FERS Disability: opm reasonable accommodation

Disability Retirement under FERS: Adopting an Adaptive Plan

June 19, 2019

Most of us barely have one; and when we do, we quickly forget about it and move on, satisfied that —by the mere declaration of having one — we need not implement it or follow it rigorously beyond the mere possession of it. The old Soviet Union (do we remember what the abbreviation, “U.S.S.R.” stood for?) had 5 and 10 year plans, and when the stated goals were not met, they simply cooked the books and declared that they were well ahead of the declared plans, and so the satellite nations under the rubric […]

FERS Disability Retirement from the OPM: The prosaic life

April 5, 2019

That is the lot of most of us; yet, the contrast seen in the “entertainment” world is its very opposite. Does it breed discontent (or malcontent)? Does the “make-believe” universe that we surround ourselves with actually enhance one’s quality of life? We not only welcome it; we pay for it, and gladly, so. What does the contrast do to one’s soul — of watching movies involving fearsome technologies that destroy; […]

OPM Medical Retirement under FERS: Castles in the air

April 3, 2019

Is it the same idea as Cervantes’ Don Quixote who charges at the wind mills? Or of Don McLean’s soulful lyrics when he wrote, “And if she asks you why you can tell her that I told you, That I’m tired of Castles in the Air.”? Is there a difference between dreams and visions realized, and those that remain as castles in the air? Are such unrealized castles merely the childish remnants that were left behind within the bundled laughter of grown-ups who saw the folly of youth, […]

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: The recipe

March 12, 2019

There is a fascination with master chefs; the process itself — from a gathering of various food items and the preparation for the grand feast; through the selection and addition of various additives and extras; to the final product that results from the “touch of the master” — which is why entire series of shows are devoted to mass audiences for viewing with a trance-like interest, whether in the monosyllabic tone of various British series that articulate with accented sophistication, […]

OPM Disability Retirement Denial: The Middle Stage

October 3, 2018

It is like those siblings who are “in between”; of caught in relevance and significance by being squeezed on the one side by the “giant first one”, and on the other side by an even greater presence; and, somehow, the middle stage is lost and forgotten. Is that how life itself is viewed, as well? Of being cooed and oohed over the baby-years, […]

Federal Disability Retirement: The regularity of life

November 14, 2017

Metaphors abound, of course; of the stream of life, its cadence, likened to a steady march and the cyclical nature wrapped in the repetition of the growing dawn followed by the setting sun. The regularity of life represents a rhythm and monotony that provides a blanket of comfort (there goes the metaphor, again) that can be extracted from the lack of chaos. Most of us thrive best within the regularity of life’s monotony; it is the very few who seek and relish the chaos of life. […]

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: Of good humor

September 27, 2017

Can it last, and for how long? Are there such people in this world, who wander about and retain a sense of good humor no matter what egregious worldly circumstances devastate and make destitute the trying soul? Or, like that chime that attracts little children to run with abandon into the streets upon hearing the approach of the good humor truck – you know, the company that was sued for creating an attractive nuisance, because children respond […]

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, […]

Early Retirement for Disabled Federal Gov. Employees: Noted durations

April 13, 2017

Don’t you hate those “Apps” that reveal how much time you have taken to engage Activity-X or mindless-video-game-Y? To engage in an aside for pure enjoyment’s sake is to get lost in the moment of leisure, to become engrossed and without a mind to time, problems of the world, circumstances of the present or the irrelevancy of one’s own station in life. To read a book – perhaps of no great consequence, neither a “classic” nor a best seller of sorts; to push buttons in responding to a mindless video game; to have a silly electronic conversation with a spouse, a friend, a daughter or son aside from the seriousness of wisdom, […]

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The party never thrown

April 7, 2017

Why do we have angst over the nonexistent, the unknown, the yet-to-become, while concurrently failing to appreciate the concrete, that which is realized and the presence of those whom we declare to love, is before us and has stood by for all these years? What is it about the future participle of life that haunts us? It is Kierkegaard who gave us an insight and understanding into the anxiety that humans throughout history have felt, of this life of striving for happiness, yet never to be realized because of an inner sanctum of unease and joyless emptiness. […]