A Tribute to Open Enrollment
The
editorial board has reminded me that it has been a few weeks since I have written
a blog entry. So, with apologies I humbly
submit a health update and the state of my job.
To be fair, I
am still working on getting back to 100% health wise. I still have a few more weeks for physical
therapy, but I have all but abandoned using the cane for most of my walking. It was a busy week last week: a birthday and
an anniversary in the same week. Fortunately,
these events only come once a year.
Speaking of
annual events, my employer is having its open enrollment season. It’s not simply open enrollment for my company,
but its also open enrollment for about a gazillion other companies which has
hired us to answer any and all questions about their health insurance offerings
in the coming benefit period from their employees. And guess who gets to answer the calls from
these employees?
Stress at work
is an understatement for my job at this time of year.
It would not
be so bad if these callers did not wait until day 13 of their 14-day open
enrollment period to call in and ask a question about their coverage that
requires (at minimum) at least two days of research to answer. And God help us all if we can’t answer their
question RIGHT NOW. President-size hissy
fits ensue.
I figure we
have three more weeks to deal with these people before we can get back to our
day-to-day working of other client’s cases. Traditionally two things happen at open enrollment at my job: it slows
down by Thanksgiving which this year is coming early on November 22, and the
days of the month of November race by in a blur. Once it is all said and done we have no memory
of the month.
Management
does their best to keep everyone’s spirits up. Last week we had a free pizza lunch on a few days, and they bring in
dinner for those who work extra hours after their usual 5:00p leave time. A pot luck is scheduled for this Friday.
It may not
be much in the grand scheme of things, but it does help a bit.
Anyway, I
don’t think these mere words (392 so far) can fully convey the raw passion of
open enrollment. I’ll leave that to Sam
Kinison. You may remember his misogynistic
comedy from the 1980’s, and I am in no way, shape or form celebrating that aspect
of his work. However, he did have a
unique way of expressing mankind’s basest forms of frustration which I think
sums up this whole open enrollment business quite well. To wit:
Any questions?
(Thank you
for reading and thank you Sam, wherever you are.)
posted by todd gunther | 6:38 PM
|
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