Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Of empty promises

What is a promise? Is it binding, and if so, what makes it binding?  Does a written acknowledgment, a memorandum of understand or a memorialization of promises made and assurances conveyed, make a bit of difference?  Why are “eternal” promises so much easier to violate – is it because, as finite human beings, “everyone knows” anyway that we never meant to keep such stipulations made before gods, angels and other sanctified entities?

What about empty promises – those that we know are suspect to begin with, but in a drunken state of euphoria, deliver them with purportedly serious aplomb and regurgitate without hesitation before ceremony and sanctimony coalesce to delightful sounds of quietude where the backside covers the crossed fingers in a crucifix of humor and denial?  Disdain originates from a plenitude of broken promises; and the incremental unease which develops into the angst of quiet fury, directed with a despair permeated upon decay of conscience.

In a time before, when a person’s word needed not a written memorialization; when a handshake solidified unspoken words with a mere nod; and when language stood stalwart against the disputatious sophistry of linguistic gymnasts; by contrast, today we have a population of experienced betrayals, where everyone mistrusts and no one accepts at face value.  Is this merely a reflection of wisdom matured, or of cynicism run amok?  What do we teach our children – to trust selectively, to never accept the words as spoken, or to remain as innocent lambs on the road to the slaughterhouse?

We of this generation know of empty promises and broken dreams, and the sad part of it is, such dismay is based in reality.  Of Prozac, anxiety and childhood despair, there is no replacement of virtue in doing what “feels good” or changing mates as often as we do our underwear.  But, then, we cannot be too judgmental, these days, lest we offend our counterparts and crack the mirror which reflects our own hypocrisy.

And what of Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers?  They have also felt the brunt of empty promises.  This was supposed to be the dawn of a new age, where workers would be treated with respect and dignity, and when a medical condition or a disability intervened, the Federal agency or U.S. Postal Service would “accommodate” the medical condition.  But old habits die hard, and one must always be suspicious that there is a genetic code of ingrained darkness in the core of humanity.

Thus, fortunately, we still have laws which protect against such empty promises – like those pesky laws governing Federal Disability Retirement benefits, protecting Federal and Postal workers from simply terminating a Federal or Postal worker who suddenly cannot perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, because of the onset of a medical condition.  Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is one way of ensuring that empty promises made, and left unfulfilled, may yet be salvaged by filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application.

Just a thought, though empty it may well be, like promises left in the silence of a singularly occupied room, uttered to no one in particular, and heard by everyone in muted valleys of numbed acquiescence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Of garbage, debris and leftovers

The first is that which we outright discard for loss of value or unrepentant conclusion of worth; the second, what remains after destruction or usage; the last, what is set aside or left behind for multiple reasons, including everything referred to in the first and second, as well as a sense that a loss of appetite resulted in security of its existence without any judgment upon the core of its essence.  Because of our own linguistic laziness, we tend to just lump them all together; but distinctions in language-games matter, and what we do with each, how we treat them, and when we act upon them, requires more than recognizing the subtlety of differentiation we may overlook.

We associate garbage with the smells of rot and decay, and set aside vast areas for landfills to bury and cover over in the remoteness of society’s outskirts, where in lands of impoverishment and suffering starvation, the outcasts of society gather just to pick at the best of the worst.  Of debris, the wealthier people and nations as a whole simply discard and start over, again.  Those who can ill-afford to simply begin anew, will often try and salvage what debris can be reconstituted, and attempt to rebuild lives destroyed and damaged from hurricanes, wildfires and tornadoes, or other such disasters pummeled by nature’s fury or man’s carelessness.

And for leftovers, it is appropriate that it should be the last in the tripartite of linguistic examinations.  For, it applies to foods, to various aggregations of detritus, and to human beings themselves.  Of entities inorganic or inert, they can represent the extra screw mistakenly inserted with the package received, or the cheap trinket purchased in a foreign land but unable to fit into the bulging suitcase and discarded under the unmade bed in the hotel room left unpaid.  Of foods and other organic matter, it is the lesson taught by an overbearing parent, where loggerheads with stubborn children evoke stories once heard and continue as mythologies which – like unicorns and 3-ring circuses, never quite match the smell-test of reality – propagate like mice in the basement of dank and darkness, where the utterance, “When I was your age, what you leave as leftovers used to be the main course!” was but a boast echoing with hollow discourse upon ears deaf with such trite admonitions.  But the more serious manner of the meaning is reflected by the human cost of how we treat one another.  For, it is the “leftovers” of society which we forget about in the teaching lessons of wealth and abundance.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are shunned aside because of a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the conceptual construct of what is a “leftover” is a poignant reminder of what once was, of what can still be, and a hint of hope for a future without the harassment, intimidation and constant barrage of aggressive threats propounded without concern for consequences. For, it is the lesson of the leftover which we should all bear in mind.

As any reference in this day and age of a “Biblical” concept is immediately dismissed and ignored – (remember?  Of how treating the “least” is tantamount to re-crucifying at each turn?) – we must therefore embrace the lessons of our own childhoods.  For, in the end, the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker must make a decision of self-worth, and decide whether or not it is of any value to be treated as the vegetables untouched or the morsels undisturbed; or, perhaps, to “move on” and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, and become again the “main meal” as the lesson taught once recognized, in this universe where garbage, debris and leftovers are treated all in the same manner and upon the same plate of empty promises.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Suspicion of Preemption

Preemptive strikes are often justified by anticipatory rationalizations; the “other” one was “going to” do it, so it is right that one should do it beforehand (whether we are certain of the other’s actions or not, and of course, that is the beauty of such argumentation; by raising the specter of suspicion, we skip over the question itself and deride those who would dare to question the right of self-defense).

In international affairs and economic entanglements on a macro-based scale, nations can impose sanctions and initiate first strikes based upon barricades denoting “sourced” information and secrets obtained.

In linguistic preemptions, within the microcosmic universe of office settings, neighborhoods, friendships teetering on total destruction – these are the true arenas of daily strikes of preemptive devices, where suspicion should prevail and concerns conveyed.  For, in the end, why is it that people plant the seeds of doubt and utter the words of undermining efficacy?  Is gossip ever justified, rumors of helpful venue, or callous remarks disseminated of healthy connotations?

The linguistic art of preemption, of course, is engaged by the subtle hints of rumors unverified, and planted precisely in order to destroy before the others get to you first.  It is the art of the “beforehand” in an underhanded way, perpetrated by the dark hands of an assassin’s heart.

The problem with those who engage in such acts, is that they make of us paranoid despots all, because the unnerving  discord effectuated throughout engenders an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion from and by all, whereby people can never pinpoint the source of a rumor, the origin of a tasty piece of tidbit, and the destructive impact of consequences denied.  “Why can’t people just be straightforward?” is the refrain used by innocent fawns just before the predator devours; and the answer should be clear:  Acts of preemption avoid the consequential revelation of an actual justification; it is not “self-defense”, but an act of aggression with a retrospective view towards explaining that which may never have occurred in the first place.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who daily are pounded by preemptive strikes through subtleties, rumors and whispers of meanness, the time to “come clean” is probably long past due.  If the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal employee’s positional duties, the Agency, Supervisors and Managers have likely already taken note.  Preemption has already begun.

It is, in more ordinary and crude parlances, a matter of covering one’s own posterior, and thus the beginning trails of quiet harassment, hostility and increasing administrative pressures.

In such circumstances, the Federal or Postal employee is fully justified in engaging in the preemptive strike which has already been initiated by the “dark forces” of the workplace:  preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is that preemptive act which has already been justified by the medical condition itself; it just needs to be prodded into the next logical step, in order to avoid any suspicion of preemption, and instead, be brought to the fore.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire