OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer: Life’s Dispensation

It is often a word which is accompanied with the adjective, “special“, as in “special dispensation”; but a close review of such a phrase would reveal the redundancy of placing the two words together.  For, to have a dispensation is to be offered a unique situation where one is already exempted from the usual and customary rules applicable; and to insert the adjective, “special’, adds little to the exclusionary nature of the occasion.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and where the medical condition is beginning to impact one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties occupied in the Federal sector and U.S. Postal Service, it is the disability and medical condition itself which gives rise to the dispensation requested, demanded or otherwise warranted.

That is precisely why resentment, hostility and exclusion occurs as a reactionary response by the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service: because special treatment outside of the normal rules of employment tend to engender such negative responses.

Filing for FMLA; requesting an accommodation in order to continue working; becoming entangled in EEO Complaints, grievances and the like — they all set you apart, and require actions outside of the normative parameters of daily relationships within the employment sector.  And that ultimate reaction by the agency, of “sticking it to the guy” even when it involves a medical condition impacting one’s employment and livelihood — one wonders, how can others be so cruel?  It is justified precisely through the psychology of the “herd mentality“, reduced to its most natural form in a single question:  “Who does that guy think he is?”

For Federal and Postal employees, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it often becomes necessary to follow up with the ultimate dispensation of that which one’s employment offers — that of filing for Federal Disability Retirement through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

It is not always the case that an employment package offers an annuity which (A) provides for continuation of insurance benefits and (B) allows one to work in a different vocation while receiving the annuity; but Federal Disability Retirement allows for both, so when the situation arises and there is a dispensation which reveals a solution to a problem, it is indeed a special circumstance which should be recognized as such, while ignoring the redundancy of life’s tautology.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer: Catharsis

Medically, it is the process of purgation; in experiential moments of truth and recognition, it is the causal impetus to sudden change or need of change.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, there comes a time when recognition of the linkage between the medical condition and the mandate for change conjoins to create a cathartic moment of realization.

We can fight against it; one can ignore, disregard, suppress or otherwise pretend; but whether one’s imagination and creative cognitive dismissal can continue a fantasy of make-believe, the objective world around us remains steadfast in reminding one that Kant’s bifurcation of the world we live in, like cocoons in a protective shell of discontent, cannot alter the reality of the noumenal reality beyond the cognitive constructs of our own making.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the first step in recognizing the need for change; and waiting upon a true catharsis will often only result in the self-immolation of destructive purgation — for, by waiting for a crisis-point of that moment where change is necessary, the shock of coalescence where circumstances, the medical condition, and the sudden realization of the true state of affairs come to the fore, may be greater than was ever necessary.

Waiting by ignoring is never a wise decision; procrastination of the inevitable is merely an artificial extension of the coming moment of realization; and in the end, disregarding that which everyone else has implicitly recognized, will only allow for the fate of cathartic gods to send down that bolt of lightening when one least expects it.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer: Loss of Identity

It is often the fear of losing one’s identity which prevents one from moving forward and doing what one must, what one should, and what one needs to do in life.

For some, it may involve the complexity of human interaction and involvement with people; for others, a sense of accomplishment and goal-oriented tasks; but for all, the identity of self developed through reputation, interaction, subjectively-held viewpoints and objectively-determined statements of fact: “others” see you as the Federal Air Marshal, the Auditor, the Mail Carrier, the Electronic Technician, the Air Traffic Controller, the Budget Analyst, the Attorney-Advisor, the Administrative Officer, and a multitude of other identifiable positions which grant to the Federal or Postal employee a defined role in the mission of a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

It is precisely that objectively-applied identity, developed through years of self-identification combined with being defined by others, which in their cumulative aggregation, forms the knowledge of self over the years.  Such an identity becomes threatened, however, when loss of position becomes a reality in the fact of a medical condition which begins to prevent the Federal employee or the Postal worker from continuing in the role of the defined position.

For Federal employees and Postal workers who discover that the intersection of life’s misfortunes cannot be fully resolved in favor of what one wants, but must consider what is needed and required, the realization that loss of identity often raises the specter of roadblocks preventing the building of necessary steps, which then results in procrastination and greater loss due to delay, is a daily encounter with contradictions and conflicts which cannot be compromised.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, for the Federal employee or Postal worker who is under either FERS or CSRS, is a necessity mandated by circumstances beyond one’s control. It is when a medical condition begins to impact one’s ability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, that consideration needs to be given to filing for disability with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

The fear of loss of identity-through-job is ultimately an imaginary one, and one which belies the true essence of a person’s identity. One can get caught up in the “mission of the agency” or the camaraderie of corporate functions; but in the end, but for one’s health, very little retains meaning or significance; and to sacrifice one’s health for a bureaucratic entity which will survive long after one’s life, is a folly encapsulating tragic proportions.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire