OPM Disability Retirement: The Cost of Character

Being daily denigrated is an expected course of treatment for some; for those who perpetrate it, the sport of demeaning is often thoughtless, reactive, and toxic to the core, and reflects a fundamental void in one’s own life; and for the victim of such caustic characterization, the incremental pounding to one’s ego, self-esteem and capacity for abuse results in diminishment of the identify of worth by small slices of reduced stature.  Such attacks may be overt and direct, while others may be subtle, privately targeted, and intentionally out of the earshot of witnesses.  In both cases, the damage can be devastating.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must confront this type of daily abuse in the workplace, the avenues of outlet are complex and varied.  Complaining or filing lawsuits often results in the mere circling of the proverbial wagons around the perpetrators, and suddenly an invisible fence appears where the victim is the “outsider” and the caustic character the one needing protection.

For those Federal or Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, and who receive the brunt end of such ill treatment because of the medical disability which impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the need to deal not only with the toxicity of a hostile work environment, but concurrently with the underlying medical conditions, makes for an admixture of overwhelming circumstances.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the best and only course of action left.  For, to stay becomes an untenable option which impacts and further deteriorates one’s medical condition precisely because of the toxicity of the environment; to walk away and do nothing is an act of idiocy, given the years already invested in one’s career; and thus the alternative of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes the most enlightened of choices to be made:  It allows for the recuperative period away from a denigrating source of pain, while securing a foundational annuity for one’s financial security and future.

We often talk daftly about “character” and the need to “stick it out” when the “going gets tough”.  But the cost of character is the price paid by the Federal or Postal employee who must withstand the onslaught of a bureaucracy which is faceless and relentless, while at the same time dealing with the deteriorating health administered by a medical condition which will not just go away.  The cost of character means nothing if the essence of one’s worth is not protected, and filing for, and securing, a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is meant to do just that:  pay for the cost, and safeguard the character of worth.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability: Those Winds of Change That Portend to Pretend Promises

Change is an inevitable circumstance of life; it is what we seek when we are discontented; what we demand when threatened; and of which we fear, when least we expected it.  For Plato and Aristotle, the puzzle of life and the winds of change had precursors who, in the tradition of ancestral doomsayers, declared the natural corollaries reflecting discontent, despair and fear, as represented by Heraclitus and Parmenides.

Such change was first observed in the natural order of the universe, and worked slowly, deliberately, and sought a teleological understanding because of the mysteries inherent in the seasons, the heavens and the geocentric perspective defied by the reality of a heliocentric algorithm of calculations.  At some point in history, man was no longer satisfied with measuring with thumb and forefinger; and thus were pyramids built and Stonehenge created, to satisfy the yearnings of universal comprehension.

Changes did not just occur from the ashes of natural disasters; we invited them, manufactured them, and manipulated the vast conspiracy of quietude, lest we became comfortable in our own discordant behavior.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suddenly find that a long and productive career may come to an end because of an intervening medical condition, the winds of of change may seem uninviting, but the inevitability of life’s resistance to permanence requires taking affirmative steps in order to establish future security, such that change which portends alterations of present circumstances does not pretend to make promises falsely expected.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is an option to be taken when once a medical condition is recognized to last a minimum of 12 months (which can be accomplished through a medical “prognosis” as opposed to actually waiting for that period of time) and where the chronicity of the medical conditions prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional requirements of the job.

Medical conditions portend change; but the promises resulting from inevitable change need not be subverted by subterfuge and lack of knowledge; and like the harkening of soothsayers of yore, we should listen to wisdom in light of a hastened call to change, and distinguish between those winds of change that portend to pretend promises, from those which have an established record of success.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire