OPM Disability Retirement: The Crumbling Walls of Professional Conduct

The aged bemoan of modernity; youth view the present as merely fodder for change and future potential; and caught in between, somewhere in the netherworld of inertia, those inconsequential individuals relegated to the irrelevant category of “middle age”, who must stand by and witness the slow and progressive destruction of the past, the deterioration of cohesiveness of the future, and the present infirmity of impotence.

Medical conditions are funny animals; because they are personal in nature, the revelation of such private matters tends to scare people, because the emergence of such confidential conveyance violates the unspoken walls of professional distance; but for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact the performance of one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal sector or the U.S. Postal Service, it is often necessary to provide some component of one’s medical condition in order to ascertain and establish the extent of needed accommodations — for purposes of filing for FMLA, to take needed SL or LWOP, or to counter allegations of misconduct or violation of “leave policy”, etc.

Within the greater context of life, there is a sense there the walls of professional conduct which once protected privacy concerns and acceptable behaviors, are crumbling in modernity.  Anything and everything goes; there is no normative constraint, anymore, because the demarcation between private and professional have disappeared.

The same is true when applied to the administrative process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

The entire bureaucratic process engenders privacy concerns because of the sensitive nature of the information which must be submitted.  But those are merely “side issues” which should be placed in their proper perspective; for, in the end, when the final wave of goodbye is motioned, and one has obtained an approval from OPM in order to exit with a Federal Disability Retirement annuity, the crumbling walls of professional conduct as revealed by one’s agency or the U.S. Postal Service will be but a far echo of past misdeeds, as one walks out into the future of a brighter tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Pretending

It is the creative imagination which ultimately separates man from his counterpart; and, in the end, those costumes we display, and wear as vestiges of who we were, what we have become, and how we want others to appreciate us — in the aggregate, they reveal either our pretending selves, or at the very least, our pretentiousness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the extension from childhood through adulthood is best personified in the ability and capacity to “pretend” — assume the role of the loyal civil servant; march on in quiet suffering; brave through in silent grief the turmoil of a progressively worsening medical condition.  But when “pretend” encounters the reality of pain and self-immolation of destruction and deterioration, there comes a point in time where childhood fantasies and dreams of want and desire must be replaced with the reality of what “is”.

That annoying verb, “to be”, keeps cropping up as an obstacle of reality, forever obstructing and denying.  Reality sometimes must hit us over the head with harsh tools of sudden awakenings; for the Federal or Postal worker who must consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the wake-up call is often the alarm-clock that rings after a long weekend, when rest and respite should have restored one to healthy readiness on the workday following, but where somehow the face of pretending must still remain.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: It’s a Dog’s Life

Animals are entities we encounter as subjects in a world of objects, but with whom we can have relationships and interactions beyond mere utility; the affection of a dog or similar pet, their importance in one’s life — these are beyond measurable quantification of significance.  But there is a difference in the “other” species; of the immediacy of need, the lack of concern for tomorrow, and happiness determined by thoughts of future occurrences or predicted circumstances.

Looking for trouble (don’t try this at home … these puppies are trained professionals).

That difference is often what determines the linear intractability of human anxiety, as opposed to the fullness of joy seen in a dog or a cat.  Dogs are happy because they are; the present immediacy of their satisfied lives is contained within the existential presence of the here and now.  Worries about tomorrow, or next year; how will we get on with life? What is the meaning of…   These are not tangible concerns which dogs and cats, or other similar species, concern themselves with.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, those anxiety-filled question impacting future security come to the fore, and begin to haunt.  But that life could be like that of a dog; yet, on the other hand, one need only visit the many animal rescue facilities to conclude that a dog’s life is not always a metaphor for endless joy.

After a long day terrifying JWs, girl scouts and mail carriers, this puppy needs a nap. (This model is the nephew of a former Postal employee and client).

For the Federal or Postal worker, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, should have some weight of relief as an option for the future.

It is, after all, a benefit which is part of one’s employment and compensation package, but one which is often not emphasized at the initial stages of one’s career.  It provides for an annuity while allowing for employment outside of the Federal Sector, within certain guidelines and limitations.

During a time of medical need, the priority of concerns should always be:  attend to one’s medical conditions; get through each day to the best extent possible; secure one’s future, including filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits if one is a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker, as soon as the need becomes known.

