Tech Talk / By Martha Knight

Ah, the efficiencies that are accomplished on every hand, thanks to government use of modern technology!

I can’t wait to see whether the Court House door replacement project will include a system whereby the ground floor security guard can lock or release the main entry doors from his station where he can monitor various places in the building.

Wouldn’t it be great if the Court House “handicapped” entry were equipped similarly to school entrances these days, with a camera and buzzer system?

Well, I am not counting on it. The Court House folks can’t come up with a ramp or a lift, nor a mail slot. There’s an HVAC project in design right now—cool! Updated radios, proper data storage and cooling, new carpets, lots of improvements; so maybe more automated doors will soon follow.

Good news from California is that the state has invested in a new computerized system called BreEZe, costing some $52 million, which serves the Department of Consumer Affairs in handling its multitudinous duties, such as licensing everything imaginable. Name a profession, and the CA-DCA licenses it. Hold on. I don’t see the world’s oldest profession on the list. It predates the state, though, so perhaps those professionals are grandmothered.

But barbers and cosmetologists, behavioral scientists (you know, shrinks, therapists without a leading word, head candlers, court appointed evaluators), neuropaths, osteopaths, physician assistants, podiatrists, nurses—those are some of the consumers who rely on the Consumer Affairs crew to issue their licenses. One would think, with the new BrEZe system, consumer affairs would be zipping right along. In California, some consumers’ affairs require prompt action. Assorted sordid Kardashians’ affairs, for instance…

We would think nurses who have completed their training and now want their licenses to be issued so they can be hired would expect those documents to be provided STAT.

But I guess not. They and their would-be employers are counseled to be patient—maybe to the point that they will be patients of the behavioral science professionals, or at least those who have received their licenses before the Santa Anna BreEZe.

A letter on the CA-DCA website, dated February 27, cautions, “Due to circumstances beyond the control of the Board of Registered Nursing, the application processing time for new licenses has increased significantly over the past several weeks.

“We are aware that many employers offer jobs to nursing applicants contingent upon those candidates’ licensure, and that those employers have in the past assumed a much quicker application processing time than we are currently experiencing. This has inconvenienced many of our applicants who, through no fault of their own, must wait significantly longer for a license than applicants have had to wait in the past.

“We expect to have our application processing times back to normal very soon. In the meantime, however, we hope potential employers will recognize that the delays in licensure experienced by their candidates are unavoidable, and that they will be as flexible as they can with those candidates whose licenses have been delayed.”

Okay, now that we know whose fault it is not (the applicants’), whose fault IS it?

There are said to be about 4,000 applicants for nursing licenses in the Golden State. With BreEZe applicants are being asked to fill out and turn in paper applications. Department staffers then have to read the data in the forms and punch it into the BreEZe system. Then in 90 days or so the applicants will be allowed to take the exam.

But it used to take six weeks to two months. So they’re getting there, in California. Leg over leg, as the dog went to Dover.

Meanwhile, Industry, Canada tweets Canadians. Industry is a department of Canada’s government that deals with economic development and the like. It realizes that using Twitter could add desirable immediacy and efficiency in its efforts to reach out to Canadians far and wide.

So many Canadians are so at home in the Twitterverse! They will appreciate receiving messages only 140 characters long, or even shorter.

The immediacy of Industry may not be quite what Twitter devotees have grown used to, though, because Industry personnel’s tweets must make it through a 12-step approval process. We know 12-steppers who wash out somewhere before Step Three, don’t we? Do we think those tweets are going to sail through and get approved by the Industry Minister or the Junior Minister on the spot? More like in a few weeks. Plus, the re-tweets by other agencies need to be coordinated.

Sometimes it needs to be a practical combination of newer and older technologies. Like when a warehouse employee put in his dollar and couldn’t get his 90-cent candy bar out of a fancy new vending machine. After slapping and shaking the recalcitrant machine, the would-be consumer used a forklift to pick it up and drop it, which worked a treat. At least, it caused the parsimonious machine to disgorge three candy bars. The employee did not use that trick again, because he was fired. The company did have the vending machines replaced—maybe with forklift-proof models?

Sometimes, though, technology works pretty much as it should. Like when a security camera yielded video footage of a guy trying to steal the camera. He wore gloves so there were no fingerprints, but he must have forgotten the ski mask.