FERS disability retirement

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The 90/10 rule

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It is a general principle to which most of us adhere to, or at the very least, confirm and affirm by own own actions or lack thereof. In work, 90% of what we do constitutes drudgery and repetitive toil of uninteresting accomplishments; we strive, however, for that opportunity to perform the remaining 10%, which makes for an interesting career. A similar proportional reflection applies to marriage and love; there are corollaries to the statistical generalizations, however, such as our own children and those of others — where 90% of other people’s kids are bratty and selfish, […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The heckler

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We see them from afar, as lone voices suddenly erupting with disruptive force, often barely audible, sometimes unintelligible, but rarely unnoticed. In some corners of the world, their acts can become dangerous; inciting violence, being put upon by the surrounding crowd; their license to interrupt has been somewhat muted by the responsive threat of retaliation, voiced in more recent days. Most of us sit back and wonder who “those” people are — such fury and passion to deliberately interject without invitation or welcome, and with the full knowledge that the subsequent events will lead to being either escorted out in less than gentle ways, or set upon in more violent fashion. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Government Employment: The Daily Diatribe

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This is an angry time. Contrary to the appearance of sophistication and quiet aplomb conveyed by shoulders shrugged and ignorance attributable, the festering anger which forms a quaking (or quacking?) undercurrent, like shifting undersea tectonics just before a major earthquake which then results in a tsunami, the fact is that the fragile threads of common courtesy and conventional manners have disappeared over time, in increments of eroded concerns, likened to the moth which remained hidden in the darkness of a closeted space, eating away quietly at the fine costumes of societal consternation. […] Read More …

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement Help: Caught in the world in-between

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It is a purgatory of sorts; of the netherworld where twilight is a constancy of confusion, and when neither dawn nor dusk, between summer and winter, or of cognitive clarity and conundrums of confusion reach the pinnacle of an infinite maze.  Do we prefer clarity to confusion, or the light of dawn to a period “just before”, […] Read More …

Early Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The Gatekeeper

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Garbage in, garbage out; leave the door wide open, and the flies come in; “we don’t live in a barn”; and other similar quips, quotes and quotidian truths abound to guide us throughout the day. In Medieval times, the Gatekeeper held a prominent position of authority and safekeeping; trust was of paramount importance, and the potential for bribery to undermine loyalty and fealty to the inhabitants of the Court or Castle meant that treatment of the assigned individual demanded respect as well as adequate renumeration. […] Read More …

Federal Government Disability Retirement: The Best of Mediocrity

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There is an overriding principle that, where excellence is sought, higher expectations are exceeded.  Acceptance of a given human condition and resignation to that which is less than the best, is to embrace the heart of banality and to reject that august status reserved for the human species, of being above the animals and just below the angels. […] Read More …

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Persuasive Impact

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In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, it is important not to confuse the difference between that which is central in proving one’s Federal Disability Retirement application, from that which is merely of persuasive import. In some cases, there may be a necessity, for very pragmatic reasons, to deliberately switch the two; but as a general rule, the argument for persuasive documentation should be used as secondary sources of proof. […] Read More …

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Choosing Battles

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Human Resources departments within agencies are set up in order to perform a multitude of services for the employees who comprise the agency itself, and to that extent, the originating idea which constitutes the founding purpose is a noble one. For whatever reason, however, the foundational principles in the course of an evolving department will often get muddled and lost; the driving principle behind a concept merely gets in the way of a paycheck; the employees for whom the department was founded become the “problem” and an adversarial relationship between the H.R. Department and its employees arises.
[…] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: The idealist, the skeptic and the cynic

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The idealist possesses the dreams of hope and promise; the skeptic, the singe of hurt enough to dampen the spirit; and the cynic, well, he is the grumpy old man who has seen it all, been battered about by the reality of experiential confrontations where tales make the sweat pour from salted wounds too hurtful for words to embrace. Do they represent a tripartite spectrum of thoughts, feelings and motives, or merely unconnected differences demarcated by time, encounters and length of procrastinated envy? Do we all begin with the zeal of idealism, pass through the comfort of skepticism, then end up bedridden in the cocoon of cynicism? […] Read More …

Early Retirement from Federal Job due to Disabilities: Setting up the Contingency for Failure

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We all engage in it, at times; and like the vertical clearance events, like the high jump, the measurement of the horizontal bar can make a difference by fractions of inches or centimeters, and where we place the bar will determine the outcome of failure or success. “If X, then Y,” we whisper to ourselves daily; “If I am able to get through this day, then it shows that I am better, and…” But medical conditions, especially, have an unique characteristic of skewing and distorting the predictable outcome; and, further, when human desire, unfettered by comparative milestones used as “reality checks” […] Read More …