Meeting, Sort Of

We had a "meeting" at three. It was over the phone with all the other WCABs in the state and the people "in charge" of setting up the system in which people can view public records.

In the "meeting," I learned that there are only supposed to be two people who take requests to view files and process them. These two people are supposed to have their own phone lines so messages can be left for them after hours and when they are on breaks (hopefully not at the same time, but this is the state and we don't actually do things that make sense). These two people are also supposed to handle any redaction that needs to happen. My office has decided to ignore that guideline (or suggestion or rule or whatever they want to call it) and keep our current system of whomever happens to be at the counter or happens to answer the phone first.

I also learned that if it's requested, we are supposed to charge people for copies. The injured worker gets charged $.10 per page plus any postage (although I was told to use "common sense" and not charge an injured worker if they don't want many pages copied; when I asked how many pages wasn't too many, I was told I already know). Anyone else who wants us to make a copy for them gets charged $1.00 for the first copy of each page and $.20 for additional copies of a page. (That means if you're not the injured worker and you ask me to make three copies of three pages, you have to pay me $4.20 for the nine copies before I hand the copies over to you.) All people who are not the injured worker must pay with a check or money order. The injured worker may pay with cash, but we do not have petty cash to make changes, so if the injured worker wants to pay in cash but doesn't want to run down the street to the bank to get dimes, he or she has to give up the whole bill. (I'm looking forward to the day I'm handed a twenty for copying 15 pages and I get to tell them that I'm keeping the $18.50 because the state doesn't allow us a bit of petty cash, but that he or she gets a nifty receipt saying that he or she was charged $1.50 for the copies.)

I was told that we are not allowed to ask to see ID because the person does not have to identify his or herself. I am, however, allowed to ask to see ID if I want to verify the person's identity.

If the person who wants to view the file doesn't want to fill out the request to view form, I'm supposed to read that person the questions and fill it out for him or her.

I learned that there are people to contact if I have questions, but not to actually contact them until I'm sure the question hasn't already been answered for someone because the people I'm to contact to ask questions will be busy answering questions. Oh, and I'm not to contact the person who did most of the speaking over the phone and who also put together the packets everyone had (and the new forms we use) because that person now works for another department. No one was trained to replace the person who created the packet (and the new forms we use).

Now that was a productive 90 minutes or work.