Continuing to be miffed about modern business culture, and, as a sufferer of Ayn Rand poisoning, wishing there was an Atlantis so I could go Galt; I fumed today about procedures. Stimulus-economy employers do not want intelligence. They want people that can follow procedures. The more willing people are to be micromanaged, the better. If one wants a paycheck, one must forget their experience and forget the days when ingenuity was demanded and put to good use. One must play the dufus and follow pages and pages of instructions.
And then, in the newspaper, we hear of some lives being in danger due to contamination of hospital equipment. Ten patients have now been recalled for potential exposure to blood-borne pathogens. Now, I must admit, I do not know how secret the third port of the endoscopy instrument was, to escape the awareness of the cleaning technician. To err is human. I’m not batting 1000, and I never have. However, I know that when I am made to focus on gobs and gobs of nonsense, I have to shut down that part of my brain that questions and analyzes, or I shall be a pesky disturbance and soon blow a fuse.
I am reminded of what a friend said of ISO certification: You can mess up whatever you want, as long as you can document it. Procedurized corrective action gets on my nerves just as much as continual improvement in mission/vision statements. The following quotes lifted from the local daily’s article about the contaminated medical equipment get under the fingernails like splinters:
“There’s a special chamber in (the scope) that the technician was not aware of in terms of the cleaning process,” [Mission President Jill] Hoggard Green said Friday. “As soon as that [Huh?] occurred, the technician was re-trained and demonstrated compliance with the regulations. And all of the rest of the team that does the work validated that they understood and were following the correct procedures.”
Hoggard Green said the person involved learned from their mistake and will become an emissary for safety and quality.
That said, I think the hospital contained the damage ASAP and made the best of the bad situation.
