Kaiser Permanente reviews

Kaiser Permanente is top-heavy with incompetent do-nothings internally called "Old Kaiser". They almost sank the whole system over their rush to take over the prestigious Electronic Health Record positions that they didn't understand. On the "business side" looking the part came to mean more than technical knowledge: in fact "technical people" were regarded as contingent labor to be used and thrown away. While I worked as a mere project coordinator, the insight I got into the highest level workings of Kaiser was enough to make me never want to work for that company again. I was hired after a year of working as a temp. The first thing my new manager did was try to elicit dirt on another manager I had been assigned to. When I demurred, she tried to bring up the subject in other ways. Finally she dragged me into a meeting with the Director of the department and told him that she thought I was afraid to talk about the problems with this former manager, whom she was apparently trying to set up to be fired. When I still refused to cooperate, she started to make a big show of building a file AGAINST ME. When I had technical problems with my computer and sent an email notice that I had to miss a staff meeting because I was with tech support, she sent an email documenting how she had explained to me that it was a job requirement that I attend staff meetings. Then she asked for me to give her a list of everything I liked and disliked about my job *IN WRITING*. She continued to disguise her actions against me by sending me to get a new ergonomic chair for my desk. But the very next day after that, she called me into her office to fire me: it turned out she could fire me for no reason at all since I was still in my probation period. I did attempt to complain to Human Resources, but apparently she had already been calling them for weeks, and they had been arming her for how to legally terminate an employee, whether there was cause or not! I then went through the months long process of appeals. This turned out to amount to asking the manager whether she would consider taking me back. My appeal was rejected the day before Christmas. It outrages me that a manager in a large, respected company like Kaiser, in such a high level department, could get away with this sort of scheming, manipulative behavior - and then just fire anyone who doesn't cooperate with her. As far as I know she has continued to rise in the ranks, while I was thrown out on the street. As for the general level incompetence - I saw that all over the office. But the most appalling thing was the Indian programmers. I don't say that to be racist: India has great technical education, and the programmers that went through that education system deserve a lot of respect. But the guys I'm talking about were hired simply because they were Indian and they *looked* like programmers! They were calling their buddies for how to do their job all the time! Worse, they were calling me! I was more technical than they were, and I was being paid clerical wages while they were being paid over $100k a year and getting to go to conferences! There is something wrong with the way hiring managers stereotype people in this country. Working at Kaiser really made me cynical because I had to see that there are a lot of people who lie on their resumes, and have a whole system set up to lie on their recommendations, and they end up in great jobs. And then there are honest people like me who know things because they read a lot, but they have no one to vouch for them, and they make chicken-scratch because they are nerds who don't network. In a way I'm glad I didn't work at Kaiser long, because that environment would have made me bitter about life.