&*%#(@+ American Heart Association

Great news that on line BCLS, ACLS, and PALS instructor updates are available on line for me to take so that I don’t have to travel halfway across the country to take them. If only they actually worked and weren’t as buggy as all hell. I took the entire ACLS instructor update, only to find that for some reason your whizbang software didn’t record that I did the second half of the program. So, I had to do that half all over again. Then, when I completed it and passed the rigorous six question multiple guess exam, your craptastic program wouldn’t let me print out the certificate. I figured out a work around, but that’s because I’m a computer geek. I’d guess that a lot of people just gave up on that part. Then I took the BCLS instructor update. Or rather, as much of it as I could because for some reason the software stopped letting me advance through the slides halfway through the first aid part. The software also seems to have erased all record of me sitting through your fifth grade level course as well. I mean, how many freaking times are you going to tell me that there isn’t a lot of evidence to support something but that we should do it anyway? I get it, really I do. Your fantastic medical review committees are grasping around for evidence that anything other than chest compressions and electricity lead to survival much as a blind squirrel hunts around for acorns. I don’t need 100 slides to tell me that, one or two will suffice. At least it’s simple enough that I can blog, read my email, and watch TV while your slides and audio run in the back ground.

Oh woe is me! How am I ever going to learn what the AHA recommends for treatment for snakebites, jelly fish stings, and heat emergencies? How will I ever be able to impart that precious knowledge to my students that live in the snake infested mountains or the jelly fish infested oceans?

So, now I’m stuck two thirds of the way through your instructor update, I get a 404 message when I click on help, and your bankers hours phone help desk has gone home for the night. I’m glad I don’t pay for this crap or I’d be really pissed right now.

I’m going to call tomorrow, but somehow I have a feeling they’ll tell me that they have to reset the course back to the start so I can sit through this all over again. Which, if I were a prisoner at Guantanamo, they wouldn’t be able to do without getting sued into the ground by the ACLU.