You might want to consider writing a new blog post about this feature of the story. One thing that was reported in the paper is that Epic is "encouraging" QAers to donate the money to Access Community Health. Epic's communications to QAers about the settlement have been very good at those things Epic does to explain how you can give the money to Access, or keep it for yourself, but choose carefully. One quickly gets a sense of what the "careful" choice is.Conflict of interest is nothing new for Judy, but this takes it to a new low. It reminds me of those mining towns where everyone worked in the mine. The mine would own the housing, run the only store, and pay wages in store credit. It was a more creative form of slavery, and it's one of the reasons why labor unions were necessary.
What I'm surprised nobody has mentioned is that Judy's husband, Dr. Gordon Faulkner, is a physician for Access. I think Access is a worthy cause and have nothing bad to say about them. They do a lot of good work in the community. However, something feels very wrong that Epic has settled a court case over accusations of misdeeds towards its employees, and is exerting influence over those very same employees to send that settlement money to the employer of the founder's husband. If this isn't illegal, it at least feels unethical. And a bit arrogant and ignorant on Judy's part to think that it wouldn't be noticed.
Judy could have picked any charity. Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, American Red Cross, Madison Ballet, heck, even Planned Parenthood and Organizing for
The only thing I regret about the timing of my departure from Epic was that I missed the internal reactions to the QA lawsuit. They'd need extra popcorn for the staff meeting where that came up.
ReplyDeleteWhat is sad is that I can honestly see a lot of my former colleagues in QA smiling and dutifully forking over their settlement checks as ordered, even talking about it in pod meetings or division meetings like some sort of moral imperative. I'd go so far as to wonder if they went around the table asking everyone if they had donated yet.
As for me, I took mine as overdue severance.