My first day, I filled out paperwork and forms and visited people to get my name into various systems. (Yes, many systems. For some reason, there did not appear to be a single "new government employee" system, where an address, phone, and ID number would be entered just once...) Right around lunch-time, all that was pretty much finished, and about the only thing I had left to do was to finish a security training so I could get an email address. This training was done by computer, and the first part was a video that required flash. Flash is not installed on my work computer, so I told them I'd finish the training at home. The first page of the website says that this will only take 20-30 minutes to complete the entire training. I began at 1pm.
The flash video took ~10 minutes (it was about email phishing). The first time, this was not a big deal. (dun dun duuuuuuun <-- foreboding music) At the end of the video, you push "next" and enter the module portion of the training. There were 12 modules. Each module had a text box on one side, and then a picture/flash video on the other side. This was super annoying. They didn't really go together, so you'd start off reading the text (video was slow to load), then all of a sudden, there's a video with text of it's own playing. Anyway... I completed the first module, and then tried to go on to the second. The webpage crashed. Fine. I reopened the page. Can't enter the module portion until you watch the phishing video. Fine. I hit play, and opened my email. Came back to check on it a few minutes later... apparently, if the window is not the active window, the video does not play. Sigh. Fine. I'll sit here and watch the video again. I thankfully note that it registered my completion of module 1, and I move on to module 2. Same annoying dual demands for attention. Website crashes at end of module 2. Sigh. Fine. Reload, get a snack. Come back and (thinking I'll beat the system), open up module 3, 4 and 5 in different tabs. All good. Finish module 3, all three tabs crash. Sigh. Fine. Reload, ponder another snack.
So, all in all, it took 3 or so hours to finish this training. But hey, it's time well spent, because now the government has ensured that I won't make basic security mistakes. (But, the modules about the different privacy laws... I'm lost. They never defined their abbreviations, and I have no idea what they're talking about. Lesson learned: have someone else collect subject data.) After all, there was a true or false quiz at the end. I missed half of the questions. What?!? Looked back at the "correct" answers, they went like this (paraphrased):
True or False; If your government-owned computer full of sensitive high-security information and private patient data gets left at a coffee shop with the password written on a sticky note stuck on the screen, you should wait around at least a day or so to notify someone, while you look for it yourself and save face.
(I say: False) Wrong. No, this is true. It's important to notify the information technology department within one hour of losing any government-owned property. Never wait to share this information. The IT department can disable your laptop to protect the information on it. It's better to be safe (and find it yourself later), than sorry.
I now understand just that much better what people mean by "good enough for government work." Sheesh. Half the answers. I mean, really.
There were signs of efforts to be more efficient in later training/orientation sessions. My orientation session happened one week after I started (I was the only intern in my institute to start that day, so they put off my orientation a week... see, efficient). In order to be green, they didn't give us any handouts, just a flash drive (plus, a sweet zippered reusable grocery bag) with all the training material loaded onto it . Poorly labeled. With no directions about what applied to us and what didn't, and in a format I can't open on my office computer. Um, those trainings never got finished.
But, that was just an isolated incident, right? No, not really. There are examples everywhere of time wasted daily on dumb things. The girls bathroom in my office has a broken automatic toilet flusher, a broken automatic paper towel dispenser, and a broken (manual) toilet paper dispenser. The (working?) automatic faucet's sensor is pointed outside the flow of the water, resulting in an awkward cycle of jets of water to get your hands washed, then back out to the sensor now that the water turned off. Oh, and it gets the roll of paper towels sitting on the sink (dispenser's broken) wet.
The most disturbing example of the inefficiencies, I think, are the building layouts. For instance, my office is in building 10, room 1D80. To get there, you have to go down hallway N. Makes perfect sense. Why didn't I think of that? My second day, (the first day, I had someone to walk around with, but that was a Friday, and this was Monday, and now I was fuzzy about the details), I wasn't quite sure how I was supposed to get to my office, so I asked a kind-looking stranger in the hallway. He had no idea. Same with the next kind-looking stranger. Finally, the third person I asked (he looked OK) knew where to find a map. Good enough.
