What's wrong with this picture?

I thought I was pretty much finished with writing posts about the stupidity that goes on generally in the workplace and more specifically in my workplace. I was wrong. I doubt I’ll ever be finished, because my workplace continually gives me something to write about.

Believe it or not, the researcher network that is available to scientists (non-MDs) at my hospital is so outdated that it is still using Windows XP to run the computers that were provided to us well over eight or nine years ago. Ditto for the screen, but at least it provides good resolution for the most part. Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft for starters; this is the message that Microsoft has posted on their website: “After 12 years, support for Windows XP ended April 8, 2014. Microsoft will no longer provide security updates or technical support for the Windows XP operating system. It is very important that customers and partners migrate to a modern operating system such as Windows 10”.

It’s got to be at least three years ago that the IT department at my hospital informed us that hospital network users (mostly MDs and a few researchers, myself included) would be getting new computers with the Windows 7 operating system. When I asked at that time what the IT department was planning to do concerning the researcher network that is used by research staff (mostly non-MDs) employed by external grant organizations and not the hospital, the answer was that they were working on a solution but were not there yet. They’re still not there. Most hospital network users received their new computers three years ago; I was not one of them. This past spring, I finally got a hospital computer, but I can understand why most researchers do not want one. The restrictions on what programs can be used/downloaded are major, even if one is only going to use PubMed to search for medical research articles. Permission from the IT department is needed for any software that they have not pre-approved for download. This makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to install any kind of demo software or to upgrade instrument software via the internet (the latter is an annual occurrence for most laboratory instruments). This means that each time we need upgraded software, an applications specialist has to come from whatever company sold us the instrumentation, and that person will charge for the time to travel as well as the time spent in our laboratory to install and test the upgrade. Is this saving the hospital money? The hospital IT department does not want the hospital network users to access the internet in ways that the department cannot control. While I can understand this approach to some degree, it makes it impossible to do extensive literature searches or to download upgrades to existing instrument software, etc.

Sadly, the researcher network hobbles along, but there will come a day (very soon) when it will all come crashing down around us. I am still running the CS2 version of Adobe Acrobat software (it reached version C6 and then Adobe moved to another platform). The CS2 version still works, but my hospital’s researcher network has ceased to provide the latest upgrades/licenses for Adobe software and other software packages highly-discounted/free to its employees as it did ten years ago. So those of us without research funding don’t have the possibility to upgrade any software. The researcher network was a good idea while it lasted; it provided the most useful software free to researchers, or sometimes for a nominal fee. I hardly remember those days; they’re gone forever. What we could count on were the network printers; they functioned well for the most part. Today we were informed that the network printers that most of our Windows XP computers use were moved to a new server. That meant that we lost the printer connections on the old server, where at least the connections worked (we were able to print articles, etc.). The move to the new server has crippled the researcher network since most of the computers are still running Windows XP and cannot seem to ‘see’ the connections to the new server. Translated that means that we cannot print articles, our manuscripts, work plans, etc. I ask you—why are we at work? At home, I have a relatively cheap Acer laptop that is running Windows 10 and all new Microsoft Office programs. It functions very well. I have a printer at home that I can connect to my laptop if I need to print anything. In short, I have a well-functioning home office. Is it any wonder that I prefer working at home?

What irritates me is the following: we hear all the time that the department/hospital doesn’t have the money to do this or that or that the priority is to save money at all costs. In my book, providing a well-functioning infrastructure to your employees is a no-brainer. It should be priority number one on the priority list. In 2017, computers and printers should work, not hang or freeze, and operating systems/software should be up-to-date. If the hospital doesn’t want to support the researcher network anymore, they should just say so and be done with it. This gradual wasting away/starvation project isn’t fooling anyone. But meanwhile, the leaders are still meeting at cushy hotels for two-day meetings/seminars that drain the existing meager budget even further. Apparently these meetings are very important, important enough that the leaders have to travel quite a distance in order to meet up. Bus transportation, hotel room costs, three-course dinners, etc.—my, my, there’s always money for those kinds of things. My question is: why can’t these meetings be held at the hospital for a total of one to two hours, where pressing issues are discussed and dealt with. Save the money it costs to house and feed a group of leaders for more important events such as increasing the salaries of the research staff or bettering the IT infrastructure of the research staff. Drop the annual department seminar for the same reason, and use the money to improve the IT infrastructure in the department. This is an obvious solution but it never seems to be chosen by the department leaders. I have to ask, why not?