Disability Retirement from Federal Employment: The Methodological Approach

Many call in a frenzy of confusion, admitting openly of being lost and not knowing where to begin. That is always the starting point, as even Socrates conceded — of the hope of knowledge beginning upon a recognition of not knowing (though, if one looked carefully and scrutinized the face and eyes of the old sage, one probably gleaned a twinkle of sly naughtiness). Philosophy began in ignorance, and from there, attempted to ascertain a methodology of approaching problems in a systematic way, in order to overcome the shortcomings of man’s frenetic inclinations. […] Read More …

OPM Disability: The Chasm between Expectation and Reality

Expectation constitutes the anticipatory goal to be attained sometime in the near or far future; reality is the actualization of the potentiality of one’s imagination. That anticipatory potentiality, however, can be formulated based upon numerous factors, including: baseless imagination (more of a child-like quality); desire and hope (with perhaps some admixture of factual context and content, and somewhat of a more mature basis); or sequences of planned actions culminating in a realistic fulfillment based upon actual circumstances analyzed, […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Nature’s Purposive Divide

Teleological ascription accounts for the rational foundation behind the activity of an organism, and explains the “why”, but not that it necessarily “is” or how it came to be. Inertia is the very opposite, or perhaps in Heidegger’s universe, the “nothingness” as opposed to “being”. When bees swarm in a frenzy, there is a “reason” for their activity; and just as the skittishness of a herd portends a sensing of danger, so the aggregation of ants streaming back and forth from a given point normally means a food source attracting for plunder. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Standard Forms and the Proverbial Blank Slate

The paradigm of a tabula rasa is a frightening one. It implies a complete negation of historical context, of evolutionary influence, and therefore denies instinct, nature, and pre-conditional implications. But clearly there are confines and parameters of behaviors, and different species of animals will act in specific ways peculiar to the individuality of the entity, while taking on certain imprinting models if surrounded by members of […] Read More …

SF 3112A

OPM Standard Form 3112A: Applicant’s Statement of Disability:
The constraint of a standardized form, by its very appearance, is itself a self-evident anomaly of conformity; forms, by the very nature of their format, constrains and delimits the ability to respond. Space is limited, and it is intended to be that way. By mandating the completion of specific forms in an uniform, consistent, and universally standardized approach, the applicant who must complete the form must by necessity conform to the regulated approach. […] Read More …

Informational OPM Forms (SF 3107) versus Specific Content OPM Forms (SF 3112)

Categories are important in order to properly bifurcate, distinguish, identify and comprehend for effective satisfaction and completion. If such differentiated distinctions are not clearly understood, one can easily be lulled into responding to a specific-content question as if it is merely “informational” in nature. Thus, for the Postal and Federal employee who is formulating responses to Standard Forms for purposes […] Read More …

FERS Disability Necessary Forms: OPM SF 3112 & 3107

All SF Standard Forms issued by Federal agencies must be distinguished by the specific content of information requested. Thus, for the Federal and Postal employee who desires to file for the benefit of OPM Disability Retirement, the two primary series of OPM (the acronym for the “U.S. Office of Personnel Management”) forms […] Read More …

SF 3112 and SF 3107

Standard Forms tend to require tailored responses. That is precisely what it is meant to do. The very appearance of a Standard Form, or of any forms provided and required by the Federal Government, is intended to specifically contain and constrain responses, as well as an attempt to target a wide range of the population of ages and education groups. What statutes, laws and regulations were promulgated by the formulation of the form; the history behind the legislative intent of the form; […] Read More …

SF 3112

Standard Forms are a necessary part of life. Bureaucracies streamline for efficiency of services; the question of whether such efficiency is for the benefit of an applicant to a Federal agency, or to ease the workload of the agency and its employees, is ultimately a fatuous question: as common parlance would sigh with resignation, “it is what it is”. For the Federal and Postal employee […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Question and Answer

A question presumably is a tool of communication seeking a satisfactory answer; and, conversely, an answer will satisfy the query only upon addressing the specific information sought. Thus, the question is not merely a general request for irrelevant information, […] Read More …