Remarkable, supportive, friendly and fabulous.
Those are some of the words used by Elizabeth Block to describe Samaritan Health Services, where she works remotely as an SQL database administrator in the infrastructure division.
Elizabeth has experienced a variety of corporate cultures through her career. In her opinion, Samaritan rises to the top for its encouraging and friendly atmosphere.
“I have worked at a bunch of different places, yet I have been so impressed by the culture here,” she said. “The thing that makes a huge difference for me is that management doesn’t just say they care about the employees – they really do. I liked the onboarding process for new employees; it was clear and descriptive. It’s always a nice place to work and management tries to help you do the best job you can. It’s kind of remarkable and the management is fabulous.”
In her position, Elizabeth helps to manage 100 database servers that store information for computer applications used within Samaritan. She makes sure the servers are working well in the backend so that frontend users in the clinics and the hospitals experience optimal performance. She makes sure all backups work; she prepares for any upcoming database upgrades and she helps the team troubleshoot when problems occur.
“In a good organization such as this, when things go wrong people aren’t pointing fingers,” she said. “Instead, they try to fix the problem and not blame somebody else.”
When Elizabeth explains her job to non-techie people, she says she gets paid to worry about servers, just like a mom.
“Moms worry about whether their kids’ pants are still fitting or if they’re too short and in a similar way I worry about my servers. Did they get their backup? Are they running out of room? It does involve programing and I like that, but I also enjoy just keeping track of things, making sure everything is running smoothly,” she said.
Before joining Samaritan, Elizabeth was employed at another Oregon health care company. On the day she and many others were laid off, a former Samaritan employee suggested she apply here, telling her it was a great place to work.
“That made a big difference because without a recommendation you don’t really know what the place is like,” she said.
She had just four months to get to know her new Samaritan coworkers in Corvallis before the pandemic hit and she began working remotely from her home in Eugene. She misses the human connection but thinks Samaritan and her department are doing a good job navigating the virtual work world.
She enjoyed the commute between her home in Eugene and Corvallis before “going remote” and hadn’t planned to relocate due to family in Eugene. Now, she works from home in the company of her “wild roommate,” a tabby cat named Trevor.
Even with the ups and downs of changing jobs, the pandemic and working from home, Elizabeth is grateful for it all.
“I feel so, so blessed,” she said.
Looking for a new job? From housekeeping to nursing and accounting to managing, there are a lot of opportunities to explore at Samaritan Health Services.
