FERS Disability: fers opm reasonable accommodations request

Medical Retirement from Civil Service: Erasing imprints

April 29, 2017

We spend half of our lives trying to accomplish that which may never be done; go to others to obtain guidance; take medications in order to stamp out the cacophony of voices from a past regenerated in mindful moments when reflection is not what we want but quietude away from the cackle of memories. Imprints are those stamps that remain with us, like burn-marks seared indelibly into the far corners of body parts unreachable and unseen but by the telescopic lenses of our own souls. Perhaps the memories have faded, or we simply cannot pinpoint that precise moment when the stamp was made, […]

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The precarious self

April 24, 2017

Self-preservation is said to be high on the list of instinctive survival mechanisms – that which society cannot “un-learn” because of the inherent nature of such evolutionary entrenchment of DNA-coded characteristics. It used to be that, whether in the mythical “State of Nature” as advanced and envisioned by Locke, Hobbes or Rousseau, or the more fossil-based models as posited by anthropologists, the individual who was widely considered as a precarious survivor was quickly extinguished from the gene pool either though acts of foolish daring or by neglectful carelessness. […]

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Designing a different biography

April 4, 2017

Each of us has one, but we know not what it states; for, it is what is written and carried by someone else, and not from ourselves. Yes, yes, we also have an “autobiography”, as well – a narrative of how we see ourselves, in what manner, of what form, in what scintillating and scandalous light. But it is the collective viewpoints of all whom we have encountered that comprise, constitute and in the compendium of the aggregate, tell the story of “that person” – you. […]

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Loyalties unrequited

April 1, 2017

Like the letter expressing undying love, returned without a forwarding address and stamped with a vengeance with ink smudges unable to erase. Of course, such imagery is likely to be a puzzle and an unknown quantity for most, as no one writes letters, anymore. What would be its modern equivalent? An email returned, a text message ignored, or a Facebook request blocked? Loyalties, on the other hand, are a funny thing; if left unspoken and implicitly assumed, each party to the “agreement” of loyalty can walk about with differing perspectives and alternative understandings. […]

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: The compromised life

March 20, 2017

We all make them, though we deny it. Iconoclasts scorn it; the extremes of either side scoff at it; and, in the end, it reflects the reality of who we are, how we live, and by what vaunted principles we purportedly possess. On a theoretical level, it is easy to remain the stalwart – that singular entity standing on principle and commitment. The one who has never experienced war – to express beliefs of “courage”, “unwavering loyalty” and blind bravery declared in wrappings of the flag and national identity. […]

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Leaving things to pure chance

March 2, 2017

We rarely do that. Yes, we sometimes allow for a partiality of such circumstances to remain, knowing that it may or may not happen; but the conceptual distinction between “pure” and left otherwise is a gap likened between omniscience and imperfect knowledge, or the ability to observe brilliance in action while the rest of us scrounge about for some semblance of competence. Then, of course, there is a wide chasm in the spectrum of what it means to leave things to chance, in contradistinction to “pure” chance. The difference is often seen as tantamount to the extreme arbitrariness of lack of human involvement […]