OPM Disability Retirement: The Walking Anomaly

The identity of a person is represented by a composite of memories held, present activities engaged, and future endeavors planned, thus bringing into a complex presence the times of past, present and anticipated future.  It is because of this walking anomaly — of not just an entity living in the present, but of someone who possesses the retentive capacity of memories past, and plans made and being generated for future actions — that the complexity of the human condition can never be fully grasped.

For the individual, therefore, who begins to suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition or disability interferes with the delicate balance of the tripartite composite, the fear of destruction of present circumstances, and diminished ability for future progress, is what complicates matters, in addition to the capacity to remember how things were, which only exacerbates one’s anxiety and angst, in addition to the medical condition itself. It is like being caught eternally in the middle of a three-day weekend: one is saddened by the day already passed; one anticipates an additional day, but the knowledge of the diminishing present makes for realization that the future is merely a bending willow in the winds of change, inevitably able to be swept aside.

For the Federal employee or the Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, it is that recognition of past performances and accolades, of accomplishments and successes, combined with present potentialities yet unfulfilled, which makes for a tragedy of intersecting circumstances.  Filing for Federal Disability benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the Postal worker is under FERS or CSRS, should not, however, diminish the hope for the future.

Federal Disability Retirement benefits allows for the impacted Federal or Postal worker to receive an annuity, and continue to remain productive and plan for the future. It is the solution for many Federal employees and Postal workers who are too young to retire, and have invested too much to simply “walk away” with nothing to show for the time of Federal service already measured.

In the end, Federal Disability Retirement may not be the best option, but the only viable option available, and for the walking anomaly known as man, OPM Disability benefits may be the methodology to complete that unfulfilled potentiality yet to be achieved.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: Wotan’s Spear

It is the spear engraved with runic laws, captured in Wagner’s opera cycle, and Norse legend has it that it never misses its mark regardless of the ability of the wielder.

In health, that is how many feel, and come to believe.  In ill-health, or declining and deteriorating health, one’s mortality, susceptibility, and vulnerability come into question; and all of those walls of invincibility begin to crumble.  Suddenly, Wotan’s spear is held with wobbly hands; the grip is unsure, and the mark is unclear.  Present circumstances become a muddle of uncertainty, with past accolades unaccounted for or of little to no significance; and the future is not the bright star guiding one’s course of current actions.

Lebenswelt constitutes the totality of subjective-to-world experiences in phenomenology; when a medical condition engulfs one, the sensitivities to all of life’s experiences comes to the fore, such that the desire for life’s fulfillment and all that it offers becomes exponentially magnified in relevance, importance, and significance. For the Federal and Postal employee who begins to suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability to perform the essential elements of one’s job, the capacity to survive economically, financially, and physically, as well as maintaining a semblance of cognitive and mental normalcy, takes on a fresh urgency.

Filing for Federal & Postal Disability benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, is a pragmatic step which must be taken in order to attain a level of security and peace, and to attend to one’s health.  Health is the hallmark of who we are and how we are destined to live.  While filing for a benefit may seem like a mundane event when turmoil abounds, for the Federal and Postal employee who must continue to contend with the daily toils of life, the ability to throw Wotan’s spear and accurately hit the bullseye is still a needed goal despite one’s loss of stature in the Federal sector.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Workers: For What Do We Expend Our Lives?

Expenditures can be extracted in a monetary sense; but one can also expend effort, emotions and cognitive exertion, too.  We think too narrowly in terms of financial gain or loss, but in every transaction, there is a cost to be paid in terms of human extraction.

The ultimate question, then, within the context of so much busyness and activity, comes down to a fundamental issue:  For what reason?

Heidegger sought always the question of Being, and noted that most of human activity is merely an excuse to avoid the ultimate issue of our own mortality, and the question posed herein is a close cousin of such a foundational inquiry.  Is it for a momentary respite of quietude?  Is it for a flash of a manic moment?  Does happiness constitute a pause in an otherwise dreary existence?  Is it all worth it to receive a hug from one’s child, or a kind word from a stranger, or the warmth of tongue from a puppy asking for your attention?

There is poetry in life, and moments of incremental advances of worthwhile sketches;  but if one merely lives for the negation of X, then one should consider a change in direction or course.  For example, if happiness is defined by a temporary escape from pain, then one’s life is bundled up by the negation of a negative (remember one’s math days — of two negatives equalling a positive?).

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that life has become a treadmill of daily pain and medical turmoil, and where weekends and days off are merely expended to recover from the weeks and months of physical trials, it may be time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS.

For what does one live?  Surely not for the condescending feedback from a bureaucracy or agency; it must be for more than that.  Otherwise, the price paid far exceeds the benefit received. Federal Disability Retirement is an option available for all Federal and Postal employees who have at least 18 months of Federal Service.

Let not life be a question of avoiding one’s mortality; or, for that matter, to allow for life’s expenditures to exceed the value of the product purchased.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

Waiting to Get your Federal Disability Retirement Benefits?: Well Worth It

There are many stories out there.  Indeed, as many Federal and Postal Workers who live and work throughout the United States and in Europe, Japan, and across the spectrum of the world, there is a microcosmic, personal story to be told.  That is the point of Chekhov’s short story, “Grief”, in which the father needs to relate the narrative story of the tragedy of his son’s death.  

In the impersonal world within which we live our lives, as a cocoon untouched and untouchable, there are stories and tragedies which we know not about.  Then, there are the narratives of successful outcomes; of those Federal and Postal workers who have filed for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, who — years later — relate tidbits of starting second vocations, of having the opportunity to rehabilitate from their medical conditions, and to start “new” lives.  

The “present” and “now” is always a time of anguish, especially if one is suffering from a medical condition, or is awaiting a decision from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for a Federal Disability Retirement case.  

Is it worth the wait?  To ask that in the present-tense is probably not the right question.  Rather, once a Federal or Postal worker has filed, has obtained an approval, and has taken some years to move on into another stage of life, the time to ask the question is probably in a retrospective manner:  Was it worth the wait?  

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, the Federal or Postal employee who intends on filing must understand that it can be a long and frustrating administrative process.  Hopefully, however, the hope of the future is what makes the waiting worthwhile.  For, without the hope of the future, we would all be stuck in the drudgery of the present.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire