubber matting on the stairwell landings and treads, and between the material and the adhesive they use to install it, the smell is so excruciatingly awful that the stairways are littered with staff on every level who came in from the hallway, only to be overcome by fumes and collapse on the spot. This is what we call The Stairway Motel, where people go in, but they don't come out.
In what may be considered a cruel twist of fate, while crazed people here are waiting for the JCAHO inspectors to arrive, we also had an infestation of the auditors back in Finance, and about as welcome as your average plague of locusts. I found out about it when the Accounting Manager came into my office with an invoice and said that the auditors asked her to pick a few random invoices, and pull the accompanying paperwork (purchase order, purchase requisition and approval form) that went with it, so that they could see that everything was in order and had all the necessary approvals. What a fine idea, I'm thinking, and when it comes to doing things by the book, I'm all for it. But before she even got into my office, I told her that I could see from across the room that the invoice that she happened to pick randomly was not a good candidate for this test, owing to a variety of factors, and most likely would not have the proper credentials to go along with it. She fled in haste, calling “nuff said!” over her shoulder, and went back to Accounting to try her luck with a better random invoice. Unfortunately, the two that she came back with turned out to be no better, and once again, she turned to go back down the hall for another try. I could see where this kind of thing could go on all day, with me in the files and her walking back and forth down the hall ad infinitum. Now, this is where all of us good Christians should be prepared to take the high road, and especially during Lent, but I admit that instead, I conceived a somewhat devious idea that had a better chance for success and would certainly save a lot of time. I said that the solution would be to pull a few completed purchase orders that already had all of their proper documentation and approvals, and give her those, and she could go back to her office and then pull the invoices that went with them and give them to the auditors, already knowing that they were beyond reproach. Of course, this was exactly the opposite of what the auditors requested, and about as far removed from “random” as it would be possible to be, but sometimes you've just got to go with any port in a storm, and let the chips fall where they may. And we may have been the only two on that low road (although I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of Dick Cheney skulking along the other side) but, by golly, we were sure making good time.
This seemed to be a time for fun with numbers at work, because earlier in the week I took a call from our new sales representative at Becton-Dickinson, who asked me to write down her name and number to have one of the buyers call her back. Everyone knows I'm nothing if not helpful, although not everyone might have agreed with that later, when I noticed that what I had written down for her phone number said: 888-237-276. Well, I guess you could say that it stops just short of being helpful there. On the other side of the coin, and taking their numbers just a little bit too far, I noticed a purchase order that had been printed for our friends in Medical Records who wanted printer cartridges, and owing to a bit of over-enthusiasm on the part of whoever typed it, it appeared that each cartridge was $16,900.00, and the total order for six of them was $140,000.00 which would be outlandish even by our standards. Of course, heaven knows, there's no standards any more, and don't forget I'm on the low road, so I ought to know.
Of course, setting the pace for having no standards any more, there's always St. Patrick's Day to kick around, although this year the parade seems to have gone off without the usual controversy and media sensationalism that is ordinarily as much a part of the event as green beer. Perhaps now that the saint's festival day has apparently become a movable feast, no one knows when they're supposed to protest nowadays, much less have their parades and other celebrations. Following along with this time-traveling tradition, here is a little tidbit from last week that we get courtesy of Bill, with thanks --
===========================
I heard a news item on CBS last night when I was making dinner and had to laugh. It was one of your favorite "St. Patrick's DAY" things that happened on Thursday the 15th. It was so blatant and so highly placed (in fact, a "high White Horse souse," as Harry von Zell once blooped) that I had to go online and verify that this was the Official Position before even mentioning it to you. If you go to www.whitehouse.gov (NOT whitehouse.com, which we all know is a porn site) you will see a nice picture with the caption: "President George W. Bush joins Ireland's Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, center, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, left, Thursday, March 15, 2007, during the annual St. Patrick's Day luncheon at the U.S. Capitol."
