Our corporate culture

It's a funny place, this company. Patterned after the Microsoft / Google model of casual dress and loosely structured work environments. It's made even more interesting by the corporate policy of hiring most of the employees straight out of college! A few amusing incidents have occurred along the way:

• My first day of class, we were instructed to "find a seat and grab a companion". I was rather alarmed at first, thinking, "I am a happily married man!" Turns out, "companion" is the company's buzz word for the training manuals :)

• My birthday occurred the second week of classes. Ironically, another trainee shares my birthday. She wrote a message to the 50 members of the training group, "Please feel free to join my boyfriend and me for dinner to celebrate my birthday." Since it was my birthday too, I RSVP'ed and went with a bunch of other folks to the celebration for my co-worker... who turned TWENTY-TWO !!!

• A few weeks back, my son Chris (age 15) spent the week here with me. I had just moved into a new office, with an extra desk. After helping me move, Chris sat down at the spare desk, put on his headphones, and started listening to some music on the laptop. The Division Assistant coordinating the move dropped in, and I asked her to have the extra desk removed. She said it would be fine, but then gestured at Chris and added, "after we get him moved into his new office".

• Finally... I still get the occasional call from job recruiters. When I tell them I have been hired at my new company, the response is typically, "Wow! They only hire the best and the brightest. You must feel like you're 21 years old working there." My reply: "Naw... I feel more like I am 100."

It's true, the hiring process here is based largely upon APTITUDE. The strategy is, find the best available talent, bring them on board while they are young, and you can train them with the skills and attitudes necessary for success. Of course, that doesn't hold true for the docs they hire, because the clinical experience adds credibility. But I still had to go through an entire battery of aptitude tests with my interview.

The success of the hiring strategy is evident in the success of the company. Here's a testimony to the quality of the people who work here:

http://histalk2.com/2010/07/07/histalk-interviews-daniel-barchi/