Federal Gov. and USPS Disability Retirement: The Morning After

The next day always comes; regardless of the anticipatory delay in accepting the harsh reality of the coming days and months after the celebratory pause allowed through an event, a holiday or the respite of a weekend, the morning after always follows, and the reality of facing the inevitability of that which was and is, delayed perhaps for a moment and a glorious interlude, a certainty of subsequent coming.

So the treadmill begins again; the daily grind must be faced; the trauma experienced the day before must now be encountered anew the day after.

Holidays are great periods of quietude and temporary suspensions of reality, but when the presents are all opened and the guests have all left, the reality of facing one’s daily life must be refreshingly embraced.  For Federal and Postal workers who experience a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts the ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, consideration needs to be given for Disability Retirement — which provides a longer respite and the needed period of recuperative relief in order to attend to one’s medical conditions.

Delay for a period works for that period; procrastination in order to celebrate an event or a holiday is often a necessary interlude; but in the end, the Federal or Postal worker who must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, must make some serious decisions and consider the impending consequences, beginning on the day after, and sometimes even the morning after.

For the Federal or Postal Worker who faces a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents one from performing the essential elements of one’s job, it is always the morning after which is the critical period.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employee Medical Retirement: The Feel of a Treadmill

The analogy of a treadmill is an apt one; each of us have been on one, and know the “feel” of one which is set at too slow a pace, or too fast a pace.  It is also a metaphor for life itself; that on some days, one feels that the energy level is in perfect consonance with one’s self; at other times, one wonders whether the treadmill will push us off because we are not able to keep pace with it.  Federal and Postal workers who are suffering from a medical condition because it impacts the daily performance of one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, often feel the threat of the treadmill.  

With Supervisor’s threatening less-than-satisfactory performance evaluations, to placing a worker on a PIP; to the chronic and daily symptoms which impact one’s productivity at a job; the measure of whether one can keep pace with the treadmill, or if one is in danger of being pushed off, is a valuable self-appraisal in determining whether it is time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.  Often, what stops the Federal or Postal Worker is doubt and fear about the process.  Yet, despite the complexity of the process, the treadmill at work never stops, and whether or not one can continue on it until retirement, is a question which only the Federal or Postal worker who is suffering from a medical condition, can ask and answer.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire