Reading What The Claimant Writes

My day started with me going to my boss to ask a question.

The prospect of doing this, to me, sounds as much fun as taking a belt-sander to my scrotum. But I went to him, because I had a question that needed answering.

I had a claimant who said that he worked as a "mechanic helper", but he didn't give a description of this job. So, because we have been told over and over that we shouldn't base our decisions on the title of the job the claimant gives, but rather, an actual description of the work done, I called him and said he had to fill out a form describing the jobs he had for the past 15 years, not just giving us a title of the jobs he had done for the past 15 years. He wrote back and said that the ONLY job he had within the past 15 years was a job with the title of "handyman", and this type of job would be described as "lawn care". He then goes on to describe his job of handyman as cutting grass, taking out trash, and cleaning up around the homes of people he worked for. I wrote in my report that, based on his illnesses, he couldn't return to work as a "handyman", as he describes it. It was returned to me by a member of our QA department, who admitted to not really looking at the case before she sent it back to me, but based on a cursory view, she wanted me to change the term "handyman" to "mechanic". I puzzled over this for a moment, then took it to my supervisor. She was admitting she hadn't really looked at the case, and it sounded like she was using the title of the job rather than the description the claimant had given us. So I went to my supervisor, who told me that I needed to change it to mechanic. He, too, hadn't looked at the case. I told him I was just coming by to make sure that was the correct thing to do, as our QA woman said that she hadn't looked at the case and it seemed that she was just basing her decision to change those words on the title of the claimant's work, rather than his description of the work. My boss then opens the claimant's description and reads it to me. "The claimant says," he starts in, already with a very belittling tone, "that his job *title* was as a handyman, but if you read his description-- 'cuts grass, takes out trash, cleaning up around the house'-- that's clearly a mechanic. You see, you can't go off the title of the job, you have to read what he says about it." I looked at my boss for a second, because I couldn't really believe that he was using the words "cuts grass, takes out trash, cleaning up around the house" to describe somebody who fixes engines, and then I said, "I *did* go off the claimant's description, which is why I'm here making sure that I should do what the QA woman wants me to do." My boss got visibly agitated with me, and read the description again, out loud, as if I didn't know what the description was. Then he looked up the description I had cited from our job dictionary. The description in the job dictionary of the job I was sending the claimant back to was described as somebody who, amongst other things, cleans around the house, picks up trash, and cleans heaters and coal-burning stoves. The job dictionary title for this job happened to be "handyman". My boss then said, "We've said over and over, you can't use the title of the job! You have to READ what he actually does! He doesn't say anything about heaters or coal-burning stoves!" I tried to explain to my boss, again, that I did read what he said, and that's why I made the decision I made. My boss then told me that, if I had any questions about what job to send the claimant back to-- "What do you think you should have done?? You call the claimant and find out what he's talking about! If you're case had passed through our QA people and gone on to somebody in the Dallas or New York branch and they had taken a look at it, they would have punched all kinds of holes in it!" I really couldn't believe that he was suggesting I contact the claimant AFTER I HAD CONTACTED THE CLAIMANT! So I said, "I feel ya. And I made the decision I made based on the evidence I received after contacting the claimant and getting a better description on his job. When I have questions, I ask them, and I certainly didn't make the decision I made in an attempt to screw up on purpose. Based on the training you helped give me, I made the decision I made and was just asking if the requested corrections were the correct ones, as the Quality Assurance worker had not had sufficient time to review the case before sending it back to me." As I was leaving, my boss said, "You gotta make sure you read what the claimant writes, don't just use the title of his job and think you can send him back to that work."

I've got ten more hours to work today.