Since Hearings are Conducted in English, I Suggest that We Define Our Terms with a Dictionary -- TEAMWORK

In a recent disability hearing, the ALJ directed the vocational witness to assume "no teamwork." I really get excited when I hear this limitation because it means that the person cannot work, I will win this case. I start with John Donne's For Whom the Bell Tolls:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

First line, there it is, no man is an island. We are all interconnected in life, death, and especially in work. SSA knows this. POMS DI 25020.010.B.3 describes worker functions critical to performing unskilled work:

             3. 

Mental Abilities Critical For Performing Unskilled Work

g.  work in coordination with or proximity to others without being (unduly) distracted by them.

 The Department of Labor confirms the concept in the Occupational Requirements Survey. 

Series ID: ORUC1000000000001186

Not seasonally adjusted

Series Title: Percent of civilian workers; with basic people skills

Requirement: Cognitive And Mental Requirements

Occupation: All workers

Estimate: with basic people skills

Year	Period	Estimate
2022	Annual	38.8

https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/ORUC1000000000001186

Only 38.8% of jobs require basic people skills? That means that basic people skills are not required in 61.2% of jobs! That's right Bucko, those jobs require "more than basic people skills." 

Series ID: ORUC1000000000001187

Not seasonally adjusted

Series Title: Percent of civilian workers; with more than basic people skills

Requirement: Cognitive And Mental Requirements

Occupation: All workers

Estimate: with more than basic people skills

Year	Period	Estimate
2022	Annual	61.2

https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/ORUC1000000000001187

That is why I get excited when I hear "no teamwork." The person is unemployable. The child that comes home with a report card that plays well with others occasionally but does not play well with others 67% of the day or more has serious problems at school and has a very hard life ahead. No person is an island. We are all interconnected. For the lay person out there, lawyers are morbid people -- the worse the problem the more animated we become.

So the vocational witness testifies that a person limited to no teamwork can perform a couple hundred thousand jobs. I ask how the witness understands "teamwork." I get a bucket of drivel that defines teamwork to the point where people are in each other's pockets constantly during the day. I ask the witness to assume that teamwork means:

: work done by a group acting together so that each member does a part that contributes to the efficiency of the whole

I inform the witness and the ALJ that the definition comes from Merriam-Webster online dictionary.  

Well, if you want to define the term that way, then there are no jobs.

Let's be really clear on this point, that is no my definition of teamwork, it is the culturally and linguistically accepted meaning of the work as reported by the dictionary. This is not Humpty Dumpty:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

Witnesses do not get to use their own private definitions of words. Words have meaning and if we do not agree on the meaning of words, we cease to have the ability to communicate. The loss of communication for a social species means that we cease in the ability to be social. I read it in a book one time, maybe more, perhaps you have seen it too:

It is not good for the man to be alone. 

The administrative process is hard enough but when the administrative process signals a breakdown in culture, when the witnesses torture themselves to get to an outcome that is simple unsustainable, when words cease to mean what we have agreed as a culture that they mean, then we are all in serious trouble.


Talk me off the ledge.


___________________________

Suggested Citation:

Lawrence Rohlfing, Since Hearings are Conducted in English, I Suggest that We Define Our Terms with a Dictionary -- TEAMWORK, California Social Security Attorney (August 4, 2023) https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com

The author has been AV-rated since 2000 and listed in Super Lawyers since 2008.