Medical Retirement for Federal Government Workers: Sides (Part II)

Side orders are meant to compliment the entree; there are specific types of appetizers and addendum dishes which enhance the culinary delights, and those with more sophisticated and refined salivary receptors tend to make a magnified fuss about such issues, especially in posh restaurants where a display of the proper matching of manners, wines, menus and side orders are embraced with an upturned nose of superiority and a disdain for those who fail to follow the propriety of civilized society.

Choosing sides and the ability to do so, tells much about a person.

In restaurants, furtive glances are often exchanged when a person attempts to order in the original language of the cuisine; in sports, from an early age, choosing sides reveals one’s fealty, and ingratiating self-to-popularity by excluding those who are are estranged from the inner circle of cliques is the safer route to take.

Coordinating loyalties from an early stage in one’s career is merely an extension of both — of choosing the “right” sides to the entree of one’s profession.  For the Federal and Postal employee who begins to 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, the warning signals begin to blare early on.

Old loyalties begin to fray; more recent touches of camaraderie quickly crumble; and what we did for the supervisor, or that major project that we worked late nights for months on endless turmoil which resulted in accolades for upper management — and a satisfying pat on the back for the underlings — are all forgotten.  Clear lines to bifurcate which side you are on, fade with time.  During the 7th inning stretch, the white powder may have to be rolled upon the diamond again, to reestablish the boundaries of the game.

But for the Federal and Postal employee who dares to allow for a medical condition to impact the “mission of the agency”, and to begin to prepare to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS, the rules of the game itself begin to change radically.  No longer are there boundaries of proprieties; side dishes are not served to compliment, anymore; and there is no one left to be a part of your team.  You have now become the pariah, the outsider; the one estranged from the rest, while everyone else watches you with gleeful betrayal.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Sides (Part I)

Was there a time when moral order, social propriety and conventional codes of conduct were bifurcated in such clear and identifiable demarcations, such that everyone knew the rules and roles by which to abide?  Or were there always overlapping and invidious borders which constituted conditional conundrums?  Movies of the old west are still enjoyed today, if not merely for entertainment, then for the simplicity of identifying the differentiation between good and evil, where the grey dawn of loss of certitude is rarely implied.

People take “sides” each and every day, but the lack of verifiability in determining who stands for what, and what issues are truly worth standing up for, has become a problem of infinite and exponential magnification of wide and confusing latitudes. There are some things in life where privacy must be guarded with the utmost of heightened protective instincts. “Choosing sides” is something we all learned in school; how we choose, and what titers of alarms we utilize, is all the more important when it comes to personal integrity and future security.

For Federal and Postal employees contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, the question of who our friends are, will quickly surface during the process.  Identifying the adversary is thought to be an easy process; thinking that a supervisor or coworker is a “friend” to be relied upon, is a more daunting and dangerous endeavor.  That is where the confidentiality of an attorney can be helpful.

The beauty of old films and archaic cowboy movies, is that the black-and-white film footage clearly and unmistakably identifies the man in the white hat.  That is the “good guy”.  Within Federal agencies, such clear identification for the Federal or Postal Worker who begins the process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, is a rare occasion.

Choosing sides is important.  How one chooses; whom to rely upon; what advice to follow; all are confusing conundrums within a complex world of backstabbers, betrayals, and agencies populated by those who seek to become the next Lady Macbeth.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management: Catch of the Day

Restaurants announce it; law enforcement offices declare it; con artists make a living by it; and agencies sneeringly pounce upon them. They are the designated focus for the day, often longer, and sometimes until they disappear from the depths of abundance which the season and migration of schools allow.

When one is a Federal or Postal Worker, becoming the “catch of the day” can mean that you are the targeted one; the one whom harassment and daily persecution becomes the norm and routine, and having such a reputation allows for the safe haven of others who exhale a loud sigh of relief for being spared such an ignoble designation. Once the target, agencies never let up. Whether it leads to a PIP, multiple suspensions, letters of reprimand, sick and annual leave restrictions on usage, doesn’t quite seem to satisfy the insatiable appetite of the persecutors.

Yes, there are some countermanding moves: EEO complaints; grievance procedures filed; even lawsuits and resulting awards of significant verdicts, on rare but victorious occasions. But the human toil expended rarely justifies such moments of rare glory; and for the individual who suffers from a medical condition, the juggernaut of the agency’s reserves and reservoir of implements and infinite resources of persecution means that a time of respite is merely temporary.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit which one must consider when the coalescence of a medical condition, agency actions, and the recognition that one is unable to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, comes to a tripartite sequence of combined consonance.

Filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the Federal or Postal employee under FERS or CSRS has the opportunity to receive an annuity, and still go out and begin a new career in the private sector, and make up to 80 percent of what one’s former Federal or Postal position currently pays.  It is a consideration which should always remain a viable option, lest one’s picture remain with a bullseye depiction alongside the declaration that you are the agency’s “catch of the day”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management: Consciousness and the Linguistic Divide

Throughout the wide expanse of Western Philosophical debates, the tension of truth has always been the subtle, often unspoken, surreptitious thread underlying the waging war of words.  As the writing of history is left to the victors, so the linguistic divide between truth and falsity belongs to the mastery of words. The modern subtext to the greater debate encapsulates consciousness and whether the wholeness of one’s being can be adequately described in scientific terms comprised of physically-oriented language — i.e., synapses, cells and serotonin levels.

Can one adequately capture the wholeness of a person, and the uniqueness of the individual, by the expungement of non-objective language and transference and translation of reductionism to physically-oriented descriptions?  And what of Ryle’s perennial problem of that “ghost in the machine“?  Of course, Dennett would explain away the issue of consciousness by a series of component divides — of sectional surgeries which, in their individual pieces, would reveal the lack of the greater elements beyond the individual parts.  But in the end, does the adoption of such science-based language adequately present a true picture of man?

On a human level, in every society, the problem is seen in how agencies and organizations view and treat individuals with medical problems.  For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, the issue of being “lesser” than coworkers becomes a problem of actions, how we view our fellow man, and the greater linguistic divide which impacts treatment of individuals.  Language is important in capturing the fantasy of fulfillment.  It is the seed of creativity.  Reduction of language and expungement into mere metabolic processes will ultimately dehumanize society, and equate maltreatment with mere surgical precision.

Federal and Postal Workers who confront the issue of daily abuse in the workplace because of a medical condition suffered, recognize how insensitive conglomerates can be.  For the Federal and Postal Worker who has come to a point where one’s agency no longer views him or her in the wholeness of one’s being and the worth of being a productive individual, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether one is under FERS or CSRS, is an option to consider, and to take one’s abilities and capabilities elsewhere to another vocation.

History is replete with man’s capacity to dehumanize; language is the key to expunging the very humanity which society possesses in the treatment of individuals; and in the end, consciousness is the last bastion of unexplained beauty in the greater linguistic divide of social conscience.

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

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Cognitive Dualism & the Two Incommensurable Paths

Cognitive dualism is the concept that one cannot hold onto two competing and contradictory beliefs while maintaining a life of integrity and consistency. It is tantamount to suffering from a form of intellectual schizophrenia, potentially resulting in dire consequences and paying the price for attempting to force the cohesiveness of two incommensurable paths.

The anxieties which exponentially magnify; the undue stresses which naturally result from attempting to retain the impossible; at some point, the natural divergence of both will force the split, or in modern domestic parlance, determine the “uncoupling” in a nasty divorce of ideas.

For Federal and Postal employees who must contend with the inconsistency of attempting to address a medical condition while at the same time keeping control over one’s employment, such cognitive dualism becomes a harsh reality which is confronted daily. How does one deal with the serious medical issues, which should always be the priority, while at the same time address the impact upon one’s inability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job?

The two incommensurable paths may come to a crisis point, where both cannot be adequately maintained.  It is at this point that the Federal or Postal Worker must consider the option of Federal Disability Retirement.  For, Federal Disability Retirement benefits are precisely those employment benefits available for the Federal or Postal Worker who finds him/herself in such a situation of cognitive dualism, where two incommensurable paths must necessarily be addressed, and one must be chosen.

The stark reality and the harshness of the choice would be: one’s health, or one’s job. But for Federal and Postal employees, there is a “third” path — that of Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS, and filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Thus can cognitive dualism be reconciled where two incommensurable paths may seemingly diverge, and allow for a compromise of sorts, by fighting for an approval of a Federal Disability Retirement annuity through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Not all paths must split into two, where choices are bifurcated into an either/or; instead, sometimes one must find the hidden path through the grassy knolls less traveled.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire