You Know You Are Old When

[goeduck]

Hired as Director of Engineering and over the course or mergers and acquisitions my roles have expanded and contracted…

At one time I branched into patient care when we had the first Femtosecond laser for Cataract on the West Coast and I was the first certified.

During the pandemic Security was added under Facilities which included screening to enter.

Starting at 4 am made me highest from management onsite during the very early morning hours and able to address transient population caused issues affecting operations.

From 5:30 am to 7 am I’m at the front desk and actually enjoy it and as long as I have network access it works for me.

At 5 am I do external security sweep and take report from after hours contract security… mostly clearing doorways of people camping and their belongings and tagging problem vehicles.

4 am it’s the steam boilers, vacuum pumps, medical gas, etc…

Upgrading HVAC is the project that has taken a life of its own.

Much of contract administration and purchasing now goes through corp headquarters post last merger.

I’ve had some nice wins outside engineering such as appealing a county tax assessment saving the hospital over 50k annually, slashed our medical gas expenditures by 50% and cut uniform and linen expense by 55% simply through management…

You are a good man for doing all of that. Just think of the knowledge you have from doing all of that.

 

[goeduck]

But covering too many Rears is how you end up buried…

Back in my college days a lot of emphasis was on Thinking Outside the Box and Empowering employees to solve problems.

It seems that much of corporate is about being politically correct and cya…

My strong suit is performance as in getting it done…

Not once has a surgery ever been cancelled on my watch due to a problem with the facility.

During the merger all accounts payable was transferred to corp but corp dropped the ball on ATT Voice and Internet and Waste Management.

In other words these vendors not paid and past due notices sent to corp so clueless here.

Everyone coming to me so I dig deep and find the Hospital is 17k in arrears with ATT and service suspended…

No one in corp could help… it had to go through channels…

Hell with that, I put it on my own personal credit card because the emergency Admin Corp Card has a 10k transaction limit and was declined…

Waste Management similar but was not affecting internal operations as no ATT…

When I was in corporate, I always acted outside of the box as if it was my own company. I insisted that I have my own P&L, office and staff. I got push back from time to time and when I did, I pushed back on them... they always backed off when push came to shove. The big boys and gals would look at my P&L and call off their dogs.

 

[ultrarunner]

When I was in corporate, I always acted outside of the box as if it was my own company. I insisted that I have my own P&L, office and staff. I got push back from time to time and when I did, I pushed back on them... they always backed off when push came to shove. The big boys and gals would look at my P&L and call off their dogs.

I've learned you can do anything once... just be clear and concise.

Part of it comes from being a big fish in the fish bowl transitioning to a minnow in the ocean... but still knowing what needs to be done.

Last count organization is 65,000 employees...

Just saw a memo enterprise wide about vendor change for hospital linen and my facility isn't on the list...

Wouldn't be the first time Corp forgot about us... which isn't always a bad thing!

Administrator asked if I had time for lunch yesterday... we went over a lot of the changes coming and she asked if I would commit to one more year...

 

[airbiscuit]

Well, you are the smartest man in the room ...

 

[ultrarunner]

Well, you are the smartest man in the room ...

No... far from it but when Corp decided to outsource everything it left me as the last one standing.

When things come up I can enlighten why something was done a certain way... does not mean it was the best way but knowing why can be valuable.

Outsourcing is a sure way to loose institutional knowledge which I think is often overlooked and undervalued.

A few engineer friends from PGE and ATT took the offered early retirements too good to pass up...

Several lured back as consultants because when the knowledge left with early retirement companies were left hurting...

Having Institutional knowledge means you know you are old.

 

[ultrarunner]

Medical is the last place I would have ever thought I would find myself but a hospital has a lot of things required to be done...

 

[MoKelly]

Medical is the last place I would have ever thought I would find myself but a hospital has a lot of things required to be done...

Plus - it’s a growth industry.

 

[MossRoad]

Plus - it’s a growth industry.

Growth, skin tag, mole, wart...

 

[California]

Several lured back as consultants because when the knowledge left with early retirement companies were left hurting...

I think the same thing is happening at Tesla presently. I read that Musk simply closed the Supercharger (EV charger) division, laid everyone off.

But this ended the banking of the revenue earned at the chargers, for lack of an accounting staff. And halted payment to contractors presently building or installing new facilities, or doing ordinary maintenance, because there were no internal project managers to approve their invoices.

Then the external companies that were planning to market their cars compatible with the Supercharger network - GM, Ford, etc, found they had no contacts inside Tesla to issue Tesla charger credit cards for their own customers so that whole plan evaporated. More revenue loss to Tesla.

Last I read, some of the former employees were hired back.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

I'll be 72 this year. Curious what others experience about this: I can do a lot of things, but I spend most of my time looking for glasses, a part, tools. Then taking something apart no problem...but putting it back together is tough, trying to remember the order. Then I need something, walk into another part of garage wondering what it was. Hopefully that's not the first sign of dementia!