FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal and USPS Workers: ICM versus ICBM

During the Cold War era, the latter acronym was familiar to most, as fears were magnified as to the intercontinental capacity of the U.S.S.R. (those who can still decipher this immediately reveals one’s age).  In those days, one did not need to know the Eastern European countries by name; they all fell under the satellite rubric of the “union” of those with “the Bear”.  ICBMs were counted and their capacity and efficacy were determined by the exponential powers of the number of “warheads” attached.

ICMs, on the other hand, are a fairly recent phenomenon. They show the extent, or the lack thereof, in what agencies and individuals with minor fiefdoms will perpetuate.  They can also be metaphorical antonyms of ICBMs, in that when one possesses an ICM, it can result in the prevention of an ICBM being launched across the barricades of time.

For Federal and Postal employees who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS or CSRS, because of a medical condition which is impacting one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, it is important to utilize one’s hoard of ICMs.

Agencies often have no need or, rather, they will often disregard the need, to engage in utilizing impulsivity control mechanisms, because they have the power to hire, fire, reprimand, reassign or otherwise penalize the serfs of this world. But for the Federal or Postal employee who is contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, it is important to apply the various impulsivity control mechanisms available, including resisting the urge to inform a supervisor until the proper time; the inclination to make derogatory references about the workplace in one’s Statement of Disability; and other impulses which may ultimately harm the goal of attainment sought: of a Federal Disability Retirement annuity, granted through an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

For, in the end, the ICBMs remained in cold storage [sic], precisely because the greater instinct for humanity’s survival depended upon the evolutionary relevance of ICMs.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement for Disabled Federal Workers: Identification Recoil

Is it the identification which, if recognized, prompts one to engage in a commensurate reaction?  Does recognition of the identified condition require a societal conditioning, such that fear becomes a learned response as much as a sudden movement or a shrill shriek piercing the midnight hours of darkness?  Does the expansion of knowledge have a parallel and exponential quantification of fear and the list of things we fear?

Or is fear a singular emotion, triggered by multiple sensors and perceptual sensitivities such that variegated pathways may find their way to a single receptor which determines the responsive requirement, as in a shudder, a trembling, flight or uncontrollable screams?

The list of medical diagnoses has expanded over time; whether this means that there are more diseases, conditions and syndromes today than a millennium ago, or the bureaucratization of mere annotative indexing of that which has existed, been parsed and more precisely been categorized, is a question for the “experts” to debate.

Death sentences are rare; but lesser commutations of conclusions regarding one’s mortality and health are often regarded in the starkest of terms. When a Federal or Postal employee learns of a medical condition which impacts the ability and capacity to continue in one’s chosen vocation, the residual consequences which must be considered are indeed serious and life-altering. Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, is not an easy decision to make. It is considered within the context of a bundle of issues, including medical, legal, financial, family, social — and dealing with the fear of the unknown.

Just as a child may at first identify an object of fear without recognition of the underlying reality of that emotion, and recoil without thought; so the Federal and Postal Worker who first learns of a debilitating medical condition may react in a similar identification recoil. Taking that next step in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, often requires a pause and an indentation of time, precisely because one must first deal with the cumulative fears crowding out the voice of reason.

Gargoyles come in different shapes and sizes; like a chameleon in the wild, it is often our reaction which impedes our progress, and less so the objectivity of the thing to which we respond.

 

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire