Progress of Convenience and Emotional Comfort

At least once a year, I have to go through this process of discussing my Disability status with the powers that be. This always involves me giving them information that they a. already have and b. can get themselves just be pressing some buttons. Still, for some reason, one agency never wants to talk to another agency, so I have to be the one gathering all the info for them. I honestly don't mind . . . other than points a and b. Okay, I also mind because it's usually nerve-wrenching and takes forever.

In the last year though, the government has done a lot of stuff to restructure their printable files. One of the things I noticed when I was getting my tax forms was that everything was more or less easy to find and printed off without too much of a hitch. It was a small comfort in the midst of a crisis.

SSA has also made things easier and more available. There are a lot of security checks one has to go through (as there should be with any kind of government database), but once they are sure you are who you say you are, it's not really all that difficult to print off the information you need.

How did this help? Well, any time you're having to send information to one government agency, there is always a deadline. It's usually about a month from when the letter (informing you that you that this process has started) is sent out.  That seems like plenty of time, but if you're having to get information from another agency, said information could take up to two weeks to arrive by the mail. This cuts your time closer, and trust me, when you're dealing with stuff like this, you don't want to get too close to the deadlines.

However, printing out what you need takes almost no time at all . . . depending on the speed of your internet connection and reliability of your printer. Instead of worrying for two weeks or more about all the possible things that could go wrong with your information in the mail, you can sit quietly in your home and watch it as it prints its happy little self out.

Any time you have to deal with paperwork that is sent to the government, it can eat at your soul. Any steps that you can take to make this less painful should be taken. Even if it's not something for the powers that be, it's always best to see if you can cut time out of any tasks by finding faster solutions. It takes things off your To Do list and removes some of the stressors from your brain.