Federal Disability Retirement: And then we are gone…

The trailing ellipsis establishes a pause for reflection, and the finality of three periods for an emphasis upon the irreversible nature of the statement.  “And then” connotes that something preceded – a lifetime of activities, a century or less of human historicity involving birth, growth, work, struggles, etc. – existed before the conclusion of the life.  The “we are” slice of the sentence implies two additional variables: the universality of involvement – an event that excludes no one […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: The hospital bed

It is a lonely and demoralizing state of affairs; they poke, prod and insist upon ruling out every sector of one’s body as the culprit of diagnosed maladies. The hospital bed is a barbaric contraption next to a mediaeval torture chamber, and one can only imagine what such inventions were like in those olden days, when antiseptic means meant the possibility of washing one’s hands every now and again, and where pain and death were part of everyday living. It reminds us, above all, of our own vulnerability and mortality; and what a blessing health and life are. […] Read More …

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS: Clueless

We are, for the most part, clueless in most things. Those very limited subjects of which we are deemed an “expert” or having some partial knowledge about, are merely one in a million, and so we walk around thinking highly of ourselves, yet clueless in 99.9% of everything else. Fortunately, there is no criminal statute that can be imposed upon being clueless. Life is complex enough without having to acknowledge that we walk about without any real idea as to how to tackle the problems; but as braggadocio wins the day for most people, […] Read More …