We all groan about it (well, perhaps there does exist a 1% who never worries about it). We complain and moan. There is never enough. When an unexpected amount is received, it provides a momentary thrill.
Idealists bemoan it but recognize its transactional necessity in an economy no longer viable in bartering terms; talking heads who self-proclaim to be “financial experts” (whatever species of animals they are, no one knows) talk about value, worth, “printing too much”, “pumping” too little, etc., leaving us all confused. In the end, it is always a matter of, “How much”.
For Federal Employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition necessitates filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from OPM, the question of “how much” is a simple calculus of receiving 60% of the average of one’s highest-3 consecutive years of Federal Service for the first year, then 40% every year thereafter until age 62, at which point the annuity gets recalculated based upon the total number of years of service when you reach age 62, including the time that you are on disability retirement.
Thus, you are actually “building up” your regular retirement by being on disability retirement, as those years you are on disability retirement count towards your total number of years of service when recalculated at age 62.
Imagine that — you receive an annuity (money) while on disability retirement, and at the same time, you are building up your retirement system so that, when you turn age 62, those years you were on disability retirement are calculated and added on to the years of Federal Service you had before you went on disability retirement. It is money well earned and deserved.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Lawyer
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OPM Disability Attorney: Playgrounds and the Collective Institution of Fair Play
We learn it early on; the unstated rules, the lines which may not be crossed, and to be weary of those whose reputation precedes them for the blatant disregard of both. How they are learned; what they are; whether explicitly stated or impliedly conveyed; few, if any, have a memory where the Head Mistress of the Universe of Playgrounds sat us all down and said, “Now young ladies and gentlemen, here are the 10 rules of fair play.” Regardless, we all somehow came to recognized and apply them.
Wittgenstein provides some valuable insight into the way we learn the language games involved in game-playing; much of it is through sheer doing, an ad hoc manner of practical reasoning and applied rationality. And then, of course, we become adults (yes, at least most of us do; some, left behind on the playgrounds of life, remain as infantile cherubim, clueless and naive to the cynical ways of the world); and it always seems as if the same ones who violated the rules of the playground are the ones who flaunt the normative constraints of the greater universe.
For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are formulating a strategy for filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether one falls under the general aegis of FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the question often must be confronted as to the Supervisor, Manager, or even a fellow coworker who is pining for a confrontation and direct disregard of the collective institutional enforcement of what everyone else knows as “fair play”.
This, despite the fact that there are multiple Federal laws governing treatment of individuals with known medical disabilities. But the Federal “system” of retaining workers with medical conditions and disabilities, and the perfunctory requirement of accommodations and the search to provide adequate accommodations, undermines any compelling force to restrain the playground bully.
OPM Disability Retirement benefits, filed either through one’s own agency if one is still on the rolls of the agency; or if separated, but less than 31 days since the official date of separation, in either case must be filed through the Human Resource Department of one’s own agency, or through H.R. Shared Services for Postal Workers (located in Greensboro, North Carolina); or, if separated for more than 31 days, then directly to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in Boyers, PA.
In the end, things rarely change much, if at all. Those collective institutional enforcement mechanisms learned on the playground — tattling to the playground monitor or to one’s teacher; talking to one’s parents, etc. — end up with a snicker and a sneer.
Yes, society has become well aware of bullies and mean people, but they have been around longer than the oldest profession in the world, and the collective institution of fair play and the playgrounds upon which they played out, will continue to witness backstabbing and surreptitious violations, transferred universally to the places where adults play, and where the most vulnerable in need of the greatest protection, still must do things the old fashioned way: reliance on sheer luck, or to seek the best legal advice possible.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
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