Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Back to School

It's a new semester, and I still don't have a job yet (besides the shoe store). I spent most of the day applying for jobs again, and the last one (a hospital) had an online application process that seemed like it would never end.

I hadn't applied there before, so I had to fill out a profile, then upload my resume, which it tried to import into all the appropriate application form boxes. Unfortunately, it messed up some of my job experience, so I had to straighten that out and look up street addresses (which are meaningless for the businesses that don't exist anymore). After I entered my business references, it felt like I was on the home stretch.

The next page was the demographic questions. I rushed through this, because it was time to leave for the first night of my Medical Billing class. I clicked "Decline to state" for Sex, Race, and Military, then I "signed" my name. Only to learn that there was a survey to fill out, which was required, or your application wouldn't count.

The survey was 6 pages long, with questions that you had to Strongly Agree, Agree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree with. Questions like, "I'm hard to get along with," and "I'm easy to get along with." When I finally finished it, they followed it with another attempt at getting me to tell them I'm a white girl who hasn't been in the military and hasn't been in jail. Then they made me promise to let them do a background check and credit check on me. And somewhere along the way, I realized I was applying for a job at the hospital that's farther away from me than I wanted to go (I thought it was at the closer one--the names are similar). But I'd come too far to just cancel at that point.

The application process finally let me go at 5:55pm. So I was 20 minutes late for my 6:00 class.

My class is free (paid for by the State of California, which is now about bankrupt, so there's no telling how long these classes will continue to be available), but the textbook costs $115. Swell!

Since nobody had the textbook yet, we had an assignment to work on in class, and then or instructor showed us the first part of Michael Moore's movie Sicko. She introduced the movie in glowing terms, and a lot of the women in class cried where Moore intended them to. Not me, though. My ire at being forced to watch something I'd determined NOT to watch kept me from feeling bad enough for those poor people to even sniffle. We're going to finish the movie on Monday. Snarl!

I was ticked off the whole way home, and only a cup of tea calmed me down. Yes, our healthcare system can be pretty lousy, but healthcare systems in Canada and the UK and Cuba suck donkeys!

I'll be glad when the Sicko section of class is over and I can get down to the work of learning how to mistreat sick people by billing the evil insurance companies on behalf of the wicked physicians I hope to work for.

I think that's her point...

5 comments:

janice said...

"and I can get down to the work of learning how to mistreat sick people by billing the evil insurance companies on behalf of the wicked physicians I hope to work for."

Sounds to me like you got her point!

Christina said...

You know, I just don't understand why Americans are so eager to agree to socialized medicine. Do they never listen to all the stories coming from Europe and Canada about the terrible waits and sub-standard care? I have absolutely no desire to follow a proven failure of a plan.

Good luck in your class and maybe take the time during the rest of the movie to write a letter to someone...or make a shopping list. It will look like you're taking notes and the teacher will be duly impressed yet you will not have to hear that stupid idiot's tyrade against all things American.

Malott said...

Suck donkeys?

...Probably not a phrase you picked up in Bible Study... But rather a dime novel or something even more disreputable... Like Malott's Blog.

Just last week Pastor James MacDonald talked about how his dad in Canada had to wait several weeks for a heart stent. That may be the kind of "sacrifices we'll need to make" that Obama has planned.

Christina said...

Hmm...Chris' post made me think...

Do you suppose President Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Ted Kennedy would be willing to wait for a life-saving procedure in the name of socialized medicine?

I think not.

Tsofah said...

"and I can get down to the work of learning how to mistreat sick people by billing the evil insurance companies on behalf of the wicked physicians I hope to work for."

If that's her point, suggest she go to UK or Canada or Mexico for a year and THEN see if she appreciates it more here.

And ask her if she gives equal time to other viewpoints. THEN bring in some of Fred Thompson's videos. That'll teach her, the left laying, socialistic commie wannabe!

Ok, so I maybe went a bit tooooo far there.



NAW!