===========================
I realize that they have a lot of scheduling issues to take into account when they arrange events like this one at the White House, but I can't help but feel that once you start playing fast and loose with the facts, you're on that slippery slope to the low road, along with me and the Accounting Manager, and no good can come of it, believe you me.
I may be the only person in the world who finds this funny, but I was behind a white van yesterday coming home from work, and stopped in traffic to the extent that my mind wandered and I found myself just staring blankly at the back of the van and wondering what company it represented, because its lettering was hard to read. Fortunately, the traffic light was long, and I was able to creep up closer to it, and was finally able to make out the problem with the words. It started out plain as day, in crisp black letters that said "Touch Of" and after that, it trailed off into a faint, messy splotch that appeared indecipherable. This seemed to me to fail the first test of truck lettering, which is to make sure people can understand what business your truck belongs to, and act as a mobile advertisement for your company wherever it goes. For that purpose, this truck managed to fail both tests at the same time, because the company name turned out to be "Touch of Color" and the last word had each letter painted in a different color (get it?) and over the course of time, all of the colors had faded so that you couldn't read them any more, only the Touch Of in black. Here's where I'm thinking, you may as well just take that truck right off the road, because it's certainly not doing you any good as an advertisement, and in fact, it's more likely serving as a significant sales deterrent if anything. At least, that's how it looks from out here on the low road, and if you happen to see me along the way, please pretend that you don't know me.
Happy March Madness! We find ourselves inexorably in that time of year when normally sane people all over the country go berserk over college basketball, and strong men weep at the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I hope that you are not suffering from busted brackets, or Cinderella-itis, or whatever other maladies can befall the unlucky or unwary in these perfidious circumstances. Of course, anyone can tell you that March Madness is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that.
Speaking of March Madness, we're having our own brand of that at work, because we're expecting a visit by the inspectors from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations any time now, and the place has gone totally insane. An alien landing from a far distant solar system would think that this calamity had never befallen us before in the entire realm of our earthly existence, not that this happens regularly every three years like clockwork. Somehow, the idea of the inspectors coming for their triennial survey always seems to take the administrative staff here completely by surprise, and generally ushers in a frenzied rash of deficiency-corrective measures, ranging from safety and patient care, through housekeeping and proper documentation, and all the way to the decorative and purely ornamental. Last time around, they painted the hallways a shocking glacial white and put up bright white lights where they wanted the inspectors to go, while the hallways they were trying to keep them out of were murky caverns of dim lights and lost wandering employees trying to find their way out of the gloom. This time, they decided instead to install rubber matting on the stairwell landings and treads, and between the material and the adhesive they use to install it, the smell is so excruciatingly awful that the stairways are littered with staff on every level who came in from the hallway, only to be overcome by fumes and collapse on the spot. This is what we call The Stairway Motel, where people go in, but they don't come out.
In what may be considered a cruel twist of fate, while crazed people here are waiting for the JCAHO inspectors to arrive, we also had an infestation of the auditors back in Finance, and about as welcome as your average plague of locusts. I found out about it when the Accounting Manager came into my office with an invoice and said that the auditors asked her to pick a few random invoices, and pull the accompanying paperwork (purchase order, purchase requisition and approval form) that went with it, so that they could see that everything was in order and had all the necessary approvals. What a fine idea, I'm thinking, and when it comes to doing things by the book, I'm all for it. But before she even got into my office, I told her that I could see from across the room that the invoice that she happened to pick randomly was not a good candidate for this test, owing to a variety of factors, and most likely would not have the proper credentials to go along with it. She fled in haste, calling “nuff said!” over her shoulder, and went back to Accounting to try her luck with a better random invoice. Unfortunately, the two that she came back with turned out to be no better, and once again, she turned to go back down the hall for another try. I could see where this kind of thing could go on all day, with me in the files and her walking back and forth down the hall ad infinitum. Now, this is where all of us good Christians should be prepared to take the high road, and especially during Lent, but I admit that instead, I conceived a somewhat devious idea that had a better chance for success and would certainly save a lot of time. I said that the solution would be to pull a few completed purchase orders that already had all of their proper documentation and approvals, and give her those, and she could go back to her office and then pull the invoices that went with them and give them to the auditors, already knowing that they were beyond reproach. Of course, this was exactly the opposite of what the auditors requested, and about as far removed from “random” as it would be possible to be, but sometimes you've just got to go with any port in a storm, and let the chips fall where they may. And we may have been the only two on that low road (although I could have sworn I caught a glimpse of Dick Cheney skulking along the other side) but, by golly, we were sure making good time.
