Ashamed

There are moments when I'm really ashamed to be working with these people. Like right now.

One of the things we handle here are commutations. (Not for prison sentences, which is probably where most people know that word from, but for money.)

See, what happens in the world is that people get injured at work and, sometimes, the employer's insurance company doesn't think they should pay anything because what if it didn't really happen at work or only part of the injury happened because of the job the person does. That's where this place comes in. Medical records and legal stuff and depositions come in and then a judge tries to help facilitate an agreement between the insurance company and an injured worker that, hopefully, helps to pay for any medical bills the injured worker has accumulated in the, quite probably, years since the injury.

If things go well, the case is settled, quickly, on a Stipulations with Request for Award or a Compromise and Release. The C&R give people a lump sum of money, less any outstanding liens and attorney's fees. The Stip give the person payments in monthly lumps for a certain amount of time and offers the promise of paying for future medical bills that are related to the injury, less any outstanding liens and attorney's fees.

If it doesn't go well, it's a mess.

Anyway, when a person settles their case on a Stip, but are in dire need of money, hopefully for a reason that's related to the injury and not because the person is an asshole who owes $50 thousand in credit card debt, they send in a Request for Commutation from the Far End of the Award. That means the injured worker wants a portion of the money owed them now so they can pay off bills now and their monthly payments will be shortened by that amount. The injured work, though, has to prove that he or she is in need. This usually means there are copies of phone bills, electric bills, credit card bills, and other such things.

Which brings me to why I'm ashamed of the people I work with. TMSV got a Commutation in her work this afternoon. Attached was the copy of the person's credit card statement. TMSV had never seen this before and she got excited. She proceeded to read to all of us the person's APR (which is really, really low, by the way), the finance charges, the amount of cash advances, the amount owed, and some of the places the card was used. BBNG and GICS started laughing and wanted to know more. I didn't. And then the three of them started to discuss some of the places the card has been.

I have to admit that although I'm all for trying to figure out how this person go such a low APR, none of this was any of our business. It's not our job to read through every part of the document. It's not our job to critique the person based on the documentation we get. And it's certainly not our job to laugh at the stupidity of one of the people we're supposed to be helping.

That said, I sometimes do read and laugh, but I never read it to the rest of the people working here or even pass it around for a laugh.

I'm sure this sort of thing happens almost anywhere, but, seriously, whatever happened to respecting a person's privacy?