RickInOz

It’s official … all hope is gone. I thought in a world of increasing moral bankruptcy, doctors could still be relied on to maintain standards. Two recent experiences have ruined my delusion.

I keep change in my rucksack. Usually it’s just a small number of dollar and two-dollar coins amounting to little more than $10. This stash was intact last weekend when I took out a dollar to pay for a can of soft-drink. However when looking in it yesterday for some change, there was nothing there. I haven’t taken anything out in the interim, which means only one thing could have happened. One of my supposedly reputable colleagues decided to help themselves to my bag, while it was left in a locked office only accessible to registrars. I wouldn’t have minded if they had asked and would have offered a loan readily. Instead some lazy sod, who couldn’t be bothered to walk down to the cashpoint, stole from me.

The second example was a conversation I overheard between two of my colleagues last week. They were discussing how to obtain a “crack” so they could fraudulently use a piece of software. I wouldn’t have been so bothered if they were talking about a Microsoft product.  Now I know that theft is theft no matter how large and wealthy the victim, but Bill Gates’s empire was built on systematic suppression of competition, unscruplous business practice and gross overcharging on their flagship Office suite. As an aside, no-one should pay full price for Microsoft Office. Get it cheaply through a Home User Program or use OpenOffice, an open-source alternative that will open, edit and save documents in Microsoft proprietary formats and, best of all, is FREE!

Instead my colleagues were talking about iSilo, a document reader program for portable devices. Their attitude annoyed me because:

1. you can try the product for free for a month, and if you don’t like it, simply delete it
2. it is written by a small independent software company
3. the licence only costs 20 dollars.

It is a sad indictment that well-paid doctors are searching for ways to screw a small company out of such a measly sum of money.

Perhaps those Grumpy Old Men are on to something.