Merry Christmas

 

Christmas Carols For Psychiatric Patients

     I deal with a lot of clients with psychiatric illness. Most Social Security and Disability Determination employees deal with the same mix of claimants. The piece below has been around for years. It may be a bit insensitive but it's funny.

BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER:
Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

DEMENTIA:
I Think I'll Be Home for Christmas

DEPRESSION:
Silent Anhedonia, Holy Anhedonia, All is Flat, All is Lonely.

MANIC:
Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Busses and Trucks and Trees and Fire Hydrants and...

MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER:
We Three Queens Disoriented Are

NARCISSISTIC:
Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER:
Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock,............(better start again)

PARANOID:
Santa Claus is Coming to Get Me.

PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE PERSONALITY:
On the First Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me (and then took it all away).

PERSONALITY DISORDER:
You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll tell you Why.

SCHIZOPHRENIA:
Do you Hear What I Hear?

Merry Christmas

 

"We Will Need Sufficient And Sustained Funding"

     From The Sacramento Bee:

Trying to get through to Social Security on its 800 number? Be very, very patient. Wait times have been averaging roughly 35 minutes. In September, the latest data available, the average time on hold was 34.7 minutes. The shortest average wait so far this year came in May, 28.8 minutes. The longest was in March, 39.8 minutes. ...

Reps. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, have introduced the “Stuck on Hold Act,” which would require the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs, which has also experienced customer service issues, to tell callers the estimated wait times. If the wait is longer than 15 minutes, the agency would give the consumer the option of receiving an automated call back when it is their turn in line. The agencies would have up to a year to put the new system into effect. ...

At Social Security, “We are doing what we can to improve phone service,” said Darren Lutz, an agency spokesman, who cited the hiring of new phone agents ... . The agency has moved to a new phone system, which Lutz said “allows us to receive more calls and provides callers with estimated wait times, and will soon provide an option for some callers to receive a call back instead of waiting in a queue. “ Social Security plans more improvements, he said, though ”to improve our phone service we will need sufficient and sustained funding.“ ...

Merry Christmas

 

Officially On The Job

      Martin O’Malley was sworn in as Commissioner on Wednesday.

     He has no leave built up yet so I guess he’ll be on the job every workday other than Christmas Day itself.

Off Topic For A Slow News Day

     Maybe I’m just confessing that I was ignorant until recently but that song, "Winter Wonderland", that you’ve heard hundreds, if not thousands of times, what's it about? If your answer is "Well, it's about the pleasures of walking in the snow" you're not completely right. Here's part of the lyrics:

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say: Are you married?
We'll say: No man,
But you can do the job
When you're in town.

Later on, we'll conspire,
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid,
The plans that we've made,

Walking in a winter wonderland.

    The song tells a story about a couple becoming engaged to be married or at least contemplating it seriously. Did you know that? I’ll admit that I didn't until recently. Of course, I have a bit of excuse. We've often heard it with different lyrics that don't include Parson Brown and conspiring by the fire but you hear it both ways. I think that most times I hear it, the romantic content is there.

    Anyway, that song, at least as originally written, isn't quite as sappy as I had thought.

Merry Christmas

 

O'Malley Nomination Spurred Few Passions

     From Politico:

... The vote [on the nomination of Martin O'Malley to become Commissioner of Social Security] was 50-11, with 39 senators absent for the chamber's first vote the week before Christmas as lawmakers continue working on an international aid and border security supplemental package.

Longtime Senate reporters and procedural experts called it the worst attendance for a vote that they could recall for at least the last two decades. ...

On The Way Out The Door

     In one of her last acts as Acting Commissioner of Social Security, Kililo Kijakazi issued an apology for her confused testimony before a Congressional committee that badly understated her agency's problem with overpayments of benefits.

    By the way, does anyone have an idea where Kijakazi is headed now? Back to a staff job? On to a new position?

It's OK To Feel Down At Christmas

 

Senate Schedules Vote Today On O'Malley Nomination

     According to the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the matter, there's been unanimous consent in the Senate to vote on Martin O'Malley's nomination today.

    Update: The vote is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. today.

    Update: Martin O’Malley has been confirmed by the Senate.

Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas

 

Christmas Got You Feeling A Little Cranky?

 

Rampant Scamming Of Social Security Recipients

     From Newsweek:

More than $100 million is lost each year due to Social Security scams, new figures from the Federal Trade Commission show.

Already in 2023, the FTC has received reports of 164,413 government imposter scams, with social security scams being the most common of all. The Social Security Administration saw 38,852 reports, with a total of $101.58 million lost to government-impersonating fraudsters. ...

Merry Christmas

 

Workers Say The Physical Demands Of Their Jobs Are Increasing

     From the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

For obvious reasons, people who do physically demanding work are prone to injuring themselves on the job and are more likely than office workers to apply for federal disability benefits.

But is technology changing this relationship?

We know technology has caused a decline in manual labor, and the blue-collar jobs that remain are also easier to perform when machinery and computers are doing more of the heavy lifting workers used to do – think warehouse robots that alleviate the need to lift and carry heavy boxes.

But new research based on a survey of couples between ages 51 and 61 – a population that is particularly vulnerable to illness and musculoskeletal disabilities – finds no evidence they feel the physical demands on them are lessening. If anything, they said, the requirements for motions like stooping, lifting, or crouching have increased somewhat since the early 1990s.

Their perceptions conflict with the other studies showing an easing in the demands on blue-collar workers. But those studies are not based on what older people are saying about their jobs but on analyses of an occupational database that rates the intensity of the specific tasks required in each job. One example is how many pounds a warehouse worker must lift and how often that is required. ...

Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas