The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board is back with their en banc decisions on Ogilvie and Almaraz/Guzman after reconsideration. 1 Download the Ogilvie/Almaraz/Guzman decisions all in one place:
Each of these four is about 50 pages. Read them carefully, there will be a test later.
And my dream is to do four walk through settlements at three different WCAB district offices in one single day.12
I’ve given this a lot of thought and I even have a plan as to how to get this done. If I ever got the chance to do four walk throughs at four Boards in one day, I’d do it like this:
I honestly don’t even know if this is possible. 3 There are a million things that could go wrong. I could hit traffic, I could be missing a page from a benefits printout, someone could change their mind about the settlement, a doctor could issue a supplemental report. I also know that I would need a LOT of things to go right. Here’s my tentative checklist:
However, having done two walk through settlements in a single morning gives me hope.
Yesterday I received an e-mail from a beta tester, Jeff Duarte, who was having trouble with one of my calculators. He said that he didn’t really understand how to use a particular calculator. My response was:
The problem is not you, its me. :) If I designed my calculator better you wouldn’t have any questions.
Seriously – sorry Jeff, its my bad. My goal is to make these calculators so easy and intuitive to use that no workers’ compensation professional would have any trouble figuring out how to use them. If you don’t figure out how to use it just by looking at it, I designed it wrong. 1 Getting feedback is a very important and instructive process for me. It lets me figure out what works for people and what doesn’t.
The good news is that Jeff”s suggestions have given me an idea on how to make two calculators easier to use and for two entirely new features!
A few weeks ago I launched a Social Security Number verification tool powered by Verify!®. Since its launch its become a very popular tool. One of the coolest things about having these calculators is finding out all of the new ways people think of to use them. These new and unintended uses are almost always far more interesting than the original pedestrian reasons for which a tool was created.
Take Silly Putty for instance. Silly Putty was originally created as a potential replacement for rubber during World War II. It didn’t work as a replacement for rubber, scientists were unable to think of a use for it, and it sat in a lab for years before a toy store owner began stuffing it in plastic eggs.1
Here are a few ideas:
What other uses can you think of?
I’ve been so busy lately I completely forgot to mention PDRater’s second birthday!1
This site was launched on July 23, 2007. For both of you who were using it back then, you remember it was an ugly ugly baby.
I’ve really enjoyed working on this website for the last two years. I use the word “work,” but I don’t really mean it. Building calculators, creating charts, and unraveling the mysteries of Ogilvie are my hobbies too. :)
What would you like to see from this website in the coming year? Please let me know in the comments or send me an e-mail. I already have several (more) new calculators in the pipeline, but I’m always open to ideas.