This seemed to be a time for fun with numbers at work, because earlier in the week I took a call from our new sales representative at Becton-Dickinson, who asked me to write down her name and number to have one of the buyers call her back. Everyone knows I'm nothing if not helpful, although not everyone might have agreed with that later, when I noticed that what I had written down for her phone number said: 888-237-276. Well, I guess you could say that it stops just short of being helpful there. On the other side of the coin, and taking their numbers just a little bit too far, I noticed a purchase order that had been printed for our friends in Medical Records who wanted printer cartridges, and owing to a bit of over-enthusiasm on the part of whoever typed it, it appeared that each cartridge was $16,900.00, and the total order for six of them was $140,000.00 which would be outlandish even by our standards. Of course, heaven knows, there's no standards any more, and don't forget I'm on the low road, so I ought to know.
Of course, setting the pace for having no standards any more, there's always St. Patrick's Day to kick around, although this year the parade seems to have gone off without the usual controversy and media sensationalism that is ordinarily as much a part of the event as green beer. Perhaps now that the saint's festival day has apparently become a movable feast, no one knows when they're supposed to protest nowadays, much less have their parades and other celebrations. Following along with this time-traveling tradition, here is a little tidbit from last week that we get courtesy of Bill, with thanks --
===========================
I heard a news item on CBS last night when I was making dinner and had to laugh. It was one of your favorite "St. Patrick's DAY" things that happened on Thursday the 15th. It was so blatant and so highly placed (in fact, a "high White Horse souse," as Harry von Zell once blooped) that I had to go online and verify that this was the Official Position before even mentioning it to you. If you go to www.whitehouse.gov (NOT whitehouse.com, which we all know is a porn site) you will see a nice picture with the caption: "President George W. Bush joins Ireland's Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, center, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, left, Thursday, March 15, 2007, during the annual St. Patrick's Day luncheon at the U.S. Capitol."
===========================
I realize that they have a lot of scheduling issues to take into account when they arrange events like this one at the White House, but I can't help but feel that once you start playing fast and loose with the facts, you're on that slippery slope to the low road, along with me and the Accounting Manager, and no good can come of it, believe you me.
I may be the only person in the world who finds this funny, but I was behind a white van yesterday coming home from work, and stopped in traffic to the extent that my mind wandered and I found myself just staring blankly at the back of the van and wondering what company it represented, because its lettering was hard to read. Fortunately, the traffic light was long, and I was able to creep up closer to it, and was finally able to make out the problem with the words. It started out plain as day, in crisp black letters that said "Touch Of" and after that, it trailed off into a faint, messy splotch that appeared indecipherable. This seemed to me to fail the first test of truck lettering, which is to make sure people can understand what business your truck belongs to, and act as a mobile advertisement for your company wherever it goes. For that purpose, this truck managed to fail both tests at the same time, because the company name turned out to be "Touch of Color" and the last word had each letter painted in a different color (get it?) and over the course of time, all of the colors had faded so that you couldn't read them any more, only the Touch Of in black. Here's where I'm thinking, you may as well just take that truck right off the road, because it's certainly not doing you any good as an advertisement, and in fact, it's more likely serving as a significant sales deterrent if anything. At least, that's how it looks from out here on the low road, and if you happen to see me along the way, please pretend that you don't know me.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 7:52 PM
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