The Cynical Girl: Nobody gets fired in America.

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Nobody gets fired in America. Posted: 22 Oct 2013 03:45 AM PDT Nobody gets fired in America. From the boardroom to the cubicle, the only people who get fired are the ones who commit a violent crime or really have it coming. And maybe not even then. We had a financial crisis in this country and we handed out loans instead of indictments. No CEO lost his job. No board has been held accountable. I am blogging from my iPhone that just went through a horrible upgrade. I have to reverse-jedi-mind-trick my phone into preserving its battery. My operating system keeps crashing. And I have been asked to upgrade the device itself because Apple now sells my phone in another shade of shit. How does Tim Cook still have his job? For the rest of us, our performance issues are handled in a passive-aggressive way. We are PIP‘d to death until we quit. Or we are laid off. So I find it hilarious to hear that people want to fire Kathleen Sebelius for the slow and unresponsive government healthcare website. “If this were a company, she’d be gone.” No she wouldn’t. At two separate stages in my life, I worked with professionals who were responsible for major data centers and vast IT networks. An outage meant that data couldn’t be collected properly. An outage impacted revenue, e-commerce capabilities, manufacturing, clinical trials, vital data analysis for major litigation efforts and patient delivery mechanisms. An outage was a pain in the butt. We still had outages and nobody was fired. So I want to remind everyone out there that a better version of the government doesn’t look like big business. In fact, big business can look pretty awful. Remember shopping at the mall during the holiday season? Remember getting your oil changed and being sold automotive services you don’t need? Remember spending hours on the phone waiting for help from a customer service representative? I don’t want more of that. I want less of that. Yes, I think the government botched the Affordable Care Act website; however, companies botch stuff all day long. We just had a major salmonella outbreak in America. The company was like, “Sorry, my bad, but we learned lessons.” How fabulous. So let’s stop fetishizing and fantasizing corporate America. Nobody gets fired in America, especially for a hinky website. And as a side note, you can still call 1-800-318-2596 and enroll in healthcare 24/7. The government hasn’t failed you. A website failed you. If we judged every company based on the launch of its e-commerce platform, most companies couldn’t withstand the scrutiny. But if you want to fire someone, I am your lady. And I have a list of incompetent people that I’ve come across in my career. I would gladly start handing out pink slips tomorrow if you’d give me that chance.

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