Im Bored, this is my job, tell me about yours.

[willy4pres]

I never start threads. Im at work with not much to do so I figured I would tell everyone about my job (im still new).

I started working at the Yuma TARS site about 7 months ago. We operate an Aerostat to assist in catching drug trafficers and stuff like that. I started out as a guard just because my wife made me get a job after I got out of the Marine Corps. Im drawing retirement so I figured I could just go to school full time without having to get a job. Thankfully I listened to her since we found out she was pregnant 2 weeks after starting here. I just got moved up last month, now I work on keeping up the site and doing maintenace on the balloon when needed. I have worked in a maintenance department for the last 13+ years but as an analyst/system administrator. I did some maintenance stuff before but nothing major, just enough to understand what the mechanics where talking about. My work schedule is 7 days on and 7 days off, it's kicks ass let me tell you. Anyway, that's what I do, if you want to know anything about the TARS program just ask, I didn't know we had such a thing prior to working here.

This is a picture I found on the internet of our actual site:

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/ai...rs-HTARS11.jpg

Here is a site that explains what it is we do. Most of the pictures are of this site:

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/airdef/tars.htm

Here is a cool picture after it rains:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...l%3Den%26lr%3D

[Axxman300]

Do they let you go down into the secret sub-basment and look at the captured alien bodies they have stored there?

[5150]

Nothing exciting here. I deliver lumber to new construction homes in the PA/NJ/DE area. I like it, and I'm home every night. Below is a pic of the first floor of a house.

[Rovus]

I've been working for a medical insurance firm for the past 18 months which provides malpractice indemnity cover for doctors and other healthcare specialists. Basically, my job consists of mostly call-centre type work. A doctor, whether be an existing or prospective member, will ring through in regards to a quote or whatever query they have. Sometimes a doctor will call from overseas including countries like New Zealand, UK, USA, The Netherlands, South Africa, Canada, India, etc enquiring about cover for practicing in Australia. Because indemnity insurance is a little complex here in Australia compared to other countries they get a bit shock in what I tell them. We have liason officers who go out on the road to promote our company through functions at the hospitals and universities. Sometimes when one of them is sick, I'll get asked to go along to fill-in. The last time I had to fill-in was at a hospital Xmas party, so I was allowed a free banquet dinner, booze and entertainment - and that's considered work lol. Our company doesn't pay us for overtime so they just give us time off in lieu. Overall, it's a very interesting job and you talk with alot of characters. Most doctors are nice to talk with, some can be real dickheads, and others are really stupid people. In our office, we also have medico-legal advisors who are also practicing doctors and sometimes I'll eavesdrop on their cases and you get to hear some really juicy stuff. But most of it is pretty serious. One doctor whom I've had to deal with was recently de-registered and no longer allowed to practice due to negligence in performing abortions. She luckily escaped a gaol sentence. What happened was she prescribed the WRONG drug to a young pregnant woman which sped-up the pregnancy and the young woman ultimately gave birth on the toliet and the baby eventually died.

This is our website:

www.mips.com.au

[Viking]

I work for Amazon.com, Coffeyville, Ks. FC. I throw the crap in a box, and send it down the conveyor. Lately, since there are now near 200 people in our dept. alone, there isn't much to do as people are stepping on top of people to get to the next available order to pack out so I pack orders out for a while, and then I cruise around helping the new people out with any questions they might have. It makes my day more interesting and IMO, making the new people better at what they do is more valuable to the company than me trying to get orders out.

[Bob_R]

I work for Amazon.com, Coffeyville, Ks. FC. I throw the crap in a box, and send it down the conveyor. Lately, since there are now near 200 people in our dept. alone, there isn't much to do as people are stepping on top of people to get to the next available order to pack out so I pack orders out for a while, and then I cruise around helping the new people out with any questions they might have. It makes my day more interesting and IMO, making the new people better at what they do is more valuable to the company than me trying to get orders out.

I just ordered from Amazon.com last night. I hope you bastards packed my shipment correctly.

[IconJJ]

I work in the same stupid pizza joint that i have worked for the past six and a half years....

[willy4pres]

Do they let you go down into the secret sub-basment and look at the captured alien bodies they have stored there?

I don't think we have any stored at the site but im positive we must have put some to work after they were captured. At least that would explain some of the strange ass people they have employed here.

[willy4pres]

Nothing exciting here. I deliver lumber to new construction homes in the PA/NJ/DE area. I like it, and I'm home every night. Below is a pic of the first floor of a house.

Looks like a cool gig to me. So, the pieces are basically pre-cut prior to delivery? Do you guys get some crazy ass designs that your expected to haul?

[willy4pres]

I've been working for a medical insurance firm for the past 18 months which provides malpractice indemnity cover for doctors and other healthcare specialists. Basically, my job consists of mostly call-centre type work. A doctor, whether be an existing or prospective member, will ring through in regards to a quote or whatever query they have. Sometimes a doctor will call from overseas including countries like New Zealand, UK, USA, The Netherlands, South Africa, Canada, India, etc enquiring about cover for practicing in Australia. Because indemnity insurance is a little complex here in Australia compared to other countries they get a bit shock in what I tell them. We have liason officers who go out on the road to promote our company through functions at the hospitals and universities. Sometimes when one of them is sick, I'll get asked to go along to fill-in. The last time I had to fill-in was at a hospital Xmas party, so I was allowed a free banquet dinner, booze and entertainment - and that's considered work lol. Our company doesn't pay us for overtime so they just give us time off in lieu. Overall, it's a very interesting job and you talk with alot of characters. Most doctors are nice to talk with, some can be real dickheads, and others are really stupid people. In our office, we also have medico-legal advisors who are also practicing doctors and sometimes I'll eavesdrop on their cases and you get to hear some really juicy stuff. But most of it is pretty serious. One doctor whom I've had to deal with was recently de-registered and no longer allowed to practice due to negligence in performing abortions. She luckily escaped a gaol sentence. What happened was she prescribed the WRONG drug to a young pregnant woman which sped-up the pregnancy and the young woman ultimately gave birth on the toliet and the baby eventually died.

This is our website:

www.mips.com.au

I bet a lot of the doctors have huge ego's. So, they purchase your insurance just in case someone want's to sue? Can you tell us how much a "typical" policy will cost?

[willy4pres]

I work for Amazon.com, Coffeyville, Ks. FC. I throw the crap in a box, and send it down the conveyor. Lately, since there are now near 200 people in our dept. alone, there isn't much to do as people are stepping on top of people to get to the next available order to pack out so I pack orders out for a while, and then I cruise around helping the new people out with any questions they might have. It makes my day more interesting and IMO, making the new people better at what they do is more valuable to the company than me trying to get orders out.

That seems like a huge amount of people in one section! The largest maintenance section I ever worked for had about 200 people, but we all had different jobs obviously. It did suck when we all had to come in for training (most of the time we split it down the middle for days and nights). Do you guys have a large turnover rate? Im new to this "civilian" stuff so im still shocked at how long people work at one place. Where im working now they always tell me stories about stuff that has gone down over the years. At first it seems like their describing something that happend last year but when I ask they generally say something like "Oh, that was when Joe Numnuts ran the site, so it must have been...1987". I can't remember what happened at work 4 years ago!

[billy007]

I work for Amazon.com, Coffeyville, Ks. FC. I throw the crap in a box, and send it down the conveyor. Lately, since there are now near 200 people in our dept. alone, there isn't much to do as people are stepping on top of people to get to the next available order to pack out so I pack orders out for a while, and then I cruise around helping the new people out with any questions they might have. It makes my day more interesting and IMO, making the new people better at what they do is more valuable to the company than me trying to get orders out.

When did you get back in the 'zon? I remember you getting shafted out a while back.

[billy007]

I remember seeing those Aerostat balloons when I was down in the keys once - took a picture of them I think. Didn't know what they were for, though.

