Before my current job, I worked at Health Sciences Centre, a large hospital. It was quasi-government, the running joke was that you’d have to kill someone to get fired. I’ve since come to realize that’s not true.

Update: They seemed to have found someone to take the new position.

I worked with all kinds of people, those that worked hard, and those that did nothing but collect a paycheque. One of the big reasons I left was that there was no motivation by the latter group to do anything, while I was looking for somewhere where people shared a common goal. There were also people who were outright malicious. Because of unions, bureaucracy, and poor management, nothing stopped them from trying to run down the rest of us.

I’ve been gone from HSC for well over a year now, and I just found out that last week, a former co-worker was let go. Apparently he was called into the boss’ office, told he was no longer employed, and escorted out.

This man did not fall into any of the bad categories I mentioned above. He is a competent tech, above average for an environment such as HSC. The group that handled NT administration was him and another guy, so it’s not as if there wasn’t enough work to keep him employed. His job was also reposted shortly after. Of course his coworkers are in shock, this appears basically as either a random firing, or a politically motivated action. He was not a yes-man, which is why the latter is the prevailing theory.

So, I write this for a couple of reasons. One is to simply point out the absurdity of some places, especially health care. I’ve always been glad I left because of the opportunities I’ve found, but this makes me even more so because of the management system that I left.

The second is that if you are in Winnipeg, and know of a need for a competent Windows support person, who is a good worker and enjoys a challenge, let me know. If you are also looking for some high calibre networking (switches, routers, infrastructure) people, I know of a couple that might be more easily convinced to leave their current positions in light of their employers recent actions.