Articles from prior issues of The Advocate

July/August, 1996

Outnumbered on the DCM Workgroup in the Blizzard of ‘96
by Gail Karwoski, Texas DDS

HAVING SUCCESSFULLY AVOIDED COLD CLIMATES for most of my years. I was not prepared to do a three month stint in Baltimore when NADE President Larry DeVantier, asked me to serve on the Accelerated DCM Workgroup. However, liking a challenge as I do and being a good Girl Scout who tries to always be prepared, I got busy getting “my ducks in a row”. My first “duck” was getting support from my Commissioner, Max Arrell and my Deputy Commissioner, Ken Vogel. They were great! Not only did they OK my absence from my DE duties for the duration, they offered lots of encouragement. The second “duck” was obtaining blizzard gear. Fortunately, one of my good friends, Gina Corbett, who is my size, (size will not be revealed) moved to Austin a couple of years ago from Ottawa, Canada (real cold weather). Gina was delighted to dig into the vanline clothes hanging boxes to get re-acquainted with her absolutely worthless in Austin, Texas, clothing. Gina has excellent taste in wools, thermals and furs. Thanks to Gina, I pulled together a very nice wardrobe for Baltimore and the blizzard. It’s funny how one pays no attention to weather reports from other parts of the country until one is actually going to go there or one actually knows someone who lives there. Had I really realized what I was in for, I may have declined to test the “thickness of my blood” and the snow repellency of my hair.(Zip!) When Gina insisted that I take some God awful long underwear, I was sure that it was a waste of space in my luggage. Lisa Martin, (TADE) was also very generous in the long underwear department. She even loaned me the pretty blue ones. Her husband Donald Martin (TADE) got embarrassed about delivering them to me at work even though they were incognito in a plastic grocery bag. All other “ducks” lined up quite nicely and on 1/29/96, my Accelerated DCM adventure began. Leaving sunny Austin, I flew into BWI on the dreariest day I believe I have ever seen. All the taxi driver (from Bosnia, two months ago), could say was “kuld, kuld, bery kuld”. I arrived at SSA’s unofficial-official hotel, the Tremont, just in time to exit the taxi into a 35 mph wind (out of the North) and snow flakes as big a quarters.

Some people were actually coming out of the hotel when I arrived. What in the world could possibly be important enough to get sane (at least they looked that way) people to poke their noses out into that blizzard? Not me! Not on your life. Once I got myself indoors I was not going to go outside even on a bet! Not even in Gina’s loaned coat which was lined with nutria fur! I had thawed out somewhat by the next morning just in time to go outside again. There was no getting around it, not my first day of work on the Accelerated DCM Workgroup, not when NADE was counting on me. I layered and layered woolen clothes until I looked 50 llbs. heavier. I realized at that point that Eskimo women are probably svelte and only look large because of all the clothing. Do snow boots go with flared skirts? One learns very rapidly neat little cold weather tricks like don’t completely button up and zip up until you are close to the outside door, (One could smother on the elevator ride down from the 21st floor); like get your SSA ID badge out of your purse before you are standing outside at the door to the SSA shuttle bus with your gloves on; and do not put anything into your mouth that is made of metal which has been outside for even 15 minutes. The first day at SSA Headquarters, where the smart folks eat in the cafeteria and the brave folks go out to eat, was not bad. The folks on the workgroup and on the DPRT were warm and friendly. Why on earth would this group of warm friendly folks need three and a half days to team training? A workgroup weather forecast would have been ideal at this juncture in my DCM adventure. My various boards of directors positions, committee positions and my Robert’s Rules training (under the tutelage of Leslie Hendren, TADE) helped prepare me for the climate of the DCM workgroup, but nothing short of negotiating peace in a third world country could have been as similar. Had it not been for the support of cards, letters, phone calls, faxes and visits from all my NADE family during the blizzard and accelerated DCM Workgroup, I do not think I could have survived. Being absolutely in the minority on the workgroup (many days being the only DDS person there) and having to learn the SSA language, in a new and less than hospitable environment, certainly set me up for feeling like the Lone Ranger. One could wind up with pneumonia going from the heat generated in the workgroup to the blizzard outside. In addition to being out numbered, the “bible” for the workgroup was a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between SSA and AFGE (the Federal Employees Union). Many workgroup members believed if it did not exist in the MOU, it did not exist. Add to the situation five additional realities: 1)that even though two non-union and non-SSA management nominees were in the race for co-leaders of the workgroup, the vote was divided along stakeholder lines (i.e. 3 against 8); 2)that there is a natural tendency for folks' eyes to glaze over when someone starts talking on highly complex and complicated issue that they can’t easily grasp (like medical development; residual functional capacities, medical judgement/integrity and the difference between simply reviewing a claim and actually developing one from scratch), 3)that one of the DDS workgroup members was asked to turn in her badge, clean out her desk and go home (on her lunch hour), 4)that the workgroup product was edited by only three of the workgroup members, none of whom were DDS folks (2 AFGE union and 1 SSA management); 5)the entire edited workgroup product will be submitted to the National Policy Council (NPC) for approval and/or rewrite and/or revision (and there is no DDS representation in this group, only SSA and AFGE) and it’s easy to see who was out numbered here. The workgroup product on May 1, 1996 was 93 pages. By this time, the blizzard of ’96 was over, the Orioles had been thawed by the Texas Rangers, the trees were budding and I had thawed out. I headed back to Texas and the workgroup consensus process, where we were all together as a group, ended. Spring certainly does make things grow. Three conference calls, lots of faxing, and hours of reading later, the final document went out on May 17 for comment. By this time, the document had grown to 128 pages, three of which (at the end) were blank. Guess it is expected to grow some more...