This isn't just our building, either. The administration is in building 31. My first experience with building 31 was when I went to apply for transhare (where they pay for your metro commute - sweet!). I was supposed to go to room B3B04. Um... so I went to building 31, and the first room I saw was A104. So, I guess I'm looking for the third floor? Took the elevator to the third floor - it's a single hallway, A301-A330. ::blink:: Kind-looking stranger, where is this room? Kind-looking stranger replies, "I don't know. But I don't think you can get there from here, you'll have to go back down to the first floor." First, I hate that line - "you can't get there from here." Of course, you can. You just have to go from here to somewhere in between. Unless it's somewhere you can never get to, and maybe that's what a parking office is like. But, I digress. I went back down to the first floor, and, with what seems to be my only real strategy, looked for a kind-looking stranger. (Perhaps, one day, I'll have asked enough kind-looking strangers for directions that I'll run out, and either have to turn to angry/mean looking strangers, or kind-looking people whom I've already asked for directions...). Anyway, next KLS told me that B-wing was that way, and after that, she didn't know. Next KLS, "you have to go down to the third basement." I'm getting closer. Of the room name "B3B04," I've deciphered "B3B." "04" should be easy. No. The hallway has numbers like B3B204. wtf, man, really? Finally, KLS#I-don't-even-know-anymore actually knew where the parking office was. Turns out, she works on this floor. Probably took 7 or 8 people to get me there.
Last week, I had CPR training in building 31. Room B4BN09. Yes, you've correctly noted that there's an extra letter in there that wasn't in the last room number. I've got deciphering to do! But, I left myself an extra half hour before the training to get to the room, confidently stroll to the B-wing, and to the elevators to get to the fourth basement, when.... crap. There's only three basements. So, fourth floor? No. KLS says, "That's in the fourth basement, floor 4B." I say, "But there isn't a floor 4B on the elevator." KLS says, "Oh, you went to the wrong elevators. Go to the elevators at that end of the hall." Oh, of course, why didn't I exhaust all possibilities of elevators? So, to a new bank of elevators I go, which do, in fact, allow entrance to 4B. In the elevator lobby, I see someone pouring over the map of the floor (it really only shows emergency exit procedures, no "you are here." Totally not helpful in either situation. Plus, why is that next to the elevators? Shouldn't you take the stairs in an emergency?) I asked her (the LLS, lost-looking stranger), "CPR training?" "yeah... do you know where it is?" "nope, but we can look together." New friend. :-) We did eventually find it. The N is apparently the opposite of C, which were the two choices for room designations on that floor. They were in no particular order. Still arrived 5 minutes late. It apparently takes at least 35 minutes to find a room.
So, besides the fact that inefficiencies waste everyone's time (and thus money), there are some (I feel) unnerving consequences to this. You see, Building 10 (where I work) is a hospital. Not the kind of hospital where you go when you break a leg, but the kind where you go when you have an incurable disease. A research hospital. But still, there are real, live patients who are sick. As any of you out there who have ever watched a hospital-based TV show will be aware, the real drama of a show, I mean, hospital, comes with the code team. Life and death hang in the balance, and a heroic team of people show up with a cart full of just-about-magic, and life wins. At least, that's how it happens in the movies. In an actual hospital, the code teams shows up (and hijacks the elevator, making us late to lab meeting, but I'll forgive them because they're heroic and stuff), and the first one (the leader?) says, "Shit, how do you work this key thing?!?" She starts messing with buttons. We stop at floor 4 - our stop. No one moves. "Shit." Close door. She jams the key in and tries some buttons. Another hero asks, "What was the room again?" Someone answers. It's on the 10th floor. The elevator stops at floor 6. "Shit" Luckily, no one else in the elevator wanted to go anywhere else, so we should be finally headed to floor 10 now. "G hallway, where's that?" "Don't know" Elevator stops at floor 10. The cart and code team roll out, and as the doors close, I see them call "Hey, you!" to the first KLS they can find.
