Question

analyze the incident in hal rainey a funeral in the public service in relation to the issue of values

what was the values of the AD ?
what were the values of the file cerks?

Answer 1

For a long span of time, the Social Security Administration followed a very bureaucratized process for dealing with claims. A claim is a request for services, such as an application by a retiree’s for Social security administration to start paying their social security benefits. For example, providing monthly pension. Claims handling also consists of various things, such as updating records, adding and removing dependents and relatives from records, dealing with variations in the requests, and other problems.

For years, the claims would be dealt like this:- a client would apply at a local SSA office, or by mail. The local office would forward the claim to 1 of 8 public service centers in eight different regions in the country. At the PSC, a different unit would handle each different stage of dealing with the claim. One unit would receive the claim and forward it to the others. Another unit had specialists in specific fields , called claims authorizers , who would rule on the legality of the claim—did the person have a lawful claim? Then a claim would be shipped, with a huge batch of other claims, to a following unit that contained benefits of authorizers, or specialists who would calculate the amount of money the client should receive in social security payments. Then the claim would move to next unit for disbursement or payment of claims, and to another for filing and possession. This process was like a very long assembly line, with the claim moving from one stage of the work to another.

The A.D. learned of the file clerks’ sadness in a unbiased dramatic way. In his office one day, he got a request from one of the members of the file clerks’ unit to come downstairs to their office. When he went there, he found the office draped with black crepe and balloons. A large black casket lay on a desk in the center of the room. The file clerks started singing funeral songs. A spokesperson for the group came ahead to notify him that they were there to hold a funeral for the unit of file clerks, to mourn the death of the file clerks.

The A.D. was shocked. He had heard that the file clerks were disheartened with the changes he had implemented, but had no expectation of such a development. He was uncertain on how to proceed. He was not really certain what the “funeral” was supposed to mean, except that the file clerks were sad. Questions were in his mind. What should he do now, as he faced the file clerks and their funeral? What will he do in the long term? Should he regulate them? He knew that people in rest of the units would be informed of how he behave towards these file clerks and many would complain if he “let them leave” with such disturbances and disobedience. Because of the difficulties referred earlier, that file clerks often had with red tapism or non attendance, the discipline and working habits of the file clerks were troubles in the public service centers.