Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: The Unchosen

It is a term and concept which denotes a negation of what once was; like an unfinished paragraph or a torn page in a novel, the act of undermining and incompleteness is implied; and so the reader will never know the full story or the thoughts once surfaced but buried forever in the settled dust of time.  A career cut short; quiet whispers of, “and he was such a promising young man…”

Federal and Postal Workers who file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, fit nicely into that category of the unchosen.  Once part of the workforce, the need to detach, separate, and move on to another and different phase of life, career, vocation and stage — all are aggregately bundled into the entire process of separation from an organization which once chose, but because of circumstances beyond one’s immediate control, ascribed with the prefatory negation of that which once was.

When a medical condition impacts one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, the Federal employee has few choices.  Continue on as one of the chosen; walk away with nothing to show for it; allow the agency to determine the time and place of becoming one of the unchosen; or file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and have some semblance and control of being the master of one’s destiny and future.

Becoming the unchosen may begin with a preface of negation; it is up to the Federal and Postal Worker to replace the torn page, and complete the unfinished paragraph.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM FERS/CSRS Disability Retirement: Miracles, Superheroes, and CGI

The reality of this technology-driven world is that miracles are now relegated to excused absences; modern theology has either explained away biblical references to the miraculous, or we attribute the beauty around us as the “miracle of life”, thereby undermining the common understanding of metaphysical intervention.

Further, the sudden advent of superheroes and their feats of bravery and physical actions which defy the general laws of nature, reveal to us that miracles and miraculous acts can be performed by humans of a similar origin but of a higher order.  Spiderman, Superman, Captain America, et al, seemingly do with ease what Moses asked but only through obedience and a lifetime of virtue.

Computer-generated imagery (CGI) has merely perfected and made beautiful such acts of death-defying, counterintuitive and anti-gravity gymnastics; and the pulley-strings and cables no longer need to be manually erased.  Such super-human feats as represented in virtual reality counter the mundane reality of true human existence.  Yes, yes — perhaps it is all “just for fun” and we shouldn’t take ourselves so seriously.  But societal representation of who we are is indeed a serious matter.

The reality of life is that human frailty, misfortune and pain pervades the vast majority of everyday existence.  Just ask the individual who suffers from a medical condition, and the daily encounter with pain and progressively debilitating illnesses.

For the Federal and Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition such that the condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, the daily absence of miracles and gravity-defying feats is superseded by just getting through the day.  No CGI imposition can change the pain; superheroes cannot come to save the day; the modern theological explanations cannot expunge the reality of daily encounters with a cruel world.

In the end, the Federal and Postal employee has the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and through this administrative vehicle of attaining a different and new stage of life, the reality of what is available can attenuate the expectations driven by the brave but virtual New World as presented by the moguls of Hollywood.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire