COMPUTER PROBLEMS. My County computer is down for the third straight day. I have hooked up the laptop the hospital gave me so I can do some work. But, I cannot get my county e-mail on this one. Aaargh. It is frustrating. The County people cannot find the problem and often blame the hospital people. The hospital people always blame the county people. I am about ready to defect and tell the County I am moving off their system and onto the hospital's so I will always have service. That will cause coordination problems with the rest of my office, though.

It is funny. I can run a mile a minute, attending meetings, giving opinions, solving problems and generally taking care of business, then be stopped cold by this bizarre computer connection. I am not even sure what it is. The hospital network is connected to the county network by a "VPN" connection. That stands for virtual private network. I told them it stood for very poor network.

If that weren't enough, the IT department is divided into groups. There is the "network" group. I cannot contact them. They are like a black ops group, only certain people can reach them. The people assigned to my office can fix the pc and help with software installation, but not the network. Plus, I have to call a help desk number to leave a message about the problem.

I am supposed to get a new computer, but that will not help this problem. It will just look prettier when it is not working.

OK, enough venting for today.