Hurry Up... and Wait

The Process

The process is not entirely clear to me yet, but I think I may muddle through.  I sent the application on-line, and got a call from an office in North Dakota. ND, mind you, not Montana, which is where I am at.  I was told my small home town didn't have enough workers to process the on-line apps so North Dakota was helping out.  It's struck me funny because, as a child in MT, the simpleton jokes we told always included a North Dakotan.  

We'd ask "How many North Dakotans does it take to change a light bulb?"  "Three!" We'd giggle, "One to hold the light bulb, and two to turn the chair!" And here I was, relying on this worker in ND to get it right.  But, it seems all she did was review my on-line app, to make sure the info needed was correct, before she sent it electronically to yet another place.  Well, I thought, no wonder she was so pleasant!

I knew they were coming but I didn't realize it would be the next business day.  It was good to have the "Work History" and "Functional" reports in hand so I had something to do, because I was now officially retired.  I figured I'd be done in a day or two, but it was more difficult than I had anticipated. I finally wrapped my damaged brain around the two forms' strange questions and got it finished.
  
Our government is moving to electronic disability claim folders so the finished forms were to be mailed to a "scanning contractor" in Salt Lake City, Utah!  There was a reference to my state's capital city in the send-to address though, so I felt better about sending the reports to Utah. Following Instructions on mailing the reports rivaled actual completion of said reports, sent them off...to Utah. There were no postage fees for returning them, I mean forwarding them, and that turned out to be the best news of all.