The Devaluation of the Federal Employee with Disabilities

Countries engage it deliberately with its currencies; economic circumstances force it based upon fluctuating market volatility; and the basic principles in capitalism of supply and demand will often expect it.

Currencies are never stable indexes despite the best attempts by countries to manage and control their economies; the fact is, in this interconnected world of global economic entanglement, devaluation of worth can occur overnight, just after the soft breathing of nightfall overtakes, but before the dawn of first light when the halls of stock markets in faraway colonnades lined in symmetrical facades open their doors for the business of commodity markets.

Fortunes can be made, and lost, overnight; but the devaluation of that which implicates worth, can just as easily fall upon the human soul.  Medical conditions tend to do that.  We exchange, trade, value and appraise based upon a commodity’s supply, demand, desire and greed of want; but when it comes to human beings, though we deny such callous approaches, the encounter with such baseness still prevails.

For the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker, facing devaluation is nothing out of the ordinary when a medical condition hits.  Once the Federal or Postal worker suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the avenue of choices becomes starkly clear:  One can try to hang on; one can walk away with nothing to show for those many years of dedicated and loyal service; or one can file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

It is the last of the tripartite alternatives which is the best option, and one which can secure a future for the Federal or Postal employee.  For, ultimately, the whole point of devaluation in paradigms of economic theory, is to stabilize the currency for future years; it is the experience of short-term suffering to attain long-term calm.  Economics is merely a microcosmic reflection of a macro-global perspective, and application of parallel principles are relevant to situations which might otherwise appear foreign.

Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service engage in devaluation, just as governments do, when the worth of the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is seen in terms of productivity for the moment, and not for the long-term benefit gained for the future.

We live in a world of short selling trades; everything is seen for the immediacy of gain; but fortunately for the Federal or Postal worker who must contend with the attitude and approach of a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service in viewing the devaluation of the worker based upon productivity, the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is one which is available, attractive, and allowable for those who are eligible to prepare, formulate and file for the benefit.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

CSRS & FERS Medical Disability Retirement: The Silhouette Man

The object/subject issue pervades discussions in Western Moral Philosophy; in simplified form, of the ethics of treating one’s fellow human being in a one-dimensional manner, as an object to be manipulated, deprived of, worked about, etc. Like a silhouette in front of a moonlit sky, objects in the world, both animate and inanimate, are encountered by the subject of “I”, and until a personal engagement involving conversations, exchanging of information, and other intersections of relational entanglements, the pathway of the subjective merely observes “others” as objects, with anthropomorphic projections of assumptions that moving creatures and other fellow beings also walk about with a similar consciousness as the “I” which occupies one’s particular body in a given space and time.

Supervisors and managers often treat employees in such a manner, despite years and even decades of an established employment relationship. “Go ask Ed, the IT guy”; “That’s Bob the Engineer’s department”; and similar such references which imply that, beyond the limited scope of what X is known to do within the narrow confines of work-related issues, nothing further is known about, or related to, in referring to a particular person.

For Federal and Postal employees who 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, that is precisely what begins to happen, isn’t it? “John — you know…” “Karen — she called in sick again.” “Kevin won’t do that — you know, his ‘condition'”. And with knowing looks and furtive smiles, the reference to the one-dimensional aspect of having pigeonholed the individual into a recess of definitional confinement: the medical condition defines the Federal and Postal employee, and is known exclusively and objectified in concretized form.

That is why Federal Disability Retirement benefits are often the only viable option left for the Federal or Postal Worker; for, in being treated as a one-dimensional object, the ability to relate to others in the workplace in a subject-to-subject manner is lost, and often forever. Federal Disability Retirement benefits are available for all Federal and Postal Worker who are either under FERS or CSRS, if the minimum service requirements are met (5 years for those under CSRS, which is a given; 18 months for those under FERS). It is filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and is an employment benefit accessible for all Federal and Postal Workers.

Such accessibility allows for a passage away from a seemingly one-dimensional universe beset with suspicion, whispers, retaliations and shunning, and allows for the complexities of every human being to escape being viewed as a mere silhouette, like a cardboard figure at an amusement park waiting for a pop-gun to shoot it down.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire