What do you do?

Yesterday I met up with some Peace Corps friends for dinner. It's interesting seeing what everyone's done since then, it's kind of what I imagine a college or high school reunion would be (except with more awesome people). Anyways, it seemed so long ago since Peace Corps and I distinctly remember how I thought then compared to how I think now.

When I graduated college, I remember that the last thing I wanted to do was work in a cubicle slaving away on some type of Office Space "TPS report". Thus I joined the Peace Corps and went out to 'do good'! I was 20 years old and although I wasn't sure how or where, I had an intense passion to do something, anything. I wanted to change the world for the better, even if it was only a small footprint in the remotest corners.

Now I'm here, a few years older, and doing reports. I'm a 'Business Analyst' and I have trouble explaining my job sometimes; I bounce around projects implementing software systems, pulling statistics, and creating reports. And I'm content with what I do because I think differently; reports aren't a waste. If done correctly, I think reports supplement 'doing good' by making it as efficient as possible. In fact, I think 'doing good' is almost wasted if it's not correctly implemented.

Here's an example:

As I'm about to leave on Friday, I'm asked to help on another quick project; our Business Development department needs to know the types of hospital operations and its frequency for the Tijuana and San Diego area. Ok, I'll look it up.

Here's some context behind the report. The children's hospital that I work for helps every child, even if they can't pay for the operations. Because of it's reputation as a top notch hospital, people will cross the border to receive the best care possible. Usually, a lot of these across the border operations fall under the 'parents can't pay for it' section.

Tijuana's hospitals are planning to upgrade their facilities, but don't have the analysis capabilities that we do. This research helps them make an informed decision on what types of operations are likely to be needed and thus what types of facilities to build.

By helping them out, the result is that parents don't have to drive all the way up to San Diego for good care, Tijuana hospitals can offer better immediate care, and we have less 'no pays'. Win for everyone.

I get to play a very small part of this and I think it's neat. I like being part of an efficient system in 'doing good', even if it is doing the reports.