[willy4pres]

I remember seeing those Aerostat balloons when I was down in the keys once - took a picture of them I think. Didn't know what they were for, though.

Hell, I have lived in Yuma for 9 years and I didn't even know such a program existed. The radar they use is pretty cool, in the control room they can see every boat, car, and plane within a certain distance (and it's a pretty good distance).

I need to bring my camera in to take some real photos. I try to explain to my family but you don't understand how big that balloon is until you see it first hand. The wind does a number on it though, especially dust devils. They say that a good dust devil can get the mooring system spinning about 60 mph!

[Rovus]

I bet a lot of the doctors have huge ego's. So, they purchase your insurance just in case someone want's to sue? Can you tell us how much a "typical" policy will cost?

Oh yeah. Asian doctors, especially Chinese, where they're grown up with oriented families and strict expectations can be a pretty demanding bunch. Some doctors I've dealt with have stroppy natures. Alot of them whinge about premium rates and why other companies offer cheaper rates. It's like they've never heard of the term "shopping around". Although very rare, some can be really just plain mean-spirited. One of our elderly members who recently retired was always a pain in the arse to speak with and a bit of nutcase. He would verbally abuse his wife whilst in speaking with him on the phone. Every time when he had to be called, I was always the one who had to ring him because he would loathe when speaking with a female and I was the only male in my team. Needless to say, he was always cool and calm when I spoke with him, but the girls I worked with told me some bad stories on what he would say to them. Another time we had a member who from the moment I picked up the phone immediately exploded into a tirade of foul language and abuse. His complaint was because when a member rings for advice, there's a 2 minute message in which they have to hear cause it's an insurance law requirement and he was just complaining on and on and on about the bloody message and how he's too busy in seeing patients to listen to such a message. It took me a full 5 minutes just for him to calm down and to get to the gist of his query. But at the end of day, I find most of them to be reasonable people. The good thing is when you get on a doctor's good side, they remember you by name. Even when they ring up and they ask for you personally, sometimes you won't recall the name only to find out that you had spoken with this particular doctor a couple months ago. They don't forget you. Besides, alot of them prefer to speak with same person as opposed to getting a different person each time they ring. It's the same when you might have to go to a doctor to get treated for illness and as soon as they find out the line of work you do, you get the feeling that you're receiving extra assistance and care.

They take out insurance to protect them from court costs and litigations when a patient decides to sue them and which could cost them up to $20 million if they fuck up and don't have cover. It's basically a requirement here for every doctor to take out some form of insurance. Even when a doctor works in a public hospital system where the hospital themselves covers them for a claim, then they're still required to take out insurance. Our state's Medical Board will not register a doctor if they don't have insurance and same with hospital/or practice won't employ a doctor without cover. But it depends on the laws in which state or territory here Australia they practice in.

It would depend on what the doctor's practice specialty is and even still there's a whole lot of other factors to be considered which determines a doctor's premium (e.g. extra backdated cover, how much they bill in private practice, if they have government benefit entitlements, etc). From where I work I wouldn't think there's anything known as just your "typical" average policy. Also different insurance companies naturally offer different rates and provide different policy guidelines. If a doctor was a member of ours, your average GP (General Practitioner) would pay up to $5,500.00 a year. Obstetricians, because their level of risk is obviously higher than a GP, then their premiums go as high as $120,000.00 a year. I know one of the main issues we used to have with our company is when we get enquiries, especially from GPs, wanting to do minor cosmetic procedures, particularly botox injections. Because there's an array of lawsuits re botox, insurance companies are forced to fork out millions of dollars to cover those who have claims against them. Because of this factor, to be covered for ANY cosmetic procedure no matter how minor they are, they would be required to be covered at the same level of risk as a Cosmetic specialist, where they pay the highest premium of $180,000.00 a year. I remember I once had a GP ring up and say that he already went ahead and did a botox injection as one-off then enquired about seeking extra cover after he'd done it. So I had to tell him that if wants to be covered he needs to pay us more than $100K. I'm sure he would've resigned his policy and gone elsewhere lol.