✶ The Sisters Guide to Becoming Disabled

Congratulations. You have been selected for a brand new role: Disabled in America. You did not apply for this position, but the system has decided you are the perfect fit.

Below is your official onboarding packet. Please read carefully. Your survival may depend on it.

✶ Compensation Package

Your salary will be adjusted to reflect your new position.

  • Income Reduction: Expect a 50 to 80 percent decrease.
  • Bonuses: None.
  • Raises: Also none.
  • Cost of Living Adjustments: Do not be silly.

You may spend months or years proving you cannot work while being expected to survive without income. This is normal and not considered a system error.

✶ Benefits Overview

Your benefits package has been carefully designed for maximum confusion and minimal support.

  • Health Insurance: If you cannot work, you lose it. Healthcare is tied to employment, so becoming disabled often means becoming uninsured unless you qualify for Medicaid.
    Note: Tennessee has not expanded Medicaid.
  • Paid Time Off: Every day is PTO, but also none of it is PTO. You are not working and also working full time to prove you cannot work.
  • Retirement: Hilarious.

✶ Work Expectations

Your daily responsibilities include:

  • Managing symptoms
  • Navigating inaccessible systems
  • Filling out forms that contradict each other
  • Calling offices that close at 4:30 PM
  • Explaining your condition to strangers who have Google

You will attend regular performance reviews conducted by people who have never met you.

Review outcome: “We have determined you are not disabled enough.”

✶ Corporate Culture

Disability Inc prides itself on resilience, grit, and unnecessary paperwork.

  • Waiting on hold
  • Repeating your medical history
  • Crying in parking lots
  • Googling what medically necessary means

Welcome aboard. We are sorry.

✶ Your Manager

Your manager is The System, known for:

  • Poor communication
  • Unrealistic expectations
  • Gaslighting
  • Losing your paperwork
  • Asking you to try harder at being disabled

You will report to them daily.

✶ Training Modules

Your first 90 days include:

  • Module 1: How to fill out forms that ask the same question 12 times
  • Module 2: How to prove you cannot work by working full time on paperwork
  • Module 3: How to survive without income while waiting for decisions
  • Module 4: How to pretend you are not panicking about healthcare

✶ Company Values

Disability Inc is built on:

  • Confusion
  • Contradiction
  • Bureaucracy
  • We never received your paperwork

✶ Promotion Opportunities

You may advance to one of the following titles:

  • Medically Frail
  • Unable to Engage in Substantial Gainful Activity
  • Still Waiting on a Decision

Advancement is slow and based entirely on suffering.