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This is a perfect description of how things work at one of the largest health care networks in the northeast US (speaking as someone who works there and keeps s

This is a perfect description of how things work at one of the largest health care networks in the northeast US (speaking as someone who works there and keeps saying "where's the automation? where are the procedures?" and keeps being told to shut up, we don't have TIME for that sort of thing.

aspenmayer 1y ago
If you don't have time to prepare for failure, then you'll have little time to invest in success, either, if/when failure strikes.
internetter 1y ago
lol the healthcare industry was definitely in my mind as I wrote this. Never worked there but I read a lot of postmortems and it shows whenever I use their digital products. Recent example is CVS. Somehow, at some point, they decided that my CVS pharmacy account should be linked to my Mom's extracare. Couldn't find any menu to fix it online. So the next time I went to the register I asked to update it. They read the linked phone number. It was mine. Ok, it is fixed, I think. But then the reciept prints out and it is my mom's Extracare card number. So the next time I press harder. I ask them to read me the card number they have linked from their screen. They read my card number. Ok, it is fixed, I think. But then the reciept prints out and the card number is different—it is my mom's. Then I know the system is incredibly fucked. Being an engineer, I think about how this could happen. I'm guessing there are a hundred database fields where the extracare number is stored, and only one is set to my mom's or something. I poke around the CVS website and find countless different portals made with clearly different frameworks and design practices. Then I know all of CVS's tech looks like this and a disaster is waiting to happen. Goes like this for a lot of finance as well. E.g. I can say with confidence that Equifax is still as scuffed as it was back in 2017 when it was hacked. That is a story for another time. Nobody bothers to keep things clean until it is too late. The features you deliver give promotions, not the potential catastrophes you prevent. Humans have a tendency to be so short sighted, chasing endless earnings beats without anticipating future problems.

aspenmayer 1y ago

If you don't have time to prepare for failure, then you'll have little time to invest in success, either, if/when failure strikes.

internetter 1y ago

lol the healthcare industry was definitely in my mind as I wrote this. Never worked there but I read a lot of postmortems and it shows whenever I use their digital products. Recent example is CVS. Somehow, at some point, they decided that my CVS pharmacy account should be linked to my Mom's extracare. Couldn't find any menu to fix it online. So the next time I went to the register I asked to update it. They read the linked phone number. It was mine. Ok, it is fixed, I think. But then the reciept prints out and it is my mom's Extracare card number. So the next time I press harder. I ask them to read me the card number they have linked from their screen. They read my card number. Ok, it is fixed, I think. But then the reciept prints out and the card number is different—it is my mom's. Then I know the system is incredibly fucked. Being an engineer, I think about how this could happen. I'm guessing there are a hundred database fields where the extracare number is stored, and only one is set to my mom's or something. I poke around the CVS website and find countless different portals made with clearly different frameworks and design practices. Then I know all of CVS's tech looks like this and a disaster is waiting to happen. Goes like this for a lot of finance as well. E.g. I can say with confidence that Equifax is still as scuffed as it was back in 2017 when it was hacked. That is a story for another time. Nobody bothers to keep things clean until it is too late. The features you deliver give promotions, not the potential catastrophes you prevent. Humans have a tendency to be so short sighted, chasing endless earnings beats without anticipating future problems.