Just a Guy

I'm going to give you a long story here, which might be of interest. I absolutely agree with you about penalizing corporations that outsource our jobs overseas.

I also read your other blog about your experience at Blue Shield as a manager. A relative on my late wife's side who is also now deceased, was a manager at the Chico branch back in the 1980's and early 1990's. He used to work for Blue Shield in San Francisco and was active in the union there when they had one there. Management bought him out and offered him the management job here in Chico, which he accepted. He used to tell us how the higher management would tell him to push the people who worked for him to work harder, and to discipline them if they couldn't produce work fast enough.

I used to be a building maintenance person in San Francisco for 18 years. For 2 and a half years from 1995 until late 1997 I had a good daytime position at one of Blue Shield's buildings. Officially I worked for a janitorial contractor, but being that I worked during the day I was accountable to the people at Blue Shield. I must say that they were super nice to work for and the Facilities Manager whom I worked for, was one of those super nice people. Unfortunately, the Blue Shield CEO's closed the 2 buildings including the one that I worked in and moved all of their SF offices into the Bechtel building. Due to a lot of corruption between the union that I belonged to and the contractors, I lost all of my seniority and had to go to the union's hiring hall at 3 in the afternoon for night jobs that didn't begin until 5:00 or 6:00. Between the stress from this and the very heavy workloads, I hurt my back and got a hernia and went out on workers compensation. After being treated, my workers comp attorney referred me to a vocational counselor and I attended a 5 month program at a school and learned office skills.

As I wanted to get out of the big city, I moved here to Chico early in 2001. I applied at several companies for jobs. Among them were Blue Shield and United Health Care. No company was at all interested in hiring someone who was in his 50's who never did office work before. I now get SSD from Social Security and a small pension from the union that I belonged to and I settled my workers comp case. As far as these private corporations like BS and United Health Care go, I'm actually glad that I didn't get hired. I heard that United Health Care hires and fires, so it would have been much worse for me if I ever did get hired at those places. Here's an interesting thing that happened while I was waiting to be interviewed at United Health Care. While I was waiting in the waiting room, I asked the receptionist if I could be buzzed in so that I could use the restroom, as the wait was much longer than expected. The receptionist said that she couldn't do that and that I would have to wait until I was called in, which is what I ended up doing. What I really should have done was to tell her that I was no longer interested in the position after all and to give me back my application and resume. That already was a bad sign of what an awful company that would have been to work for. Heaven forbid if I would have had to use the restroom while at work, and it would have interfered with how many keystrokes I was able to do, which I'm sure would have been monitored. Anyway, a couple of days after my interview I received a thanks but no thanks letter in the mail from United Health Care, and I'm thankful that I'm retired instead. Long story, I know!

Walter

Walter, the only thing that surprises me is the way you were treated by the receptionist. One of the big reasons for the high turnover at UHC is that it is a brutal job. You go through more emotional and mental stress than any other job I have had. Customer service work can eat your soul. I know I started there as a rep then became a supervisor. I have not worked there since 2004. When I had left I had just introduced a new operating model for customer service to help with retaining employees. As a supervisor Seldomly was I encouraged to manage some one out(fire them the long way.) The one time it was suggested it fit. The person needed to go. Normally we were preached to about retention and creating and keeping quality employees. A lot of that came from 2 sources. 1. Glenna Gates. She was our director for a few years and she was a great lady to work for. She pushed her management staff to make employees better not fire them. My boss for a while was one Cecily Cocco again a great lady I have the utmost respect for.

However at Blue Shield I had some on on workman's comp that had limited duties and I was encouraged by my boss to find a way to get rid of her with out it applying to her comp case. BS has the balls to have "Do the right thing" as one of their values.

Jim, What horrible jerk managers they have at Blue Shield! Regarding United Health Care, after I started getting my Social Security benefits, I heard on the news that United Health Care was laying off people. Sometime later, someone told me that they were hiring people and later I heard on the news that they were having layoffs again. So, it's a good thing that I didn't get hired. Had I been and then been laid off, it would have been difficult for me to get SSD from Social Security as my previous work injury would most probably not applied.

Walter

When they laid people off the first time it was 7 people. They chose the based on performance not seniority. So the bottom 7 people performance wise were the ones let go. I would say 3 of those were on there way out anyway. I remember that process fairly well. While was not happy about people being laid off I could not argue with the way they did it.

Unless people do a really lousy job, or steal or something else very bad, employers shouldn't be firing people. There are laws that stipulate that in most European countries, and I'd like to see that happen in this country. As far a general layoffs go, if the company is losing money that's a reason, but the CEO's of these corporations are paid millions so there's no reason there to lay off people. Both United Health Care and Blue Cross-Blue Shield are also guilty of refusing to pay for peoples medical treatments, often determining that their conditions are "pre-existing" or making some other reason. This is a major reason why we need a Single Payer health care system, and eliminating these health insurance corporations. Actually, when and if we pass this, these corporations can move on and sell other insurance policies.

Walter

I will be the first to say that the health insurance industry is not interested in taking care of your medical bills. They want your money. They love healthy people that never use their benefits. They hate sick people that they have agreed to pay bills for. My mother has bipolar which means that there is not an insurance company out there that will cover her. She has tried to find one. My dad has PD (Parkinson's Disease), they don't like him much either. They are a business and the first goal of any business is to make money not spend it. So their very existence is a paradox.