FERS Disability: opm disability retirement 2016

Federal Disability Retirement: The Problem with Familiarity

June 7, 2019

“Familiarity breeds contempt” — was the unspoken rule within the military class which built a wall between officers and enlisted, supervisors and subordinates, bosses and workers, etc. Why is that? Is it because, beneath the veneer of superiority, we all know that we’re no better than others, and once the imperfections cleverly concealed are unraveled for others to witness, the scoffing laughter and the smirking undertone will openly splatter with a defiance of disdain? […]

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from OPM: Departures

June 16, 2018

How one leaves is often important — not just subjectively, but encompassing consequences and reverberations unanticipated. Consider the ultimate departure — of leaving a Will or not. One might counter that, well, What difference does it make?; I won’t be there to witness what happens after I am gone; and, in any event, who cares if they fight over what little possessions I leave. […]

Federal Disability Retirement: The tangents that bind

August 22, 2017

They are often viewed as mere distractions – those activities that fail to follow the centrality and linear path of core, essential projects. Or, more often than not, they are the wanderings and linguistic meanderings that make verbal communication all the more interesting – you know, that person that suddenly goes off on a tangent and tells an otherwise interesting story, but leaves you scratching your head with puzzlement and left dumbfounded. […]

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: The mud of life

June 13, 2017

The mud of life is the stuff of movies; we can romanticize it, serialize it into a best-selling paperback novel (skipping over the formality of a hardback in order to sell to the masses), and even turn it into a weekly television series; but in the end, what it means is that we are stuck in a rut at a gas station in the middle of a desolate desert with no money and no prospects. That is the metaphor of the phrase itself; there is little hope and even a fewer scintilla of a possibility of a potentiality to hope; many times removed, the mud of life is that period that we all hit now and again, where movement forward will never occur, and misery is the fated future forever and a day, […]

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Tomorrow’s project delayed

February 27, 2017

We tend to delay that which we know is best for us, and embrace the moment for which we pay a dear price. Man was created to engage projects; a purpose for life, a value for living, a reason to live. Why it is important to initiate, continue, accomplish and involve, are considerable in quantity: to make a living; to be compensated for work employed; to create and construct for the betterment of community and the greater world; and not merely because Heidegger posits that it is to avoid our mortality and the inevitability of our fate. […]

U.S. Government Employees Disability Retirement: Failing to meet those goals

February 9, 2017

Goals define an aspect of humanity that differentiates from the beast; just look at nature and the existential encounter with the “now” at all times. Animals besides Man look at the world around and respond appropriately and accordingly. For them, the future is the now; the past is merely a basis upon which to react in this moment of time; and what the appetitive parts of the soul require, the predator attempts to satisfy. Goals, on the other hand, project into the future. […]

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: “Oh, can I help?”

January 16, 2017

It is the grammatical interjection or discourse marker; in either usage, it is in response to some new or surprising information received. Thus do we often encounter that individual (we all know of at least one) who, sitting silently, idly and unnoticed throughout, suddenly perks up after all (or most) of the work has been done – whether in preparation of a meal; cleaning up after the dinner party; or where the main elements of a project have just been completed. And the uninvited interjection: “Oh, can I help?” […]

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Coordinating the efforts

January 14, 2017

The amazement of tandem coordination is discovered in various corners of Nature – of tentacles of an octopus seemingly working without the complexity of entanglement; of an eagle’s capture in mid-flight of its prey, where the claws and wings attack and devour with perfect harmony; and in modernity, the capacity and ability to “multi-task”, as the parlance of efficiency has been noted. The human animal is a formidable creature – perhaps not the best at any one thing (speed is set by the Cheetah; endurance, in the Wolf’s persistence; but of competence in all areas, the two-legged, vertical organism sets the standard for excellence), but able to compensate for deficiencies by exerting acceptable levels of efficiency in many. […]