OPM Disability Retirement: In the “not working” world

Excellence is rarely seen; the artisan is dead to the world; and we all struggle through knowing that trinkets from foreign countries symbolize the incompetence of the universe in which we must continue to exist.  Something is not working.  We all know it, feel it, worry about it and whisper in circles where such things are concealed and rarely revealed. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement for Federal & Postal Employees: Staring into nowhere

Except in the slumber of darkness, it is an impossibility of a feat unperformed; yet, the metaphor itself works well, because we all engage in those periods of vacant stares where someone suddenly nudges you back into reality and comments, “It was as if you were lost in thought.”  What does that really mean?  The fact that we can stare, perceive through organically mechanistic means of refractive light upon the cornea of our eyes and yet fail to be “conscious” about the bodily functioning […] Read More …

Medical Retirement under FERS: Why we endure

Why, indeed?  We have all come to a point where we have just had it, and want to “chuck it all” in – into what, we often only have an obscure sense, or none at all, but it is the feeling of having reached a pinnacle of despair and those proverbial depths of despondency.  There is, fortunately or unfortunately, no hidden corner or secret room to which we can scurry away to, never to be seen again, remain unnoticed and left without the troubles of the day. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The touch of life

People often refer to “the touch”; of Midas’ ability to engage in alchemy, now transformed into a metaphor for those whose every endeavor results in financial gain; or of that “soft touch” in the arena of basketball, where the swish of the net and the easy bounce which finds the diameter of the hoop always larger than the irascible target of our trying attempts. But it is the “touch of life” which encompasses all of that, and more. When most struggle with the morning fog of first dawn, and youth craves for the security of childhood but act with cynicism to protect their own pride; and pride itself, foolish in its heart, […] Read More …