Middle Man

A company I used to work for is featured on the Sun-times today. It's the very first story. Click here to read it. This is the company I worked for when I was in the throes of workaholism. I used to work ALL THE TIME. When I wasn't working, I was boring all of my friends with my stories about work. I only knew a tiny bit about this lawsuit when I was working there. It was mostly only talked about during happy hour by disatisfied executives who wished that THEY were the one's who had blown the whistle, followed by everyone talking about how the whistleblower was really incompetant and had just filed the lawsuit because he couldn't get a job after his firing. Every person I knew that had a position higher than supervisor (including me) was treated unbelievably unjustly at one point or another. Most people stayed because the unstable environment could mean that at any moment, someone could make a big jump on the ladder and get a nicer office.

The thing that makes me really sad about this whole deal is that I personally knew and worked with most of the people named in the emails that are displayed on the PDF. They were good people that took pride in their work. They sincerely cared about the customers and did everything in their power to make sure the customers had good care. Their downfall was to not have the guts remind their bosses that "cherry picking" members was against the medicaid contract. Maybe they figured that since they were just following orders, they wouldn't be publicly humiliated in the Chicago Sun-Times. Maybe they were afraid that doing the right thing would mean that they would lose their job. One thing I learned in dealing with corporate executives was that they never leave a paper trail when dealing with delicate matters. They let the middle man do that. I guess that's what separates the guys in the corner office from the guys in the cubicles.