Fair and Balanced

Caedmon (thought bubble): Well, here I am, at my first temp job for Also-Ran Temporaries. Simple data entry, they tell me – some surveys sent out by an HMO.
Caedmon (thought bubble): Although I am morally and politically repulsed by the idea of people making a profit off of other people’s illness, I have agreed to give it a fair try. Let’s look at a sample survey question.
Survey page: “In view of his position regarding national health coverage, what is your opinion of Bernie Sanders? Is he…”
Options on the survey: An idiot / A communist / A crackpot / A terrorist / A danger to America’s health industry     Caedmon (thought bubble): Fair and balanced, I see.

Back when they were still known as HMOs (“Health Maintenance Organizations”), I worked for one as a temp. Their survey wasn’t quite this blunt, but it certainly didn’t include all of the options that I’d have offered for various questions. In fairness, it was about customer satisfaction more than anything else; the closest they got to asking about anything to do with “socialized medicine” was to ask something about experience or dissatisfaction with how the client saw Medicare, of which they had no part. I’ll refrain from calling their survey questions and multiple-choice answers prejudicial. I’m just letting you know where the inspiration for this comic came from.

Chapter

  • Caedmon the Office Temp

Location

  • Caedmon's Workplaces

Characters

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