The gist is I’m not retired! I’m being medically separated and given a disability pension until I take retirement. What I discovered about myself was I don’t like saying I’m not working due to a disability. I liked saying I’m retired. Ego wise I prefer to be 56 and retired than considered on disability status. Financially the disability pension is a better deal. Emotionally retirement is better.
Why is this an issue? It isn’t like my family, real friends, or even co-workers and students (past and present) care. I’m afraid that potential dates will care. It is like being unemployed. I will be seen as a burden, financially and health wise. I don’t feel like a burden but when people (men and women) look at potential partners they rarely look past the initial information they collect – looks, job, education, health (mental and physical at my age) and how you spend your time (TV, sports, exercise, hobbies). I feel like my “market value” has gone down and I don’t like feeling this way or the fact that this really is how people think. Yes, me included.
On a more Buddhist, self evolved level I realize it will help to eliminate those who don’t deserve me. Those who have a problem with my having fibromyalgia will find out about it earlier and will move on quickly. But when I first understood I would need to honestly tell people I’m on a disability pension instead of retired, I was horrified. I’m way to honest. Though I do say I’m a writer – even if it is an unpaid writer. By the time I actually do retire, I may be a paid writer and never consider myself retired except at online dating sites. But I will tell my dates or potential dates the truth when I talk to them always.
The Technical CRAP
(For UC current or past employees only – others will seriously die of boredom)
After months of waiting and trying to work with the UC system and my local UCD representative I have had my situation explained to me. I am not retired. I recieve a disability pension through the UC retirement system. Some things will continue as they are now when I retire – my health care and dental benefits for example. Others – my pension amount may go up a bit but not much. I will be entitled to a free parking sticker when I retire. I am not eligible now. I will continue to make 40% of my service units a year until I reach my cap in January 2018. In January of that year I will need to decide whether to take actual retirement or stay with the disability pension.
After 9 months I’ve been told that I “should be” completely separated from UCD by the middle of February. I have been receiving the disability pension since November 1st. Of course they gave me $800 a month less the cost of my benefits each month. When I complained that $800 was not 40% of my monthly salary, they told me they would have to do an audit to determine if that was true. At the beginning of the new year – 8 weeks later – I called and found out they had decided to ” bundle the audit when they received the UCD separation papers.” I asked them not to wait for that for several reasons, including their promise that it would be done by January back in November. Plus as I’ve mentioned they are still 3 weeks away from the final separation. Why the delay? I’ll never know for sure. Some one lost track of my application? Definitely, they have admitted to that much. Lack of staffing and inability of the UCRP system in Oakland to communicate with both me and UCD? Yes. But due to staff turn over, staff priorities elsewhere they have been screwing around with my separation at department and UCD HR level since November as well.