FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The script of life

Seeking out the pathways of precognition by consulting with the ancient oracles, was merely that same attempt.  Prediction and foreknowledge were the precursors of script writing; as the former failed to provide an advantageous statistical weighting, so the shift to a more pragmatic approach reflects the recognition that the gods provided no greater insight than mere chance, and so we’d better get on with life and attempt to control fate, destiny and the travesties of life’s lottery by writing the narrative ourselves.

Thus do economic systems of varying control mechanisms arise, where socialism and fascism, state-run artifices constructed to ensure prevention of extremes, thereby comforting us from the worst nightmares and fears born of childhood insecurities.

Virtual reality is safer than real reality; staring into a smartphone and chasing figments of imaginative characters and ghosts that exude cuteness in violent but funny ways, are all preferable to facing the harshness of daily living.  We may not know when we will capture the prize, but the script has been written so that it becomes settled law as to whether.  Reality shows may sometimes surprise, but the unexpected itself is easily anticipated; that is part of the deal, and there is not much art in it after all.

Shakespeare’s quote comes from his play, As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII:  “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”

Such was the surrender to fate, now replaced by inane self-help books which purportedly boosts one’s self-confidence, makes one look like a Reality T.V. personality, and allegedly creates wealthy patrons of us all.  All throughout, we seek merely to obtain a copy of the script of life so that we can practice our parts, and not have to think about what must be done.  We seek predictability when the world offers chance; beg for mercy, when all there appears is savagery; and fall prey to the oracles of modernity, when even the ancients failed to deliver.

In the sphere of Federal and Postal employees, of course, it is the medical condition itself which was never asked to be included in that script of life.  It is one of those “curve-balls” which happens to the other guy, and never to us; or so we always played our part to live by.  But when it occurs, and life presents the unpredictable in a chaotic universe of harsh reality, we are asked to simply “deal with it”, and so we must.

For the Federal or Postal employee whose medical condition begins to impact and prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Postal or Federal positional duties, the script which must be ad-libbed is the part where decisions concerning the future must be engaged.  Should I file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits?  When should the process be started?  Is it ever too late?  Is the Federal Disability Retirement application filed with my agency, or with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management?  Should I consult with an attorney?

These questions, and many more, even the ancient oracles would not have been able to answer.  The undeniable fact is, that the script of life rarely is written to reflect the reality of life’s harshness; it simply “is”, and must be acted upon according to what is given, even when consulting with the high priest or priestess of the ancient oracles provides only silence and an impervious unresponsiveness.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Riddance of the debasing alloy

It is always that minor impurity which devalues the whole; “but for” the element identified as an invasive component, the rest would constitute the purity of perfections.  It is how we point fingers and bemoan the state of our own affairs; and how we make of a peripheral inconsequence the centrality of our problems.

The evil that we identify as the foundational source of a problem is merely the canard for justification, and in the end, we don’t want it to go away, but to remain as fodder to fester as the legitimate basis of an illegitimate claim.  But when it is a pervasive impurity, attached to the very essence of the composite aggregate, how do you get rid of it in the first place?  Precision by surgical selection is an impossibility; to excise it is to kill the whole, as it touches upon a vital organ which cannot be separated from the rest and residue.

In the universe of metallurgy, it is the composite attachment, interaction and interchange between various alloys which form the basis of the science itself; each possesses a characteristic unique for its particular element, yet often share traits of similarities which allows for the technician to ply the trade of forming aggregations of multiple differences into a singularity comprised by many.

In the parallel universe of people, societies, civilizations and empires, that reflection of strength through unity of diversity is merely where artifice reflects the reality of nature.  But when destructive criticism by pointing fingers at a misidentified source of impurity becomes the basis of a movement to change, then the crumbling nature of the whole begins to infect the fragile nature of each individual component, especially where independence from the other is no longer possible or practical.  In the end, riddance of the debasing alloy may not be possible, and it is often too little too late to even bother attempting a surgical separation without doing harm to the whole.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, however, the impurity of the singular alloy can be identified as the job itself.  It is “the job”, the position, the craft which once formed the basis of a productive “career”, but is now the impurity which harms and debases.  No longer something to look forward to, but reduced to another of the stresses of life, a surgical excision becomes necessary, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, becomes a necessity in and of itself, in order for the rest, residue and remainder to survive.

The choice to separate the “impurity” should not be a difficult one; and while riddance of the truly debasing alloy — the medical condition itself — may not be possible for the Federal or Postal employee suffering from a chronic medical condition, at least the “other” impurities of identified stresses may be circumspectly curtailed and separated, by the mere act of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire