Wednesday, February 11, 2009

An Issue of Trust....2/20


I have to say, not telling staff that there wouldn't be matching funds for their retirement was a stroke of genius. It must have saved millions...okay, hundreds of thousands. And it shored things up for this year, while keeping the contribution level higher.


And it showed that Essent is still in charge, under whom backdating has become an artform.


What the heck, already contributed? Tough. So what if you lost 40% of your investment last year. Essent had its fingers crossed when they made that promise.
They could have mentioned this year before last, when they lost--what, $5 Million? If there was that much of a difference, I can't wait to see the results for '08.


Wonder if Browder took the 10% management cut, or the matching funds cut....

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Frank,
Since this is the top of the comment list, I thought I might impart a guiding hand to comments.

The 8 Commandments of Commenting


Thou shalt edit any quoted text down to the minimum thou needest.

Thou shalt read thine own message thrice before thou sendest it.

Thou shalt ponder how thy recipient might react to thy message.

Thou shalt check thy spelling and thy grammar. (You can open a Hotmail account and use the spell check from it, then copy the text into the comment.)

Thou shalt not curse, flame, spam or USE ALL CAPS.

Thou shalt not use blogs for any illegal or unethical purpose.

Thou shalt not rely on the privacy of commenting, especially from work.

When in doubt, save thy message overnight and reread it in the light of the dawn.

I saw this come through, and thought it was great! I originally was spell-checking the comments that were sent. Traffic got too heavy, and when spelling was corrected, sometimes grammer followed. Somewhere I do have a life. So-o-o, I still usually do run a spell check on my posts and comments. If I'm not on a computer that has spell check, I open my email and it does. Copy and paste....frank

sleepy_steve said...

The whole "mysterious" 401k debacle isn't shocking, it's just a continuation of what employees at PRMC should have come to expect by now. Nurses aren't being treated with the respect they certainly deserve as the highly trained, skilled "workhorses" of the medical profession that they are and haven't been for quite some time at this facility. Whispers about the 401k situation practically became roars well before anybody ever produced a copy of the memo, which had apparently been mistakenly left in a desk drawer.
Congratulations, DUX! Your dream of ensuring that all of your good nurses will leave for "name-your-own-salary-and-benefits-package" positions with Baylor-owned facilities is probably going to become a reality. While PRMC pinches pennies to stuff the board of directors' pockets with, other, more reputable facilities are still paying nice bonuses, treating nurses with respect and prospering. All you're going to have left are the "scrubs"; those lazy, barely-qualified individuals who hang on because they know that they couldn't hold a job for more than a week elsewhere. They're already the majority at PRMC anyway.
I simply can't understand why The Paris News continues its' "lips attached to the arse cheeks" approach to Chris Dux and PRMC instead of exercising some journalistic integrity and informing the community of how rotten things really are. Shame on them.

Anonymous said...

Sleepy Steve,
The Snooze is populated mostly by J-school dropouts and frustrated fem-libbers who couldn't hack it on a real news media staff, and thus wound up on the Snooze. Duckers is at best a mediocre (or, put more brazenly, half-arsed) flack who's bounced from exec job to exec job, winding up at PRMC as Essent's monkey to Browder's organ grinder.

The sad result- a marriage made in Hell and consummated in Paris. The Snooze isn't even going to attempt to print any story that has negative connotations about PRMC or Essent, fearing the lightness of their pocketbook more than the fear of not printing the truth for the benefit of the residents of the area.

But hey- we're "just the public", right? What do we know?

Anonymous said...

"I simply can't understand why The Paris News continues its' "lips attached to the arse cheeks" approach to Chris Dux and PRMC instead of exercising some journalistic integrity and informing the community of how rotten things really are. Shame on them."

sleepy steve you are right on. i continue to wonder....is there anything the community at large can do to facilitate the recovery of our medical facility and our medical services here in lamar county? the local rag has no backbone. essent and their flunkies are obviously inept. the word in the community regarding prmc -- as we are all well aware -- is not good. what do we have to do to take back our hospital and get it on track?? thank goodness for frank....god bless....i hope that you will hang in there on behalf of us all. we have no other voice at this point...or none of which i am aware.

sleepy_steve said...

If people could bombard the paris news (whom I hold in such contempt that I will not even bother to capitalize their name) with letters demanding that they pull "duckie" and co. out into the sunlight so that the community could give them a proper staking (as all blood-suckers deserve), there would probably be enough heat generated to start a fire. I don't really know if they would even respond to that; sometimes I feel that PRMC's biggest goal is to go out of business.
I have written letters to other local "trash-rags" as well, trying to shame them into saying something about PRMC and how they are affecting all of us. Most notably, I recent a letter to the Cooper Review and bagged on them for not having much (if anything) to say about PRMC closing the clinic there, reportedly because the health care providers refused to sign non-competition clauses and other petty bunk. Personally, I think that "quack-man" wanted an excuse to close the clinic and thought that he found a way to make it look like it was the providers' fault.
Gossip, obituaries and nonsensical horse-hockey that doesn't amount to a hill of beans outweighs real news; who knows why they (they papers) do it. Maybe they're trying to convince the old-timers in the community (and themselves) that they actually still do live in a sleepy, little community that is a paradigm of 1950's small-town Americana..... "Nope, no problems here, fellas!".

Anonymous said...

This is one more instance that proves that Essents owners and directors do not understand how to manage people. They had no idea that it would be a problem for employees(beyond the disappointment
of not getting a matching contribution from Essent)It never occured to them how angry it would make people who contributed , only to find out that it would not be matched after the fact.Many folks contribute(sacrificially at times)in the hopes that they will have a retirement some day. With the fall in value that the fund has shown this year ,I doubt that many would have contributed if they knew ahead of time that Essent would renig on their contribution.This causes angst that is hard to overcome . Moreover ;like the uniform debacle when Essent first took control , it does not help Essent to succeed in the long run.Essent needs badly to hire someone with skills in employee management. The current guiding principles of management:
(1)uncertainty ,(2)capriciousness,3)lack of communication, (4)fear and retribution have not worked and will ultimately cause the failure of Essent in Paris.

Anonymous said...

A word to the professor who is sharing his guidance from on high about blogging;opinions are like assholes (oops)everyone has one.Thou shalt not attempt to control the world and its inhabitants. The Almighty has his hands full and I doubt that you can do any better!(this was read once and not checked for spelling)

Anonymous said...

Bad enough about the 401K but they also have cheated the employees on the rate of accrual of PTO. And didn't bother to tell anyone then either

sleepy_steve said...

I must have hit my head and been confused because I never saw where anyone was trying to control the world...... So much for your keen sense of comprehension, huh. Don't expect everybody in the world to quietly sit in their own little crap-pile contentedly, doing nothing. In this instance, blogging is a perfect example of DOING SOMETHING. If it weren't effective, Essent wouldn't be so determined to shut it down, would they? While it may be somewhat preposterous to think that DUCKY sits in front of the computer, in his footie pajamas, last thing before he goes to bed at night, reading the posts on this site, It is obvious that he and others are aware and unhappy.
I find it ironic that you would label one "professor", sarcastically (of course) and babble about controlling people when that is EXACTLY what you are trying to do by discouraging people from voicing their own opinions.

Anonymous said...

Did every employee who works for Essent receive the memo from CJF regarding the Privacy and Security issue? It came out last week sometime. This is what I was told-
It starts out with Happy New Year..
and in one of those small paragraphs it has a little note informing about the increasing number of complaints (anonymous on-line internet "blogging".) "This will not be tolerated and will lead to immediate termination of employment and is a violation of company policy and the Federal Law!" what is this? a scare tactic? Does this mean that no one can write on your blog Frank whether or not we are employed by this company? What ever happened to FREEDOM of SPEECH? shh just dont mention anyone's name. Poor Sally and her sisters.

Anonymous said...

"This will not be tolerated and will lead to immediate termination of employment and is a violation of company policy and the Federal Law!" what is this? a scare tactic? Does this mean that no one can write on your blog Frank whether or not we are employed by this company? What ever happened to FREEDOM of SPEECH? shh just dont mention anyone's name."

a violation of federal law? to post on a blog? LOL!!! these people are a hoot.

sleepy_steve said...

I wonder how "ducky" thinks that there is any violation of federal law here? If there was anything untoward going on here, her would have won his lawsuit and this blog would be dead by now. Oh well, once I get my hands on a copy of the newest "mystery-memo" (if it indeed exists), I will be forwarding it to some federal authorities of my own... You know, the ones who police the workplace for intimidation, etc......

Regardless, I sent the following to "ducky" this morning and I don't care if he likes it or not!

chris.dux@parisrmc.com

I saw something on your favorite blog about a memo that was sent out sometime last week...... It supposedly said something about blogging and complaining resulting in termination. So much for the Second Amendment, huh? I would love (if this is true) for you to find out who I am and terminate me for it because then I will own YOU and ESSENT.
Besides the fact that I would gladly sue you and win, don't think that you would be hurting me by firing me from your wonderfully-mismanaged facility; the whole medical community knows all about PRMC and its' wonderful employment atmosphere and is happily snapping up your "evacuees". Careful what you wish for and remember that sometimes it is better to just shut the heck up!


Michael.

sleepy_steve said...

Did the memo mention anything about employees now having to burn vacation for three days before sick-days kick in if the have to call out sick? Now that's ethical, "ducky". Don't worry, "ducky", lots of area facilities have demonstrated that they are capable of and all too willing to absorb your "cast-offs" and treat and compensate them like the trained professional that they are.

sleepy_steve said...

I just heard about a similar memo about doing stuff like this at work resulting in termination and that would be legit. Company computers are for company business and I have no beef with that! If this is the same memo, I gladly acknowledge that I owe "ducky" an apology (but still no respect) and will send it out as soon as he responds to my e-mail (ha-ha!).

Anonymous said...

Well I for one will not stop my blogging as It is not illegal because I did check with my attorney and was told that Essent can not terminate you for such bullsh*t. They will never be able to find out who the anonymous blogger is and if they did and terminated any of us they would have a huge law suit. Dirt bags!

Anonymous said...

2nd amendment is the right to bear arms by the way.

Anonymous said...

Remember, this is a 'right to work' state. You can be fired for the wrong socks, attitude, or suspicion. Kevin in IT was canned on suspicion. Others as well.

They may have to pay unemployment, but the only legal recourse seems to be as an annoyance.

Publicity may be the only weapon: The more they respond, the more credence they give to the accusations.

The more censureship that is placed upon the employees, the less likely new ones--good ones--will want to work here.

The more intrusive, restrictive they get, the more quality replacements for medical staff will be lacking. And we have several hitting retirement age.

The one mitigating factor might be the market and its effect on retirement accounts.

sleepy_steve said...

You are correct and I knew that. The second is another topic that I tend to get heated about, especially with Obama, Rohm Emanuel and Hillary Clinton back in power..... Guess my mind was wandering.

Anonymous said...

Publicity may be the only weapon: The more they respond, the more credence they give to the accusations.


Said so perfectly,Thank you!

Anonymous said...

So Essent sent out a memo that stated the following:
"It starts out with Happy New Year..
and in one of those small paragraphs it has a little note informing about the increasing number of complaints (anonymous on-line internet "blogging".) "This will not be tolerated and will lead to immediate termination of employment and is a violation of company policy and the Federal Law!" The Health Information Director at MVH posted a comment on the blog using her name and title. So is she still employed or is it just to scare the employees?
Quote from "Kathy DiPietro, RHIT said...
I am the Director of the Health Information Mangement Department at MVH and I am tired of being lied about by ex-employees"

Anonymous said...

The Federal Law the memo was citing was in regards to HIPAA info. Posting priviledged information is a violation of federal law. However, I hope he can prove it!!!

Anonymous said...

Someone show me one case in where complaining about working conditions on a blog is a HIPAA violation. Mentioning patient conditions, as long as patient names and pertinent clues that may reveal a patient's identity, are also NOT violations. Posting to blogs on one's own personal computer in their homes is a violation- against the people blogging in the privacy of their homes.

PRMC and their ambulance-chasers still haven't found out who Frank really is, and most likely never will have- thus, the third-rate KGB scare tactics.

I have no problem with policies against using work computers for personal use- that policy can be found all over. I do have a problem with Essent trying to scare its employees into refraining from blogging even at home.