For the Federal and Postal worker, such priority of circumstances is what determines the present and future happiness of one’s existence; for the dog, it is the second of the three which matters, but then, as long as the meal is served, and the after-dinner treat is offered, the wagging tail tells the tale of contentment at the end of a long day’s journey.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Medical Retirement Lawyer: Acrylic Acrimonies

It usually refers to paints, but is technically an acid used to form polymers, and may be mixed in order to manufacture compound elements for plastic and other synthetic products.  The second part of the short alliteration refers to the bitterness which develops when failure, or a perceived failure, begins to gnaw at the edges of sanity. The slow, incremental, eating away at a life of accomplishment and productivity, can come when once the self-discipline of setting insurmountable parameters has been ignored or otherwise untended.  Bitterness is a state of regret, reserved for old men and furies left uncontrolled.

Acrylic acrimonies, then, describes a state of being where a kaleidoscope of bursting colors coalesce with a temperament sharpened by disappointment.  Such conceptual compounds can be creatively presented, in order to provide a framework for a mellifluous flow of linguistic metaphor.  For, as sudden and unexpected events in a person’s life can cut short an expectation of future accomplishments yet to be realized, so acrylic acrimonies can provide a scented dye to a life once calm and collected.

Medical conditions tend to bring out the acrylic acrimonies festering below the surface of a calm aptitude of competence.  For, whatever diagnosis is ascribed to a given medical condition, the mystery of deterioration still scares us.  The turmoil that one must undergo when confronting a medical condition further exacerbates the state of disarray.  For the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker who suffers 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 positional duties, it may be time to file 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.

The explosion of acrylic acrimonies may burst forth and be forever unconstrained, and thereby destructive beyond the intended beauty which color and paint should represent.  As red represents the color of anger, and blue the morose hue of anguish, so bitterness should remain a lonely stranger unfulfilled lest an artificial compound synthesizes forever a sense of disappointment in life.

Medical conditions can be traumatic; but the trauma of destruction through illness or disability can be somewhat ameliorated if one can reach a period of rehabilitation where the interruption of a career can become a plateau of peace.  Filing for Federal or Postal Disability Retirement benefits can allow for the beginning of a new phase in life.  Getting from the trauma of a medical condition to the receipt of an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the goal to attain that level of peace.  Leave behind the acrylic acrimonies for others to step into; it’s not worth the price of the can of paint.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Postal and Federal Medical Retirement: The Concealment of Emoticons

They replace the true face of humanity.  Pasted with a quick tap of a computer keyboard, they allegedly represent the state of emotional being of a person, at a given time, within a granted context, in the course of an interplay accomplished in diatribes of virtual reality.  Contrast such antiseptic encounters with the profound agony felt in Anton Chekhov’s short story, “Grief” (or sometimes otherwise entitled, “Misery”), and one begins to comprehend the depths of distancing depravity that people have fallen to in an attempt to bifurcate humanity from personal contact.

Whether the emoticon truly represents the state of one’s psyche at the time of pasting the cartoonish face upon a screen, or it merely conceals an underlying turmoil otherwise safely hidden, is besides the point; the encounter of exponential removal is determined, and unlike the sadness felt by Iona Potapov in attempting to relate the story of his son’s death, it can be quickly posted, expediently dismissed, and immediately turned aside to engage a different topic altogether.  But human history finds few factors new to the universe; the young always believe that human innovation and articulations of deceitful demarcations of denouements in the linear chains and linkages of human endeavors are only recently discovered, when in fact artifices built to conceal the true nature of a person’s state of being have always been constructed, for reasons left to guessing and implication.  Individuals who suffer from medical conditions become adept at such masking.  In Japan, the Noh players wear masks which reveal various emotions; yet, depending upon the angle of view, the lighting upon the mask, and the perspective of the audience, the emotion itself can be altered from scene to scene.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must daily conceal the authenticity of their state of turmoil, whether because of the lack of empathy by their agency, or because societal norms dictate the extinguishment of any open display of human states within the context of a workplace, know well the trauma of conflicting contradictions between the public face and the private reality.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS-Offset, is a viable option to consider when the cumulative impact of hiding one’s pain, concealing the daily turmoil, or overstepping one’s welcome has passed the pinnacle of surface meanings.  There comes a point when work loses its meaning at the intersection of a medical condition impacting the value of health, family and future.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers have a choice in the matter; the option is to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; and like pasting an emoticon as a farewell wave as one is departing the Federal or Postal sector, so the telling of one’s grieving story as Iona does to his horse, is the true framing of human value, where one’s worth is determined not by virtual reality, but the evocation of a touch of warmth in holding one’s hand.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire